During training camp for the World Race I was bitten by a brown recluse. It was painful and debilitating, but God gave me joy unshakable. This week was one of the greatest weeks of my life, and ill cling fast to Jesus even harder for the freedoms that I found in Him during this time. I praise The Lord for being such a Good Good Father, and for taking me out to the middle of the good ol’ river of His love. He called us to be difference makers, and to listen to His voice even through chaos and pain, sadness and noise. God is good, all the time, God is good.
So here’s the story. Training camp had been breathtaking so far. We had incredible, enthusiastic raw teaching, energizing times of praise and worship, and time to just hang out and get to know each other.
We also had physical challenges that we had to endure. Everyone going to camp is required to walk two miles in under 40 minutes with their big packs fully loaded with everything they plan to carry on the race. That’s a challenge for the ladies and for the men. People realized they were a lot stronger than they thought. It was cool to see confidence come alive in my sqaudmates, three of our girls broke the record on the time. I think they made it in at just under and just over 20 minutes.
The guys had the blessing of Hiking the Appalachian Trail, well, 18 miles of it over the course of two days. But we didn’t have to bring everything, Praise God.
The men hiked 13 miles the first day, and had an amazing lunch and dinner, as well as incredible fellowship and teaching, and singing out to the Lord. We talked about a lot of guy stuff. Shhh. It’s a secret. Don’t ask. I firmly believe that time changed the lives of every Man of God there. Best bro time I’ve ever had. the next morning we hiked 5 miles back down and after some awesome teaching and encouragement we headed back to camp. Trust me, we were grungy, but as we arrived, the ladies had other plans for us.
They told us we were going offsite to a campground by a lake! That rocked. They appointed people to make a shelter, a fire, and food. adventures in missions carted bus loads of people from camp to the this separate campsite. I got there and helped put the shelter together as our other groups prepped to food and the fire, we prayed, ate, and laughed a lot as we had such a fun opportunity to work together. When our food had only began to settle we all walked into the lake because we were so dang dirty. People brought soap and shampoo, we all needed it, but the guys had an extra special funk going on. It was awesome. We were all laughing and swimming in this water. It was so nice.
We are washed by the water. We are saved by the grace of Jesus through faith. A girl on my squad, who is now on my ministry team, named Jocelyn Medina, mentioned that she would like to be baptized as a public confession of her faith in Christ. My pal Brooks baptized her in the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit. It was a powerful moment.
God is so good all the time, and our entire ZSQUAD worshipped him that night. After we had some s’mores, provided by Dylan Ledfords rockstar of a mom.
Brooks and I both played the guitar and lead our family in songs of praise. While I was playing, my ankle started to hurt. I mean killer hurt. It was weird, but I just kept playing. Then we talked as a squad about what we had been processing through throughout the week. It was awesome. After things had quieted down, I went to get something out of my bag and I saw a giant brown recluse spider sitting beside my main pack. So I called my team mate Alex over to me and told him I was gonna kill it. I stomped on it, and it had an egg sack on its back that i didn’t see, so baby spiders flew everywhere, and I squished all of them as well. This left me pretty protective of the people at my camp so I borrowed Ashley Ancona’s bug spray and sprayed every Eno, Eno strap, all around the sleeping bags, and along the edge of the tarp we were sleeping on and under. Some of us talked a little while longer after that, and decided to wake up and see the sunrise.
I went to bed with a baseball for an ankle so I took some ibuprofen to help ease the discomfort. Since Ashley Ancona was sleeping in her Eno, she let me use her sleeping pad, and it was so stinking comfortable. It was like laying on a big peep, a marshmallow, instead of laying on a really big cheaply made birthday balloon, which is what mine feels like. The next morning before the sun came up a group of us walked down to the dock on the lake. It was cool and peaceful, clear and quiet.
We talked about life and family and fundraising and other things, it was a good time. We went back to pack up camp as the sun peaked over the trees and then we headed up to the bus stop and had our breakfast.
