Hey hey! I decided to do this blog about my recent experience at the World Race Training Camp in a format slightly different from what I’ve done before. More pictures, and somewhat less words. (Ha!) Since I will be doing my blogs on my iPad (with an attached keyboard), it kind of affects the formatting on how it’s uploaded. From what I understand, the pictures have to be at the bottom of the blog post, which is not how I would choose to do it if it was up to me, but we can be flexible, right?! 😉
At the bottom of this blog, you’ll see several picture collages I’ve made to sum up some of the hightlights at camp- some of which are:
– The initial road trip to Georgia from Dallas: I met Calli, another racer on my squad who lived in Waxahachi, at about 6:30am. Then we spent the next 12-13 hours in a car together getting to know one another on the way to my aunt’s house in Georgia. She was practically a stranger at 6:30am, but by the same time the next day it felt like we’d known each other for years. AND it turns out, we actually ended up on the same team! (Our squad has 49 people and is split into 7 teams of 7 people) I’m so thankful for the time we had on the way to camp because it’s a little overwhelming meeting 48 other people to do life with for 10 days, even if you are an extrovert like myself. Calli just graduated from college, is in love with Jesus, has a genuine heart for people, and I can’t wait to see what God does in her and through her these next 11 months.
– We got our teams pretty early on: I’m not exactly sure how the staff chose our teams, but I know they put in a lot of thought, prayer, and observations. I’m pretty sure the results of our Myers-Briggs personality tests were a factor, but we also did several small challenge activities with different mixes of people to see how well we worked with one another. Anyways, our team was pretty much made after the 3rd of the 4 challenges, and we were described as “sweet, but a little spunky”. I love these girls already and I believe that not only will God uses us for powerful impact in 11 countries, but He is going to continuously speak love and boldness over us in our identity as His beloved daughters. Our team name is 7tens, as you will see in the picture collage below, and it started with Bry commenting on a picture of the 7 of us saying something like, “man, I’ve never seen seven ’10s’ in one picture!” We all thought that was pretty funny, and then Megan started looking up verses in the seventh chapter and tenth verse of each book on the Bible, when she stumbled upon Song of Solomon 7:10 which says:
“I belong to my beloved, and His desire is for me”
Pretty beautiful, right? We get to walk in the power of knowing we belong to the King of all Kings and His desire is FOR us. Powerful. And that’s just who He says we are. It will be good to have that reminder when we don’t feel like it, or forget to see that in one another after living together, doing ministry together, and doing life together. That’s a lot of togetherness lol, but He’s got a purpose in it.
-I got lice, was stung by a bee or wasp, took cold bucket showers, and slept on the ground: Yep. That’s right. Good news- the lice is gone, the sting has healed (but still kind of itches every now and then), bucket showers really aren’t that terrible and are pretty effective, and sleeping on the ground because pretty normal after the 2nd or 3rd night. It was surprisingly easy to adapt to…even the porta-potties became tolerable. You do what you gotta do, and I think this was great preparation for what it will be like on the mission field. Reality is, this is what life looks like EVERYDAY for millions of people around the world. It’s actually kind of nice to be reminded again how fortunate we are in the U.S.
– Made lifelong friends (one of whom I had the honor and privledge of baptizing): Man! People are awesome. Being together for 10 days, sharing meals, taking bucket showers, doing physically exhausting tasks, mentally and spiritually processing things, learning how to pitch tents (haha), worshipping, talking, laughing, crying, dancing, singing, competing, and learning really brings you close to people pretty quickly. I wish I could say I got to know all 48 other racers on my squad pretty well, but I didn’t. However, there were quite a few that I know will be friends for life, especially after we literally travel the world together, abandon our comfort zones together, and probably get sick at some point and take care of one another.
Elise is an amazingly wise, yet very funny teammate of mine, and she asked me to do something on our last night at Training Camp that I’d never done before…She asked me if I would baptize her. Y’all. I can’t even tell you how humbled and honored I was that this amazing girl would ask me to do something with her like this that she would remember for the rest of her life. I was so shocked, but so excited, and it was beautiful. I’m so thankful for that moment we got to share, and I will always remember, as well. (Love you, girl!)
– I saw someone be healed:Yep. You read that right. And it was the most beautiful experience, let me tell you! So, healing is not something that is foreign to me. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to walk alongside some people who believed in the power of prayer and the healing power of the Holy Spirit, and we would go down to the West End in downtown Dallas on Friday nights and pray for the homeless, random people waiting for the Dart Rail, and really anyone actually. I saw many physical healings take place here for the first time in my life. I learned that those weren’t just stories in the Bible that didn’t happen anymore, because I saw it with my own eyes. Now, you are either thinking “wow, that’s awesome,” “that sounds kind of wierd,” or “this girl is crazy.” And that’s okay. 🙂 I thought all of that, too. And to be honest, I still carry a skeptism about it and have been praying the past few months for God to show me more of these things and for it to become normal so that I don’t doubt or question His love in them. So, guess what…God answers prayers! Go figure! It was probably Day 4 or 5 at Training Camp and I saw that one of the girls on my squad was hurt and 2 other girls on our squad were helping support her as she was walking to the next place we needed to be. She was crying and limping, and when I asked what was wrong and if she was okay, she said that had stepped in a hole again, for the 3rd time since she’d been at camp, with her left leg which happened to the leg with a bad knee. She had an elastic type brace on her left knee, also. We started walking down the hill and taking some of her belongings so she didn’t have to carry the extra weight. A few steps in, I could tell she was really in pain, so I asked them if we could stop and pray for her knee and take the extra 30 seconds to let God move. We all put hands on her knee and prayed then continued walking down the hill. About 10 seconds later I asked her how her knee was feeling, and she said it was a little better, then as the next few seconds passed, she began to express that there was no more pain in her knee at all, and her expressions were surprised, shocked, excited, almost even flabbergasted that her knee was totally fine! She began crying tears of joy because she couldn’t believe that had happened and then began asking for her things back because she was more than able to carry them. Y’all. This was insane. We literally saw God heal her knee right in front of our faces. He answered my prayer in a moment, and there wasn’t a drop of skeptism in my heart because if you could have seen her reaction and her face when she realized that there was no longer pain in her knee, you would know that not even a Hollywood actor could have faked that. Miracles happen, and I can testify to it. I hope I have many more stories like this to tell on the race, but if not, this one was worth it all.
– There’s a lot more I could say about Training Camp, how great it was, how mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted I was every night, but I think those are my main highlights. What I know is that God has me exactly where I am supposed to be, and even though I don’t know what the next 11 months will look like, I know He has His hand on me and we will see the Kingdom of heaven on earth. I cannot say Thank you enough to everyone who has supported me this far in prayer and financially. Remember, you are just as much a part of this story as I am. I could not be doing this without you! Thanks for taking the time to read this, and know that YOU ARE LOVED!!!
***If you haven’t already, go ahead and subscribe to receive my blog my email or text! My goal is to have 150 subscribers before I leave next month, and right now I’m at about 40 or so. I should be posting a blog once a week once we get out on the field, and this will be the best way to keep up with what we are doing. I’ll be trying out a few different formats of blogs including interviews, pictures, videos, etc. to try to keep it interesting for ya! 😉
