Yep, you read the title right. Stitches and lice. Oh, what an eventful 10 days it has been at World Race training camp. Let me start filling you in on the craziness of the last week and a half.
For starters, no, I definitely did not plan on having to leave camp for the morning to close a wound or spend hours having my hair picked apart by my lovely squad sisters (shoutout to my girls Bree & Mel). However, it truly was a blessing in disguise.
Community. Community is about fellowship, loving Jesus, and loving all of His people. This concept was introduced on the very first day and was a significant part of training camp as we are called to come together in unity to be the body of Christ. To bring each of our gifts to serve others and be the church together. Easy concept, right? Wrong. Well, at least not for me.
I’ve definitely touched on this in one of my blogs before, but I’ll tell you again. I, Emily Ann Lasiter, am a serious control freak. I love schedules and knowing what’s going to happen next. And just in case you’re new to the World Race, staying on schedule and having things work out as planned is pretty rare. I think we all have figured out by now that God tends to throw some pretty fast curve balls into our lives, but He takes it to a whole new level on the World Race. The optimistic part of me likes to think that He’s just reminding us that we should lean on Him rather than our own capabilities, but that doesn’t change the fact that not being in control really, really stresses me out. It’s something I’m going to have to work on for a long time, but these last few days have sure helped jump start this process.
Ah yes, the part you’ve been waiting for – yes, I did indeed get lice while at camp. In fact, 21 of my squad mates did too! What fun, I know. A very mild and early case but still, I had lice. Now, fun little fact about me – in elementary school, I got lice and ended up having to cut about a foot of my hair off and couldn’t go to school for months because those annoying parasites apparently loved my head. As soon as my squad leader told me there were some nits in my hair, my mind immediately went to those nights of sleeping with mayonnaise in my hair and sitting on the kitchen for hours while my mom picked lice off my head. As you can guess, my sensibility and level headedness were thrown completely out the window and all that remained was panic and some tears. To be fair, I also had a bit of a fever that night and it was around 10 pm, so emotions were raging, but honestly, the group lice treatments and hair checks are now some of my favorite memories. Nobody’s ideal free time activity is combing through someone’s hair to check for bugs, but we did it anyway. That my friends, is called servanthood. All the chairs that littered our porch/squad hangout space with various girls getting their hair checked and checking hair for bugs is an illustration of community. No doubt, a very uncommon way of fellowship, but still fellowship. We took care of each other, and for that I am grateful. So, for all you racers that are having issues with community within your teams or squads, consider having half of the members contract lice because that was one heck of a team bonding experience.
Moving on to my next training camp crisis – stitches! At training camp, racers are expected to complete a 2.2 mile hike with our 30-40 lbs pack on our backs in the blistering Georgia heat in 38 minutes as a team. Unfortunately, on the first try, my team as a whole completed the hike in 39 minutes (sigh), so we had to redo it the next morning at 6:30 am, and oh boy, were we anything but happy about it. After pouting for a little bit, we came to the conclusion that there was no getting out of it so we might as well embrace this challenge. We then came up with a strategy – stay together at the beginning to encourage each other, then have the team members that felt physically able pull ahead to try and buy the remaining members a few extra minutes to finish. Towards the end of the first mile, I was feeling great and started running a majority of the trail. My confidence then came back to bite me in the butt as I went a little too fast on a downhill slope and cut open my knee on some gravel. Lots of blood, lots of dirt, much confusion. A very kind girl from another squad helped me up and walked me back to the pavilion where it was quickly determined I would need stitches and, therefore, could not finish my hike. I was not happy. I thought I was letting my team down for quitting in the middle but as I waited for someone to come pick me up and take me to urgent care, my perspective changed.
I saw my team each finish their 2.2 miles strong and with more than enough time to spare, and even going back to encourage those that had fallen a bit behind. I then realized that we’re a unit, in this together, truly a team. We each bring something unique and so beneficial to the table, and together, we can accomplish any feat. Even though I didn’t get to cross the finish line with my four other beautiful teammates, God opened my eyes and made me realize that I have people I can and should lean and depend on. That I don’t have to be in control all the time and make sure that everything gets done because we can do that so much more efficiently together. The big man upstairs has blessed me with 4 sisters I never knew I needed and I couldn’t be more grateful. So, thank you to that rock that cut open my knee.
Training camp was hard. Training camp was humbling. Training camp was eye opening. What a blessing these past 10 days have been. Here’s to 9 months worth of memories, lessons, tears, love, Jesus, and a heck of a lot more blog posts.
“Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of the body, and we all belong to each other.” – Romans 12:4-5
