There were so many beautiful moments at Training Camp.
We called them strawberries.
Thinking about our strawberries put us into a positive mindset and made us aware of both the little strawberries and big strawberries that God gave us each day.
Here’s a list of 11 strawberries from Training Camp in no particular order:
- My teammate, Cass, and I woke up at the crack of dawn with a few others at our overnight campsite. We quietly made our way down to the water. There was mist rolling off the lake, and the sky was streaked with various colors of red, purple, orange, and blue. Cass and I dawned our swimsuits and jumped in, creating ripples for miles. It was the temperature of bathwater and it felt so refreshing. When we got out, we went to the edge of the dock and basked in God’s glory. I started dancing to an internal melody, praising God for his beauty. It was truly a magical moment.
- I was walking back up a hill to my campsite with one of my squad mates who I just met, Ellen. Since I just met her, I was really trying not to say anything about the fact that I was tiring quickly. She was doing the same thing. The struggle was REAL. We were breathing extremely hard as we were talking. At a certain point, I couldn’t stand it so I made a comment about it. We both started laughing (I still laugh thinking about it) and that moment solidified our awesome friendship.
- We had live worship at Training Camp and I absolutely LOVED it. In the beginning I would stand in the front, and sing at the top of my lungs with my hands raised in surrender. It filled me up, but then we had a sermon about the different ways people connect with God. For me, it’s through worship, but singing isn’t my truest form of worship. Dancing is. So the next time we had worship I went to the back of the room and danced for my Daddy. It was the most incredible, freeing thing I’ve ever done. Now, I always dance when I have the chance. Yes, I’m that girl who dances in the fields, in the privacy of her room, at the beach, wherever and whenever she can. And I love it.
- The night after one of the World Race Alumni gave a talk and taught us about strawberries, we went back to our tent village to get ready for bed. Most of us were still hungry. And yes, I was definitely one of them. One of the guys who helped out that week, Devin, brought over some grapes. It was heavenly. Our strawberry for the night came in the form of grapes!
- One of the nights, we were supposedly attempting to cross a border to get to our next country, but couldn’t. Therefore, we had to all sleep on the bus that night. Before we went to bed, some of us climbed on top of the bus. I lay on top of the bus, with my arms crossed behind my head, and talked story with my squad mates as I gazed up at the stars. It was such a beautiful night.
- Once we were put into our teams (Go Team Starfish!!), we had a few hours to go into town to make memories. My strawberry was being with my team of six incredible women of God. Our first order of business was to get ice cream! We went all out. I had 3 scoops and it was so delicious. Then we went to walk around the quaint, little town and we found a bathroom. YESSSS. I almost cried. After using a Porto potty/the woods, it was a beautiful site. Afterwards, we had pizza for dinner and ended up praying for our awesome waitress. And we can’t forget our huge, ice-cold glasses of water! The little things in life. On the way back, we had a hilarious time thinking up our team name x) (I’ll explain more about my teammates and my team in my next post.)
- At our overnight, my squad mates prepared THE BEST meal ever! We had pineapple, coconut chicken, spicy chicken, and grilled veggies. I almost cried it was so great. For dessert we had grilled banana and peanut butter with craisins. My stomach is growling just thinking about it.
- One of the days we had to pair up and put our bags on two different tarps. Then our leaders told us that the airport lost some of our bags so we’d have to share for the night. When he announced that my friend lost her bags, we both silently cheered! It was absolutely hilarious. Ellen had a much smaller tent than me so it would’ve been a little difficult to share that night. Part II of this awesome strawberry moment was that we got to talk and share that night!
- On the last night of Training Camp, my teammates and I stayed up and got on the level. We shared our fears and insecurities, as we were about to enter into a month of processing and being back home before coming back together. I felt safe and loved, so it was easy to share about things that I haven’t really shared too much with other people. We were able to pray as a team and it ended our time together on a high note.
- There were many times during Training Camp where I had the chance to pray over people and have people pray over me. Every single one of these instances was a beautiful strawberry. To be able to give and receive in return was both amazing and humbling. I have never cried so much, but it was wonderful to be doing life together with J Squad and God at the center.
- So we have this event called Squad Wars. It’s where our squads go up against each other and the squad with the most points at the end of the night wins. We were already in the lead when it came to the night of Squad Wars. That night, our squad, J Squad, owned it! It was awesome, and incredible seeing our squad come together (we already had major team unity leading up to this), and it came down to the last event. Any squad could’ve taken the win, but J Squad won it all!! Cheering in celebration with my team was amazing, and was the cherry on top to such an incredible week!
Those were just a few strawberry moments that happened at Training Camp. I have many, many more!
So, what are some of the strawberries in your life?
