Training camp. Training camp. TC for short. Something hundreds of world racers have been counting down the days to, was finally here. There were two hundred and sixty-five people gathered, making this the largest training camp Adventures in Missions has ever held. My squad has 34 racers, and was the smallest squad there.
I woke up in plenty of time to make my 7am flight out of Roanoke, had everything packed and was ready to go. I made it through security quick and easy and got on my flight ready for takeoff. The day was going just as planned until I made it to the Atlanta airport. As I was waiting at baggage claim, I saw a backpack come off the conveyor belt that had been torn to shreds. As it kept coming, I had the slow realization that that was my brand-new backpack. I grabbed it off the conveyor belt, holding back tears, and went to go meet my world race squad. After being stuck at the airport for a few hours, we made it to our campsite! We were instructed to set up our tents and get settled in. It only took me a few moments to realize that my tent poles had been strapped to the outside of my pack, which had been destroyed, so that meant I had no tent poles, which meant no tent, so I had to make a friend real quick. Luckily, I had a wonderful girl on my squad who let me sleep in her tent the first two nights until I could get a replacement. From this point on, I resigned myself to the idea that things should go the way I planned or expected, and that made the rest of the week so much more enjoyable. I gave up my idea of perfect and prepared and let whatever happened, happen.
Going about the rest of the week with this mentality changed the way I would have felt about so many of the things we had to do. We had simulations every other night to prepare us for real world scenarios. My squads first scenario was having the airport lose half of our luggage, so we had to sleep in someone else’s tent and use their stuff. Another part of camp was that every day we had a new culture to learn about and pretend we lived in. The first day was Asia, so we had to eat with chopsticks and greet each other with their customary greetings. We ate what they would eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which consisted of a lot of noodles and rice. Some of the other cultures we explored were India, Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America. This definitely took some getting used to, but by the end of the week we were all pros at eating weird food. Most of camp was sitting and listening to speakers who came to prepare us for the race. We had speakers talk about forgiveness, emotional health, identity, and so many other topics. I learned so much through these speakers and filled up so many pages of my notebook because of their messages.
Training camp was unlike anything I’ve experienced before, and I loved it, but now it’s over, and launch is coming!!
Next up: 9 Months of serving people and sharing the gospel!
This is the team I will be living and doing ministry with!
This is my whole Squad!
