So I know that many of you have been asking about training, and there is so much that I want to tell you that it is hard to know where to start! So… in an effort to compact a very intense week into a reader friendly blog, I will attempt to break down what I experienced and learned into categories. So here goes…
Living Conditions:
- We stayed in rustic cabins with zero electricity or water- which made for some pretty chilly nights
- I showered (and by showered I mean a hose and ice cold water) 3 times in 10 days- and I am pretty sure that the showers I did take didn’t really count, because I never actually felt clean.
- We went to the bathroom in porta potties and brushed our teeth in a trough (see pictures)
What we ate:
- Every day we learned about the customs of a different continent.
- The first day we were there was Asia day. For breakfast we had chocolate rice mush, with milk around the edges, and dried anchovies on top (and you could see the fish eyes!). Luckily, that was the worst meal. The rest weren’t that bad.
- I had to eat everything with chopsticks on Asia day, which turned out to be quite a challenge.
- On Africa day, the boys sat at the table and the girls sat on the ground. We had to serve them, being careful never to stand higher than their shoulders (which meant that we had to hunch over the whole time we served them). We also ate more ugali (which is basically some sort of corn meal mush) than I would think to be possible.
- I drank a lot of instant coffee, and I still haven’t decided which is worse- no coffee at all or the instant stuff. I still sort of think that any sort of coffee is better than none.
What we did:
- We had some amazing speakers come and talk to us about dealing with the broken places in our lives.
- We went camping one night, and the girls cooked a full dinner for the boys over the fire- mmmm!
- We participated in a “surrender walk”- We each were given a log and a sharpie and told to write on the log everything that we need to surrender to God before this trip. Then we each set out individually on a 5 mile hike, which was very steep and strenuous. When we got to the top of the mountain, we laid our logs at the foot of the cross and walked back down the mountain FREE!
- We participated in lots of team building games- everything from ropes course games, to skits, to puzzles, to dance competitions.
- We played an underground church game where we were each given an envelope which explained our specific role. I was supposed to find my family and our church missionary and make it to our church. The first round I made it to church successfully and avoided the police. However, the second round I ended up with no shoes, crawling in the mud, with garlic in my mouth on the way to jail. Good times. In all seriousness though, it made me think a lot about the persecuted church and the everyday struggles they face.
- We had some amazing times of worship.
- We spent time getting to know each other and becoming FAMILY.
What I learned:
- I can go a really long time without showering.
- It’s okay not to be okay.
- It’s important to grieve your past- we all have things we need to deal with! And writing it down really helps.
- You can make a lot of food over the camp fire.
- I am a beautiful daughter of the king!
- The Holy Spirit is very much alive and active.
- I should probably start practicing my chopstick skills.
- If you want to see big things, you have to believe in a big God!
- It is not okay to throw away food in Africa.
- God is dying to bust out of the box I’ve been keeping Him in.
- The Lord desires to SPEAK to me.
- His grace is sufficient for ME, because HIS power is made PERFECT in MY weakness. (2 Cor. 12:9)
- I am a member of the best world race squad and the best team ever and I am just crazy about all of them!
-
**I am planning on posting another blog to explain more about what I learned personally. But in the meantime, I hope that this blog has given you a good overview of what training was like. If you would ever like to hear another perspective, I encourage you to check out, or even subscribe to, some of my teammate’s blogs. I will post more soon! Much Love!
