I can definitely say my week at training camp was one of the more challenging weeks of my life. I’m having trouble summarizing my week in Georgia because it was so different than any experience I’ve had before, in GREAT ways and in terrible ways.
As for what I did… I shared my two-man tent with two other girls on the concrete one night and slept on a school bus with the rest of my 36 squad mates another night. I stuggled to buy sausage in a mock marketplace and slept on the ground with the bugs and the stars one night. I set up my tent and took it down at 6 every morning in order to workout at 7. I took two bucket showers all week. I was carried “unconscious” by my squad mates when our “plane” crashed and we had to get everyone from point a to point b. I made friends with a lot of Americans and learnt that they don’t have fuzzy peaches, cherry blasters or Swedish berries (like WHAT??), you will likely never find an American who can name a province or what a toque is… and I experienced the treasured Chick-Fil-A for the first time with my team. Also, I was never aware of how much I actually say “eh” …
My first two days in Georgia, I was attacked with more doubt than I’ve ever experienced in my life and completely honestly I spent a lot of the week wrestling with God. We were thrown right into some pretty intense worship and I had this idea in my head that coming back to God would come easy and naturally, however He showed me that it’s going to take time and trust and a lot of faith to undo and start from the bottom up. I reaaallllly enjoyed the sessions that we had with Ron Walborn and I could’ve listened to his messages all day long as he laid things out so simply and answered a lot of my questions. The whole week I refused to settle for some bought/sold, boxed up version of my Creator and dug a lot deeper than I have in a long time. It wasn’t until about half way into the week that I came to a place of desperation for something real , and went to someone to pray for me that God actually showed up for me, and someone I had never met spoke a prayer over me that was unexplainably accurate.
But anyways, I found out which countries I’ll be going to… Philippines, Swazliand and then Nicaragua each for three months!! WOOT! I am unreal excited. I am also on an all girls team (YAYA) with 5 amazing girls that I’m so excited to live with and grow with for nine months (below).
I need to be fully funded by August 22nd so if you are sending a cheque to Adventures in Missions/my account they need to be mailed out by August 8th. Those cheques can be made out to Adventures in Missions and you can write Kelly Penner in the memo line so it makes it into my account. Here is the address;
Adventures in Missions
PO Box 742570
Atlanta, GA 30374-2570
