“And I know she’ll be the death of me, at least we’ll both be numb.”
HAHA I can’t contain my laughter! I amthat person who has a funny joke/story but can’t get through it because I laugh the whole time. Luckily for your time sake I am typing this instead of telling it.
DISCLAIMER: I have lost all concepts of spelling.
Yes, it has only been about two weeks but I have caught myself writing things like Kindon, achor, and the letter N backwards… so bare with me!
Now, let’s jump back to this story. HAHA! (me laughing already)
These lyrics were the first connection my brain made during this moment. Yes, it’s a secular song and it’s about a girl, but my brain was think of training camp as the girl and “we’ll” was each of my limbs speaking to one another. So there I am first night of training camp.
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So there I am leaving my church saying goodbye which was SO hard! Then leaving NOLA airport say goodbye which was even harder. I cry for a minute in the corner by myself blah blah. Next thing you know there I am “hopping off a plane at LAX with a dream and my..” 50 lbs backpack, 25 lbs daypack, and my 10 lbs purse. Too bad that’s as far as that song goes for my story because from there I carried ALL of my luggage from one end of LAX to the other in order to find my squad. Actually I had the same thought Miley did at this moment. I was now standing at the bottom of the stairs that lead to my new squad/friends/family for the next 11 months with my 50 lbs pack saying “am I gonna fit in?” Well good thing God knows me better than I do and has a huge sense of humor because little did I know, because I was focused on the wrong thing, I was standing on at the bottom of an escalator, not stairs, and when I made my decision to finally go in I was already “Half way there WHOA OH.”
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I fit in just as the Lord had planned for me to, not in a bad blend in way either. Now we are in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We have began our training camp and have done a few sessions. At this moment we are on a songthaew which is a passenger truck that is taking us out to a ranch in the middle of no where it felt like. As soon as we arrive we jump right into the physical fitness part of training camp. Today we started with a timed hike.
Then we had to pitch our tents super quick and gather for the next thing. Jumping to the end of the day, we had free time which I spent playing soccer, riding horses, and playing football. All hot and sweaty we made our way on to dinner, then gathered for a session. Our session ends and we are so kindly informed that the next morning weare to have everything packed up and meet up at 6:45……a.m. Yes, I checked for clarification. So we make our way to our tents and me being me was so determined that I was not going to unpack everything I used my travel tooth brush, baby wipes, and the change of clothes that were in my carry on backpack. Yes, Makenzie for the win!! so I thought… We had not yet been informed that out from the city when your not between all the buildings it gets really cold at night. So I was a little hot to begin with and decided I was just going to sleep in a sports bra and shorts.
30 minutes later.. “Eh it’s cool enough to put my shirt on.”
1 hour later.. “Okay, it’s pretty chilly. I think I might can squeeze my hand in my pack and get the sleeping bag liner because that won’t be as hard as the sleeping bag to pack up in the morning. I WILL NOT UNPACK THESLEEPING BAG.”
2 hours later.. “NO SLEEPING BAG, go back to sleep”
1 minute later.. “Okay so my toes are going numb, but.. I could use my rain jacket to cover up and sacrifice my toes.” gets rain jacket..
1 hour later.. Wake up shaking and my first thought was “Surely I have almost made it till 6.” Look at my watch.. 4 more hours.. This is where the lyrics come in. This will be the death of me HAHA! My toes were saying ‘at least we’ll both be numb.’ Knowing I can’t actually make it 4 more hours my survivally instincts said “Okay the sleeping bag is at the other end of the tent if I move fast enough I won’t go into hypothermia while opening it.”
I promise to all those people who said ‘just get the sleeping bag out’ while reading that story I have become more wise since then and the sleeping bag is the second thing I get out. Needless to say, I got all packed up the next morning with 5 minutes to spare.. *yay* only to go hiking before the sun came up in shorts and a t-shirt. (Soft smiling at my moments of ignorance)
***This is where you find the DVD case (or flip the book over) to read the back and just hit the high points.
Every morning we had to be packed up at 6:45 a.m. and be at our meeting spot. Every morning we had different physical challenges from hiking to simulations of lost luggage to changing countries (moving locations on the land). Every meal was eaten with the utensils we brought some days only the utensils we had on us at the moment (our hands). Each day we would have sessions of teachings and reflection time. Then we would have some form of free time everyday which consisted of things from soccer, going to the lake to swim, napping, quiet time, or team bonding. Last, we participated in a series of team building exercises for our leadership to determine our first set of ministry teams.
MAIN MENU
BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE LEAD ACTRESS
-‘What did you learn at training camp?’
-‘What are you most excited about?’
-‘What’s next?’
-WATCH ALL
-What did you learn from training camp?
Whoa! What a loaded question! I have not even fully grasped all that I learned from training camp and like our very wise coaches told us we will still be learning things that we heard at training camp throughout the next 11 months. I will tell you the biggest thing that I have grasped so far, and that is “be still.” We pray to God, we sing praise to God, we worship God, we ask, request, pour out our hearts, but how often do we listen for God to speak. Yes, he can speak to us through the scripture, through a preacher, or music and other things. But we can speak straight to God and we know he is listening, we even say talk to him like he is your best friend, but do you pour out your heart to your best friend and then read a book to hear his/her reply. ’WHOA MAK you’re crossing lines here!’ You asked what I learned and man!! That is just how hard it hit me. One of our very wise coaches actually used two examples that I happen to know all too well. She said it’s like surgery. ‘What do you actually do during surgery?’ Then she said it’s like tanning. ‘What do you actually do while tanning?’ Think real hard.. It’s not a trick question, I thought it was too, but the answer is NOTHING. You simply show up. Be present. Then sit in the presence of God and wait for him to speak to you. Of course for my wandering brain it really took discipline to even start trying this, but let me tell you when I finally heard from God, the Lord, the creator of the universe, my heavenly father, my life was forever changed.
**side note- if you would like to hear the full story behind this or what my experience was I would love to share. I am also learning other things if you would like to hear about those. Please feel free to contact me!
-What am I most excited about?
EEEEEEKKK!! Everything! Just kidding.. I would actually say I am most excited to work with my team. Team? ‘I thought you already had a team” No, so I have a squad of 23 and for ministry we break into groups of 5 or 6. So we just got our team assignments and our team is thrilled to work together. We have already began to work through our fears, we are learning to be vulnerable (eh yuck that word makes me a little sick to my stomach, no exaggeration, but that is another area the Lord is working on), and we have done some pretty CRAZY team bonding.
**side note- you will have to personally ask for those stories.
-What’s next?
HA! I actually laugh at this question. I love this concept now that I have gotten use to it, but long story short I have no idea. You think I’m kidding because if you know me I plan and this is not me. But I came on this trip not wanting to leave who I was before so here was one of the first steps to that. We walk in the unknown almost everyday. ‘WHAT! No one knows what your doing?!’ No, our leadership does but it really is training us to be flexible and trust. And even though I secretly didn’t want to learn that way I did and I love it now.
Prayer request:
For my team to grow closer to the Lord as we begin to serve together, and in turn grow closer together as a team.