We all joked and played what are the odds, and sang songs and continued to enjoy the time together. I looked down at my really jacked up ankle and new that something was really wrong. Taylor Baker, an awesome girl on my squad, walked with me to the training center when we got back to camp and made sure that I was taken care of. She said that somebody needed to be my mom if I was going to be stubborn. I really appreciate her. An incredible man of God that works for adventures named Jeff called a girl named Katie who took me to urgent care. They put it together that I was bitten by the brown recluse I had killed the night before, gave me medicine and sent me back to camp.
this is what my ankle looked like after the bite.
That day we had breakout sessions that taught about blogging and effective writing, as well as video and photography, I went to the latter.
I learned a lot about filming and how put together a great vlog(video blog) Towards the end of the session it started to thunder, and I knew I needed my rain jacket and to close my tent. So I limped like 50 cent down to camp and got my jacket, closed my tent, and got Ancona’s jacket as well. She was in the same vlogging session I was in and I have to take care of my tribe. After that I stayed in the training center a while, because my ankle and foot killed so dang bad. A man named Clint prayed over me, and he taught during the session later that night.
During camp we had multiple sleeping scenarios, and that evening we did an airport simulation in the training center. They played recordings of airport terminals really loud, kept the lights on all night, turned the air condition down really low, and arranged the room in a way that couldn’t be moved and had two squads, Z and Y, sleep inside.
My Sqaudmate Jen Tillet found crutches, and people brought me ice, and helped me around, a girl named Joy from YSquad put peppermint oil on my foot. also, people gathered around me and prayed for me. i couldn’t handle how much God loved me in those moments.
The next day a girl named Amy took me to the hospital. When I got there the handle on one of the crutches broke, and they put me in a wheelchair. The swelling had gotten much worse, so,they put an IV in my arm, took X-rays, and I just started weeping my eyes out because I wasn’t with my squad a second time. My doctor, Chris, saw me crying, prayed over me and prayed for healing, speaking over me that Jesus is the great physician, and a wonderful counselor. It was so encouraging. My hospital bill was $150, so I payed it, which stank but i had to do it. We left the hospital, got medicine from a pharmacy, food and headed back to camp.
The tech guy for adventures in missions named Logan, Made a crutch handle for me out of a drumstick, a towel, and some duct tape. I was mobile, my foot was as purple and large as Barney the dinosaur, and God is good. All the time, God is good. My sqaudmates came in and sat around me and gave me hugs and my heart was full, and I cried way too much. It’s amazing how much you can truly love people after a week.
People continued to pray for me, help me get around, carry my stuff, and give me nicknames like Peter Parker, Spider-Man, and biteboy. It was truly humbling that, even when I couldn’t get to things, people gathered around me and helped me walk out my part to play in the really cool story of grace that God was telling at training camp. When I couldn’t hang out with my squad, they hung out with me. I stayed in the first aid room for a night, and a bunch of my friends came and spent time with me, we played cards and awesome mind games, and Brooks Driver stayed with me.
Even though most people asked me how my foot was, I made sure to be intentional with my conversations, because I knew that God was working mighty things in the people around me, and in me as well. I refuse to miss those moments because of an injury, or a headache or because of guilt or whatever. Honestly, some pretty rad friendships came out of people asking me how my foot was. Jesus is greater than any pain or guilt, and in Him there is no condemnation. Jesus already paid for that thing you are worrying about right now. It’s finished. In Christ you are righteous. Rest in his goodness.
My foot healed up well enough the last day where I could walk without fully leaning on the crutches. But what I learned was that it’s essential for me as a follower of Christ and man of God to lean on Him as my rock and fortress. I also learned that I haven’t been served like this in a long time, and I didn’t quite know how to receive it at first, but it softened parts of my heart that had grown quite hard and cynical towards others. though i was poisoned by a spider i was infected by the love of God. So thank you God for everyone who helped me. Thank you to everyone who gave me a shoulder to lean on. Thank you to everyone who walked slow with me when I couldn’t move fast. Thank you for all your prayers. Thank you for showing me the Love of God. Thank you to the men and women of my squad for walking in dignity, and having the boldness to be brave and take heart.
I love you all.
God is good, all the time, God is good.
