The simplest term I can use to describe training camp to all of you would be this: unexpected freedom. Out of ignorance, I left for Gainesville, Georgia believing that my time there would be like the training week for staff at the Christian camp where I’ve worked previously. In other words, it would be full of socializing, games, and long hours of logistical information. But from day one I was in for a surprise.
Had I read the blogs of racers before me, I would have known that training camp for The World Race does not focus on preparing us in an informational manner. Instead, it is a time to let God break us down in order to fill us up more completely. I experienced this in full force. As I said before, the word that always springs to my tongue when I think of training camp is freedom. I came to training with a lot of insecurities, prejudices, assumptions, fears, and arrogance weighing me down, though I didn’t realize that at the time.
Let’s look at one example: my fear. Fear takes many forms in our lives, but in this case I’m talking about the fear of being open and honest about my faith with others. Talking about God can be very intimidating because it means being vulnerable in a situation in which you might get hurt. Yet the rewards so outweigh the risks. I’ll show you why through two different experiences I had while at training.
Over the course of ten days, we had several different people preach to us. One of them was a man named Clint, who is probably the most passionate person I’ve ever met. On the first night he preached, he stretched the limits of the “box” I kept God in beyond its confines. We partnered with another person and looked into their eyes, asking God to show us his presence in them. Would I have done that the week before? Certainly not. Fear controlled me then – what if I said something offensive? What if I misinterpreted what God wanted to tell me? And worst of all, what if I heard nothing at all?
But God always comes through. My partner was Kaela Kreis, (she’s a fantastic woman of God; check her out at kaelakreis.theworldrace.org) who I didn’t know particularly well at the time. But as I looked into her eyes, I felt no fear; if God wanted to speak, he would. Three times we asked God to show us his presence in the other, and three times we told each other what we heard.
This is what I saw in Kaela: she is a strong rock for those around her, she has an extraordinary capacity to connect with anyone around her, and she had the ability to maintain great joy in the midst of sorrow and suffering. Those were the words God spoke to me. Some might say that it was simply my own intuition discerning various aspects of her personality and God had nothing to do with it, but I assure you that I knew very little about Kaela at this time and she agreed with everything I said to her. Whether or not this was God at work, I still choose to praise him and thank him for that experience because I got to see, for the first time, how he moves in other people.
What was perhaps even more incredible to me were Kaela’s words for me. She saw these three qualities in me: wisdom, grace, and patience. As she explained them in conjunction with one another, she came to the conclusion that I have a gift for teaching, especially through the use of words. This completely blew me away. At this point, only a handful of people at camp knew that I loved to write and no one knew that I fiercely want to use my words to spread God’s message over the world. Kaela certainly had no idea that this was my passion, and yet she said it all the same.
What better way to rid me of my fears and insecurities than through an assurance that my passion for words is sound and founded in God’s approval? After that experience, I knew that my fears were inconsequential and I only have to call on the name of the Lord to overcome them.
God ingrained this message in me even further through another radical event. Over the course of ten days, the staff at Adventures in Missions had us complete several “field scenarios” in which we might find ourselves while on the field. While most of them revolved around different sleeping arrangements, there was one that stood apart from the rest: Night Watch.
In this scenario, our squad had to have at least one person praying, worshipping, or in communion with God continually from eleven at night to six the next morning. There were several people who decided to stay up all night, so the rest of us came and went as we felt led. In my case, I went for an hour in the middle of the night. At first I walked around a lot, talking with God, but then I sat down, intending to pray for some of my friends back home. But before I could even really start, a face popped into my mind. It was that of Noah Riley, a high school friend who at that time was in basic training for the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
I had had no contact with Noah for weeks and I wasn’t even completely sure that he was still at basic, but I felt a serious conviction to pray for him. I did not know why or for what, but I took a deep breath and obeyed, wondering the whole time if I was crazy for doing it. In that leap of faith not only did I pray for him, but I messaged him on Facebook the next day to tell him that I was praying for him. What a risk that felt like – I could be setting myself up for ridicule, I thought.
Yet God is greater than our fears. Here is the message I sent Noah on the night of the 29th:
“Hey so I’m pretty sure you’re still at basic right now so you won’t see this for a while, but last night and tonight God’s been seriously convicting me to pray for you. I don’t know if something is going on or if it’s just for prayer in general, but I wanted to let you know that I’m praying hard for you. I hope God is moving in your life just as much as he is in mine, if not more. He is with you and will never abandon you. I know this is out of the blue, but I felt you needed to know. God is mysterious!”
It turns out that he was still at basic, so I didn’t hear from him until the 3rd, when he got home. This is what he said:
“Holy crap. That’s incredible. As you sent this I was probably falling asleep dreading the next day because it was this thing called rising dawn where they wake you up with gunshots and explosions and you go do a ton of stuff. So wow. God is great!”
There was no eminent threat or emergency in his life. I was not praying for a miracle or a massive act of God. But my prayers were still needed – for his peace of mind. Though I had no idea what Noah was going through, God knew and decided to include me in the loop so that I could both see his omniscience at work and perhaps relieve some of the fears that Noah had.
Fear is just one of the chains from which God freed me at training camp. While there, however, we learned that even if the power of fear is broken, the habit can still be there. For me, this means that although God demonstrated his awesome power that far surpasses my fears, I still have the tendency to shy away from opportunities to discuss my faith. In this case, freedom is more of a process than an instantaneous event. It will take me time to understand how to live as a free woman of God when I’ve become accustomed to living in fear, but I fully embrace that journey.
I wish that you all could go to training camp and have the same experiences as I did. Yet it doesn’t always take ten days of camping in the Georgia woods to find God in new ways. My prayer for you all today is that in each of your lives you might be freed of some of the fear holding you back. It resides in all of us, whether we know about it or not.
I’d like to leave you with this verse, one that really spoke to me while I was at training camp. It is Philippians 2:1-2. “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”
In other words, if you love God, don’t be afraid to show it. I’m certainly not.
P.S. More details from training camp coming soon, including information on the team who will be my family for the next few months!
