Well, first of all, I want to apologize for slacking on posting about training camp. I had a very hard time adjusting back to my life at college because I don’t have any close Christian friends here . It has been a struggle to not have that constant close support of my amazing sQuad and team from training camp.
About a month ago, I embarked to Gainesville, GA for The World Race Training Camp. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and on my way I wrote this passage below at a layover in the Charlotte airport:
“As I’m sitting here in the Charlotte airport waiting for my connecting flight to Atlanta to meet my squad, it’s all finally hitting me. I have been talking about this trip for 5 years. And I’m finally starting the adventure.
It’s been a tough few weeks with the devil at my heels. My thoughts have been straying towondering if I’m doing the right thing. I’ve had butterflies in my stomach but as I am sitting here and observing God’s beautiful creations all around me, a sense of calm has finally taken over. My prayers and the prayers of my sQuadmates for peace have pushed the devil back and now all I have is that happy excited feeling in the pit of my stomach…. TO MEET THE AMAZING PEOPLE I WILL BE SPENDING 11 MONTHS WITH!!! I almost thought this day wouldn’t come because of meeting the deadline, but thanks to the wonderful, blessed people that have partnered with me and donated to my trip have helped me make it!! I can’t wait to see what beautiful moments, learning, and joy God will bring this week.”
And oh, what wondrous things he brought me that week!
“The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” Lamenations 3:25
This verse spoke to me when I opened my bible at the airport and it became my mantra the first few days of camp.
When I arrived in Atlanta, I found about 5 others on the plane with me were also World Racers and a few of them were on my squad! And now has Tyler ended up at my team leader and I believe it was no small coincidence we met getting off that airplane. Once we were all together, getting used to what would be our lives for the next year, we lugged our packs and daypacks to the trailer and piled onto the bus to The World Race Headquarters. 
This is the first batch of my Q Squadmates I met at the airport before the bus ride!
The first few days of training camp were definitely some of the most intense, scary, heart opening, and wonderful days of my life. That night we learned what some of the week would entail, met our amazing leaders that we would be working with. We also were briefed where we would be setting up camp as we were going to be sleeping as if we were on the race all week long.
Our team leaders are absolutely amazing. Each one of them helped us that week as we grew and cried and laughed with each other. Along with a few others, we met Tim and Lisa Wright, our team coaches or ‘Mom and Dad’. They are two people whom I really connected with and learned from. I immediately felt an overwhelming urge to talk to Tim after we had been introduced. I was compelled to tell him about the pit in my stomach that I just couldn’t shake. He smiled and talked words of peace and trust in God’s plan and prayed for me that this feeling would be lifted and be replaced with new life. This was the first time I got the feeling that God had something stirring for me that week.
The first night, we slept individually in our tents outside under the stars, getting used to our new digs. It was a tough but peaceful night with some wind and rain, but we all survived. In the morning, a few of us braved the bucket shower: an ice cold bucket of water that you must bathe yourself with in very cold temperatures. Let’s just say most of us gave up showering the rest of the week after that experience!
The next 2 days were filled with talks by Ron Walborn, an amazingly gifted man who is the dean of Nyack Christian College in New York. He talked to us about topics from forgiveness and grief to our instinctual ways of connecting to God and divine healing. With every talk he presented, we all left feeling differently about out relationship with God and the world he has given us. On the first day, we touched on loss and grief, how it affected us, and how the devil uses it to keep us from surrendering ourselves to God and letting him fill us with His spirit. This was the second time I had a huge moment with God as I shared with Tim and a small group of women on my squad what had been on my heart. It was an overwhelming experience in which we all found something weighing on each of us much deeper and heavier than expected. After we left that small room with bloodshot eyes and sniffling noses, the breaking down of our walls had begun and we were started on journey on which we would emerge changed much more than we expected.
That night, we prayed this prayer many times, helping us surrender and believe in what God had planned:
” Dear Jesus,
Do anything you need to do in me, that you might do everything you want to do through me”
The last night Ron was with us, we spoke about the Holy Spirit and how when we surrender, it will fill us and heal us spiritually, mentally, and even physically. And boy, did the Holy Spirit fill that room that evening and change our lives for good.
I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic church, and for that I am eternally grateful. It gave me a unique view on my relationship God, Mary, the Saints, and the Holy Spirit among the other racers who are predominantly all members of different Christian denominations. Ron’s talk opened my eyes to a new way of viewing my relationship to God and how truly intimate it could be.
That night I surrendered.
That night, I was saved.
The pit in my stomach that I spoken to Tim about was larger than ever and pulling down on my insides. I had been trying to shake it for the previous 2 days, but the thing wouldn’t budge. I was worn down and cracked from the exhaustion from slowly breaking down the walls I had built against Jesus in my heart and I broke. I fell to my knees and surrendered my heart and all my soul to Him.
I cried.
I prayed.
I laughed.
I felt His presence.
My eyes were shuttering and I couldn’t catch my breath from sobbing in pain, joy, and love. I was overwhelmed with the warmth of the Holy Spirit entering my body and Jesus entering my heart. I never knew what I felt like to feel safe in His arms before. From that moment forward, I finally knew that God had put me on this path for a reason. This was where I belonged.
More to come in Part 2!
