If you came for the Vlog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl66_tMhkfs&t=416s
So, training camp was……. A lot. It was rough, fun, challenging, random, and it left me feeling tired, excited, tested, and most of all, ready! After camp, I feel so ready for the next step, which is actually doing the dang thing.
As I try to sum it all up for y’all, keep in mind that a lot of the days were repetitive, and I wasn’t getting too much sleep because, you know, camping?? So have some grace as I try to tell the story that is training camp.
I got to Georgia a day early for something called Storytelling workshop! It is basically an event that Adventures in Missions hosted where us racers got to hear from all of the creatives on staff. We learned all about blogging, vlogging, and picture taking while on the field. It was super helpful and so encouraging. I had woken up super early that day (July 8th) because my flight left at 6am! So it was a long day of waiting in the airport and sleeping on the floor in some random terminal until AIM came to pick us up. This was also the first night that I slept in my tent… and can I just say, bugs. Bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs. There were so many bugs, big and small and tiny and huge. But despite all that, I actually slept good? Probably the best night sleep that I had at camp.
So in the morning we had to pack up all of our things (yeah the tent too) fun right? We had to move our stuff to our squad campsites and wait for everyone else to get there. I was so anxious! To think i was about to meet the people I’ve been talking to for 10 months- I was on my toes all day. When they finally got there, it was like a big reunion, even though we had never met. So fun.
The rest of the days of camp were pretty repetitive! It went something like this:
6:35 wake up. Get ready and get energized. 7:15 walk to daily devotionals. We had devotionals with our teams almost every morning. Our squad was broken up into smaller teams of 6-8 people, who we will be doing ministry with the whole race. 8:15 Breakfast. Everyday was different- Asia, Central America, Africa, India, South America day. Usually everyone of them had rice for at least ? meals per day. And then sometimes we would have a random theme day like Travel Day, or Coming Home Day. 9:00 – 11:00 sessions. Our sessions were awesome. All week they poured into us about everything we needed to know for living life on the field. My favorite was how to minister to people of different religions! 11:00 Squad time! 12:15 Lunch. 1:00-3:00 more sessions- they seriously jam packed em’ into our schedule! 3:00-4:30 More squad time! During this time we would breakout into just our squads and spend time with our leadership team or do some team builders! 4:30 Personal time. We had the awesome opportunity to support one of the staff members in their adoption process by purchasing snacks! So most of our personal times were spent loading up on snacks and hanging out at the pavilion. If you were lucky you could squeeze in a shower before dinner. 5:30 Dinner. 6:30 Worship+Session. We had our phones locked up from 7am until the day was done. So when we got them back at night, the patio was a super crowded place where everyone was fighting for an outlet to charge up.
I got used to the sleeping situation after a few nights. Everything was dirty, muddy and had bugs. You just have to accept it after a night or two. We did get moved inside for 3 nights because it was storming. Sounds like a blessing, but at 2am when you wake up in a freezing cold room, a foot away from the next racer + 32 others, you start to rethink saying the words “Wow what a blessing!!”…
So yeah, training camp was good. I miss everyone so much already. You should watch the Vlog if you haven’t already (at the top) it really sums up how goofy and amazing my squad is!
I haven’t blogged in about 6 months. So we have some catching up to do. I promise an update blog is coming in a few days with some exciting stuff!
