I just spent the last 10 days at training camp, meeting my squad and preparing for what this journey will be like. These 10 days were packed full of many sessions about our relationship with Jesus, how to make disciples, what the race will be like, and honestly a bunch of information overload. I met my squad and slept in some really weird places. This experience was very “in-tents” (lol), but so much fun.
I can honestly say that going in to this past week and a half I was clueless, nervous, anxious, and pretty much any other mixed emotion you could only imagine. I went in only knowing a couple of my squad mates, and really just interactions from facebook with them. Day one we were all pretty much strangers, by day 3 I’d say we were all friends, by the end, we were family. I can honestly say God blessed me with 42 people that have my back, and are so ready to take on this experience to serve God around the world. These 42 people I know I can trust and rely on for the next year of my life. X-squad is the best squad (no bias here)!
We only used porta potties the entire time we were on campus, which if you can imagine was very hot and smelly in the Georgia heat. We took bucket showers, which consisted of cold hose water, in a bucket with a cup. We would pour the water over us, wash our bodies, and then pour more water on us. It was definitely a learning experience to say the least. (Hence the title of this blog)
So on to the sleeping scenarios… we had our tents, there were a couple of nights we were allowed to sleep in those with out any weird sleeping situation happening, then there were the crazy (but realistic) sleeping circumstances. One night we were put in groups of lions and giraffes, a lion was paired up with a giraffe, boys with boys and girls with girls, of course, but, then we were told that the airport had lost all of the lion’s luggage. So I slept in someone else’s tent, on the ground, with a blanket. I can say, that was the coldest night we had, so Melissa (my giraffe) and I cuddled all night to stay warm. Melissa doesn’t like to touch people or cuddle, so I feel honored that she did with me, so thank you Melissa! On another night we had community sleeping. So we fit 10 girls into one tent, which really wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was just tight but we all got a little bit of sleep. About two days after that we slept inside a building, with all the lights on and the air turned way down, and listened to air port sounds all night. Honestly that was one of the best sleeps I got that night. We were pretending there was a 12 hour layover for one of our flights. But…..my favorite night was the night we were driven out to a camp sight with only our sleeping bags and sleeping pads or hammock if you had one, and we slept in the middle of the woods on a tarp. I didn’t get much sleep that night… all I could think/pray was “Lord, please don’t let me see a snake, or wake up to one in my sleeping bag or something.” Don’t worry, we all survived that night!
Now, moving on…food. Every day we had to pretend we were in a certain Country or area such as Eastern Europe, or Asia, or what it would be like on a travel day. We ate the food that would come with that place, such as bread, turkey, cheese, and jelly for breakfast on Eastern Europe day, we had a lot of chicken in curry (not my favorite) for India day, we had pb&j for the travel days…but adventure day was the most interesting. Adventure day was what it would be like if we were out exploring the country. On our pretend adventure day…we had scrambled eggs, biscuits, a fermented pickled boiled egg… and last but not least, fried crickets, I kid you not. I honestly at a bug.
Then during training camp, there was the physical portion of living a healthy life. On our third day at camp, we had to take on the dreaded hike up the Georgia hills with all of our gear on our backs. We were supposed to have a 3 mile hike and had to finish it in 50 minutes, but they changed it and we did a 2.2 mile hike in 38 minutes. Our entire team made it through. No hike is going to hold us back from conquering the world and sharing the good news of the Lord. Some days after that our guys went and did a “man hike” which consisted of a 13 mile hike up a mountain, they stayed the night there and bonded so well. On that day we, the girls did our own work out, which some say was harder than the boys hike, we had to do burpees, pushups, squats, and a short run. I think I did about 200 squats and probably 100+ burpees and pushups… it was insane, but thank you to all those bootcamp classes I’ve been going to this summer to prepare the bod!
There was also the little part of not talking to my mom very much, we didn’t talk for the first 3 or so days and once we talked on the phone, we both cried. You all know my mom is my best friend and we talk like 5 times a day, so not talking at all for 3 days was hard for us. We are still working though this for the actual trip.
We also had a couple of changes with our squad. So each squad is given a squad leader, a squad mentor, squad coaches, and many other things. Our squad leaders go out into the field with us for 5 months and help us adjust to the changes, answer our questions, and anything else we need. Well we are suppose to have about 3 leaders, but we only had 1 when we got there. Well due to a couple of things, she decided that it was best for her to focus on herself and not to go with us. We lost our squad leader (don’t worry, we have a new one and they are working on getting our other 2 leaders finalized…we won’t be without them)! Well, two days after that we were told that we were losing our squad mentor. They asked him to be a squad leader but he was unable to do that, so he decided it was best if he went back home as well. We did get a new squad mentor. Her name is Teresa, she is a gift from God, and I am so excited to get to know her more and hear all the wisdom she has to offer us. Directly after we were told we were losing our squad mentor we were told that we had another Route Change, instead of going to Laos we are going to Myanmar!
Closer to the end of camp we were given our first team. I am on a team with 5 other girls for the first couple of months. I am going to bond, serve, and grow in so many ways with these ladies. We were able to go out into the city, eat American food, and just wonder around. We all ended up finding ourselves in the bathrooms, several times, maybe for a little too long. We went to target, got some snacks, starbucks, and we were able to pray over the barista.
Lastly, we had our squad wars, we made and performed a dance (thanks to Dylan and Bethany!), we played in a dodgeball tournament, tried to crack eggs on each others heads with a raw fish, tried to stomp on each others balloons to be the last one standing, and jumped over my team to put my face in a bowl of flour to find a marshmallow. We didn’t win the over all squad wars, but we honestly had the most fun, and I’d say we bonded the most.
All in all, I am much more prepared for this trip than I was before. I can sleep though loud noises, heat, many people next to me, I can eat bugs, and salty eggs, I can plan a bible lesson in about 30 minutes, and press into the Lord when times get hard.
Now I plan to spend the last couple of weeks with my family, enjoying the time we have left, and seeing a couple of my closest friends before I head to launch in August.
