Training camp was difficult for me to process. Every minute of it was challenging, yet rewarding, and I wouldn’t change a single second of it. However, instead of properly sorting through all of my feelings about 11 of the most difficult days of my life, I have been distracting myself with whatever new thing up next on my checklist of things to complete this summer. From training camp in Gainesville, GA I flew straight to Aliquippa, PA for a week long mission trip with my youth group. I returned home just in time to celebrate my 18th birthday and the weeks following have been filled to the brim with vaccines, catching up with friends, beginning to pack, moving my best friend into college, and anything else to occupy my mind long enough to prevent me from revisiting those pent-up emotions. Now, as I sit on a plane from DC to visit my grandma in San Antonio, I overwhelmingly realize how much I miss cold bucket showers and family-style eating. I miss stumbling around in the dark alongside tons of others unashamedly wearing headlamps (all the cool kids have headlamps), and I miss running down to the campsite to make sure my rainfly is zipped up when the unpredictable Georgia rainstorms hit. I miss the feeling of my bare feet on the concrete floor as I stand in a room full 275 other young adults, all with our arms in the air, worshipping with everything we have and more. My squad, oh how I miss my squad of 45 of my new closest friends and my team of the 6 wonderful ladies that I will be doing life with for the next 9 months.
It is impossible to sit here and describe everything that happened at training camp, but I can say that training camp was a time of learning: learning about how to effectively do ministry, learning about my squad, and learning about myself. There were numerous challenges, some of which the staff at Adventures in Missions couldn’t have even began to think of for us. I arrived at training camp a day early with 49 other Racers to attend a Storytelling Workshop. As we were setting up our tents, the skies (which were clear and blue minutes before) opened up and it began to rain. I’m not talking a few sprinkles; I mean full on torrential downpour. Keep in mind, many of us had only set up our tents a handful of times prior to this and had no idea what the heck we were doing. This happened before I got my rainfly on my tent, so everything I had was soaked. Yet, none of us were phased by this. We laughed, helped each other out, and deemed it as a great chance to meet each other and be welcomed to the Race. Sure, this incident resulted in some smelly clothes for the days to follow and a towel that never really dried fully, but it also resulted in sleepovers that night and the realization for many that your belongings don’t define your experience—the people that you experience it with do.
I returned from training camp a better person than when I arrived: stronger and more confident. I learned that no one on my squad was as “perfect” as I envisioned and it made me love them even more. I realized that these people honestly love me for me, not DESPITE all of my weird quirks but BECAUSE of them. There’s something about knowing that you’ll spend 9 months with a person that allows you to just skip the formalities and go straight into daily dinner conversations about poop. Some nights we had sleepovers in our tents as a requirement because of the specific sleeping scenario for that night and other nights we did it just because we wanted to spend more time with each other. My squad pushed me through the hard parts of training camp, the parts where I wanted to give up or I didn’t believe in myself. Because of that, I learned that I can do hard things. Sometimes life is hard because you have to hike 2.2 miles with a 40 lb backpack. Other times its hard because you have to do that same hike early the very next morning when you got no sleep and have lice. Sometimes you absolutely hate what is being served for lunch. Other times you shed actual tears over a cookie because you’re so excited. All of the above and so so much more describe my experience at training camp. Training camp was the most in my element I have felt in a very long time. Not once did I question whether or not this is what I am supposed to do; I had complete peace in knowing that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
The next time I am on a plane leaving DC is in just 3 short weeks. I will be heading to Georgia just days before I move to Cambodia for 2 months. I will be reunited with my new family, but also leaving behind everything I have ever known. I can’t even begin to fathom how hard that’ll be but I also know now that I can do hard things.
