The past week was awesome! You know that feeling when you’re aware you just experienced a huge turning point in your life? I feel like that is how I have felt the past few days.
Training camp was amazing! I met the people I will be spending the next year of my life with for the first time. We ate foods and practiced customs of the regions of the world we’ll be traveling to.
Mentally we were challenged as well. The first night they asked us to give up all of our expectations for the next year. Am I willing to give up my expectations of the countries I’ll be visiting? Am I willing to give up expectations of who I want to be on my team? Will I give up my expectations of the people we will be serving? Will I give up my expectations as to how I want God to work in my life in the upcoming year? For each question, a “yes” response meant placing a thumbprint on a piece of canvas. The picture below represents our agreements to place ourselves as servants to whatever God places in front of us this coming year. We focused on the fact that for this coming year, each of us have to lay aside the rights we tend to feel entitled to. Rather, it’s going to be a year of placing others before ourselves.
Never have a felt such a strong sense of community and trust. By the second day, it felt we were already a family. Although we didn’t know details about one another’s lives, our bond in loving God and wanting to help others brought us together extremely fast. I have to say, I think we have the best squad ever! The October squad has 69 participants from all over the United States. After being surrounded by so many accents for the week, I thought sure I’d be coming home saying “y’all” and have a bit of a twang.
The second half of the week, we found out our teammates. We were split into groups of 7 who will stick together while out on the mission field. Each team was asked to make a team name. Ours is CRASH of Love. A herd of rhinos are called a crash. When rhinos run, they can get up to 45 mph. However, when they get running that fast, their vision ahead of them decreases to only 15 feet. This means the rhino is charging full speed ahead, not knowing what is in front of them. Carrying 2 tons of weight on them, whatever is ahead of them they are going to crash into with force. As a team, we really liked this visual that although we don’t know what the year will look like, or challenges and obstacles we will face, we are hoping to charge full- speed ahead taking out whatever stands in our way. We don’t want to do this in a negative, destructive way. Rather, we want to bring empowerment through LOVE. Thus the name, CRASH of Love.
Training camp has just given me a taste of what our 11 months are going to look like, and I cannot wait!! I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to lay aside all of my self- perceived rights and serve others who have so much less than myself. I cannot wait to share with those who don’t yet know of the powerful and forgiving love of our Savior. Thanks to all of you who are helping make this trip possible!
I’ll end with our team’s verse:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, to that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-3
