Introducing 3rd generation N squad!!!
Hey everyone, it’s been a few weeks since my last blogged so I have a lot to catch you up on.
First off, training camp! Training camp was a very hard week but also an extremely fun and rewarding week at the same time. I’m not going to talk a lot about training camp because I have some other things I really want to say and a lot of my team mates have written about camp. I will say that training camp was one of the toughest camping experiences I have ever done and if you don’t know me I have been camping quite a bit. It rained the first 4 days constantly and the Adventures staff presented us will situation to prepare us for ANY situations we might face on the race. For example half of are bags were taken from us because they were “lost by the airline” so one night I had to sleep in a two person tent with two other guys using my day pack as a pillow and my rain jacket as a blanket. Another night we had a “24 hour layover at the airport”. This meant my whole squad slept in a small room with the lights completely on and airport noises piped in very loudly. Needless to say we didn’t get a lot of sleep all week. I also lost 6 pound during one week because of the small portion sizes. There were also great things that happened as well. The teaching was amazing it expanded my thinking of what God can do in my life and others. I got to know the amazing 53 people that I will be spending the next year of my life with and the 6 squad mates that are on my team that I will be spending even more time with.
That leads me into TEAM BOUNDLESS!!! During camp we got put into are teams. This is the smaller groups within your squad that we hang out with, work with, and live with when we are at our location. We named ourselves Boundless because God has called us all to have no bounds in what we will do for Him. I am so happy to be with these 6 and can’t wait to get even closer with them!
I want to talk about what God has really been putting on my heart. The reason I want to talk about this is because I struggle with sharing my feeling especially telling people how thankful I am for what they have done for me. So the other night I was lying in bed thinking how much everyone is sacrificing for me to be able to go on this trip, whether it’s with giving me money or just helping prepare to leave for a year. I started to get really upset because I kept thinking I don’t deserve this over and over. The only thing I could think to do at that point was get my bible out and flip somewhere and start reading. I started running my fingers along the pages and randomly stopped. I had stopped at the parable that Jesus told about the farmer sowing his seeds. At first I was like this has nothing to do with what I’m struggling with right now but then I thought more about the parable. I realized I really don’t deserve everything my family is doing for me nothing I have done makes me deserve what they are doing for me but there is someone that does deserve it because He died for our sins. Jesus is the one they are giving their money to, Jesus is the one that they are sacrificing all their time for not me. They are doing it through me so I can help sow the good news of Christ over the world so that some of those seeds can land in good soil and be fruitful and multiply.
So I just want to say to my family thank you for everything and there is no way I will ever be able to express how much this all means to me. Christ is calling me to do this and I promise I will do everything I can with what you have given to show people the love of Christ like he has shown me through you.
The other exciting News that we found out at camp is our launch date. I officially need to be in Atlanta January 7th ready to leave for the Philippines.
Thanks for reading and please keep praying for me, N squad and Team Boundless!
