A week ago, I returned to my home in Wisconsin after ten long, short, easy, hard, practical, ridiculous, challenging, demanding, loving, growing, what-the-heck-just-happened days of World Race Training Camp.
In some ways, Training Camp was exactly what it sounds like. We (my squad and I) tent camped in the woods of Georgia, ate all of our meals outside, and took bucket showers.
We also learned about some of the practical realities of doing missions work in third-world countries – from what we ate to what we wore, experiencing an international market using ‘foreign’ currency, getting our bags ‘stolen’ at the airport, and practicing door-to-door evangelism.
But Training Camp was so much more than practical training. It was ten days to freely experience intimacy with God, close-knit community, and missional living. In these ten days, I had encounters with God and with other Christians that have changed my life. Truly, I have never left a place feeling so convicted, and yet so confident in my abilities to keep pressing on through the strength that God gives me.
Coming home, we were given the assignment to start telling our story, beginning with Training Camp. As you can see, there is so much I could tell you about what happened in those ten indescribable days. But I need to write something.
So I’m shamelessly stealing from my church’s current series, “That One Thing”. For the month of June, they’ve asked people to share their answer to the question, “Of everything I know about God, what do I want to tell people most?” I’m going to answer the question, “Of everything I learned and experienced during Training Camp, what’s the one thing I want to share with you?”
IT’S A CHOICE.
I am given new life through Jesus – to accept it is a choice.
I am given the ten commandments, and the two most important (love the Lord with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself), as well as the command to go make disciples of all nations – I can choose to follow those commands.
I am asked to surrender my whole life to Jesus. Not to be a fan, but to follow him. To get in the van and go. Choice.
I can choose to live in every moment, or let it pass me by. There will be days I want to live at home in the states, spending my time on Netflix or Facebook. I will have to choose to be present in Panama, Malawi, or Thailand.
I can choose to love people. I can even choose to like them. I can choose kindness, positivity, gentleness. There will be days I want to just say what I think, who cares if it wasn’t the right time? Choice, choice, choice.
My team: there will be days – as stunning as they are (their blogs are linked below – read and subscribe!!!), as obsessed with them as I am, as excited as I am now to do life with them for the first 4 months of the race – I have to choose them.
My route and my ministry: as wonderful as new experiences and endless summer and working with people and loving them and eating new foods are, there will be days I wish I hadn’t sacrificed my comfort and my large closet and my filtered water and my toilet with running water and my ability to get in my reliable car to see a movie by myself. I will wish I hadn’t chosen to leave my fiance for a year, or my baby brother, or my Mama and Daddy, or my best friends…there will be days when I have to choose wonder and gratitude for the sacrifice, because it’s not even close to the sacrifice Jesus CHOSE to make when He died, naked and in tremendous pain, mocked by His people and forsaken by His Father…
In these weeks between Training Camp and Launch, I have to choose to be faithful. I have to choose to keep living in the light I stepped into in those ten days, because not only was it glorious, it was real.
I’m going to be honest…I’m not super proud of all of the choices I’ve made since training camp. I’ve chosen procrastination, and apathy. I’ve fallen away from making healthy choices for my body and spirit. But God is good to forgive, and He’s good to keep offering choices. He never leaves us without options. Most importantly, He never takes away the option of choosing Him.
I hope that you will choose to keep following me on this adventure…it’s about to get REAL.
I hope that you will choose to pray for my squadmates, my teammates, and me as we encounter choice after choice.
I am choosing gratitude for each of you, for the impact you’ve had on my life, and continue to have through your support.
This felt kind of heavy, and it is. But I want to offer you this delightful application: today is the longest day of the year – the sun rose at 5:22 am, and won’t set until 8:59 tonight. I challenge you with one of my favorite psalms: this is the (longest) day the Lord has made. Let us (choose) to rejoice and be glad.
My Teammates’ Blogs!
Jessie Bunting, Sandy Katebe, Lakota Koller, Jessie Lirios, and Emma Williams
