So I just spent the last ten days in the woods with Port a Potties galore, bucket showers, and a whole lot of community. So I get to training camp and immediately was overwhelmed with the amount of humans in front of me and the amount that they all want to hug me. If you’ve never lived in a community with 45 other human beings before, I recommend you try it for even a moment… It’s wild. To preface my overwhelmed feelings it is helpful to know that one thing I’m not good at is accepting physical touch. After 10 days in the woods with 45 of my new best friends I have now become a huge success at hugging!
Some of the most important things that I learned from the past days are that God’s love is crazy awesome and that while living in community anything that you think is yours simply is not. Food, clothing, and personal space are always shared. This is so new to me, as I grew up as an only child. Through the last few years of my life I have come to realize how important community is and how much I have truly benefited from allowing it into my life. When we look a the Bible we see that even Jesus needed community and he lived the perfect life. He had the disciples to surround him and do life with him. Similarly, I now have a squad that I can support and get support from as well. Jesus and the disciples shared the gospel just like R squad will in the upcoming year.
Community is safety. Community is hard. Community is real. There is not always a place to hide for privacy and sometimes people get a little too close for comfort… but all in all I would not want to go into this next year without them. This is a year for me to grow and to be vulnerable and take on challenges with all these rad humans with me.
Training camp has showed me community in a new way and allowed me to get fully excited to go on the race. God is good all the time and that’s really all I have to say. Im excited for launch and the rest of the year. I also can not wait to see how God will work through me as I go along this journey. Please keep praying for me and the squad and that I could be fully funded before I go.
Training camp blog part two with all the deets of what went down there will be up shortly, this one is just my quick reflection on the amazing 10 days I had with the squad.
Cheers!
Emily
