Today’s the day we leave. We’re at the Atlanta airport now, and my team is sitting in the food court and taking some time to pray and process. We’ve had an action-packed past few days at training camp and I’m so excited to share these moments with you! So here are some things that stood out to me— ways God is speaking and just fun things we got to enjoy here!
Here’s a brief glimpse of our morning routine. The girls slept in the room where we had our training sessions, on mattresses on the floor. We had to be out of there, completely packed and cleaned, at 7:15, so alarms would start going off all over the room before that. I’d wake up, blink in the darkness, slip on my flip flops, and head out to the porta potties outside— the indoor plumbing at Adventures in Missions isn’t built to accommodate so many people and it’s good training!
Then after we packed up we had some free time. Some of my teammates and I found a beautiful spot on the porch of the main building with these rocking chairs. We’d read Scripture and journal, and I cannot think of a more peaceful way to begin my morning.
That first morning, God revealed to me the verse Romans 8:15:
“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”
The crazy thing was, later that day, in cultural training, someone mentioned that verse. I was just blown away by God revealing that to me over and over that we have to abandon our fear that’s holding us back and embrace our identity as His children, because that is the only thing in our lives that is constant. I also think that verse is amazing in that the “spirit of fear” is not capitalized but the “Spirit of adoption” is, because that is the Holy Spirit at work in us calling us to listen and trust.
After prayer time we had team time, and my team grew in such beautiful community. I already feel like they’re my family. I’ve been craving community like this in my heart for so long— girls that call me higher, who I can look up to and around at. They encourage me to be more like Him and by following Him we become more like ourselves. That’s another thing I learned at training camp. We become what we focus on, so when we focus on our faults, that’s what we become, but by focusing on God we become more of ourselves.
Then we’d eat breakfast! This was fun! Each meal we had food from a different region. Breakfast and lunch that first day was Africa. We had bananas, hard boiled eggs, and loaves of bread to tear and share as a team, and we ate with our hands. Lunch was a cornmeal mash, lentils, and some kind of collard greens or something. Dinner was from Latin America, so we had tacos with beans and rice. Yesterday was Asia. Breakfast was this egg casserole dish and brown rice (with chopsticks) plus some tasty free coffee from a company founded by former Racers. We saved our chopsticks for lunch and had pho, and dinner was my absolute favorite— Indian curry with naan and rice. We ate with our hands for that meal too and my fingers smelled like curry all that night.
After meals we had worship and sessions. Our sessions covered a range of topics, so I’m just going to briefly overview the ones that I found the most impactful. We had a cultural training where we learned about cultural lenses. There are three— guilt/innocence, fear/power, and shame/honor. In America we are primarily a guilt/innocence culture, which informs how we view the Gospel. Christ died painfully to take the punishment we deserved in reparation for our sins; the price was paid and we were forgiven. Guilt washed away for innocence. But in a shame/honor culture, the message is the same, but Christ’s death on the cross would be viewed more as embarrassment and shame endured to restore honor to us who failed the Father through disobedience. Same story, but a different focus. We learned to share Scripture with that in mind so we can make sure to respect cultures and share in a loving way that communicates the truth. The Bible does share all of these cultural lenses, and something I’m excited to be doing is reading the Bible through a shame/honor lens. This whole time I thought that Paul’s epistles were redundant, as he restates so much, but really each time he repeats an idea he’s sharing it through a different cultural lens, because the Gospel truly is for all nations and peoples! God meets us where we are, He speaks our language, and He loves us beyond our capacity to know.
Another talk I loved was about the Holy Spirit and His role. I realized that the Old Testament is about God the Father, the New Testament about God the Son, but there’s no testament about the Holy Spirit— that’s because our lives are that testament! The Spirit dwells in us and when we listen, He moves and we hear the voice of God through that. We were encouraged to listen, to pray for each other, and to watch out for people to serve as we travel. I had the chance to do this just a few minutes ago even at the airport! I was never sure that I’d be comfortable asking someone if I could pray for them, but as I walked past a table to join my team, I saw a woman sitting alone with her head bent low over her Popeye’s chicken. Something in my heart stirred, and I knew I was supposed to pray for her, but I was scared. I went to my team and told them and asked if anyone felt led to go with me, and my teammate Nicole volunteered. We walked over to the woman and I asked if we could pray for her. I asked her name and if I could put my hand on her shoulder, and she said yes, so I did and closed my eyes and just allowed God to speak through me. I prayed that she would feel loved and know her worth and that she is treasured— that was the word He gave me. Then Nicole prayed, and she thanked us, and we returned to our table, hearts light with the yes we gave the Lord. And I know there will be so many more moments like this to come, both in this month and in the rest of my life, and I’m learning how God can speak in the morning and teach me so much by night and how each and every day spent intentionally with Him is an adventure.
We leave in a few hours. I barely slept— we stayed up talking and got up at 3 am to get one of the other teams here— but I feel like I got a full night’s sleep. God’s at work in my heart and in this beautiful community of my team, and I love being here and getting to love so fully. I feel so refreshed in knowing that I’m doing God’s will and that is not fear but adoption, and the whole world is God’s family and my family. So I can’t wait to meet my extended family and share so much love with them. God has strengthened and taught me so much in these past few days and now my team gets to fly to Bangkok (Shanghai first though for a layover) and share that! His love is powerful and truly moves mountains!
