Part of the WR prep process is a week-long training camp in Northern Georgia. There, the staff prepares our squads for the mission field – spiritually, physically, practically and relationally. I’ve been home from Training Camp for almost two weeks now and I can’t tell you how good it finally get this process underway.
The elusive cloud that has been the World Race for 8 months in my mind now has faces, names, gear, logistics and good memories attached to it. Less maybes, less I don’t knows, less we’ll sees. It’s nice. I feel good about it.
I won’t describe training camp too much — Adventures likes to keep racers in training on their toes, not clueing them in on things ’til they happen, so I don’t want to ruin any surprises for future teams. But! I will share the 3 things The Lord wanted to teach me and bless me with the most over the course of that week.
My big takeaways from TC are my squad,
expectations and team.
1. My squad: Time to learn some WR lingo. A “squad” is the group of racers that will be going to the same countries with me at the same time. There’s 57 people (I’m pretty sure) on my squad. We’ll see each other at least once a month, if not more. I’m on the S squad, or #theSquadWR if you’re supah hip.
These people rock and come from all corners of North America – we’re an eclectic bunch, to say the least. Something that I don’t think is typical of most squads is that right off the bat we had a lot of S Squad pride & cohesion… when we’re all together at various times throughout the race, I have no doubt that it will be a perma-party! We’ve got a lot to celebrate.
2. My expectations: Everyone says to “go in with no expectations.” Well frankly my dear, that’s impossible. I think there are some healthy expectations and beliefs that I can take into the race with me to prepare for ministry. I learned some of them during training.
For example, spiritual warfare will look very different on the turf I’ll be treading this year. My time at TC prepped me for ways I’ll be seeing God show up abroad in ways I wouldn’t necessarily expect in Fort Worth, Texas. It expanded my view of The Lord, opening my eyes even more to what He has dominion over (which is everything, but, you know… I’m human. I’ll take it in bit by bit for life).
3. My team: I’ll do ministry with a team of 7 for the 11 months to come. By the end of the week, we were put into teams so we could start building the roots of our year together. I’m with 6 other girls – Natalie, Ara, Kim, Kelsea, Markelle and Sara – together we make up Team Rhizoo! Rhizoo doesn’t just sound like the character from Grease, it’s the Greek word for “rooted” or “established.” It’sprophetic, plus it’s fun to say, so I think we’ve got a win-win situation on our hands.?
I’m genuinely excited to taste and see why The Lord put us together. I’m not sure what’s ahead, but I can rest assured that we’ll have a lot of laughs and love in our team. Our starkly different backgrounds, ages, wiring and strengths
will come together in ways I can’t predict… and that gets me pumped.
Well, it’s about that time.
Next step: packing.
After that: launch on July 4th.
Cheers to training camp and beyond.
darcie
