Hello sweet friends and family! T here all the way from training camp in Gainesville, Georgia! I just want to tell y’all a little bit about what happens here and the awesome girlies I get to spend time with for the next nine months! Another thing I will share is what The Lord has put on my heart tonight.
Right now I am sitting on a porch under Edison bulbs, listening to people on my squad talk about their lives and how God has been working these past couple days. I am watching the clouds float by as the sun goes down behind us. I know this sounds super peaceful and simple, but don’t get it twisted camp is hard. We sleep on the ground every night, the porta pottys smell awful, and the daddy long legs here look like they are straight out of Harry Potter. Even still I love it here the worship is powerful, the unity in my squad is strong, and my team of eight girlies are the most beautiful daughters of Christ I have ever come in contact with. So I’m asking y’all now to keep Avery, Alexandra, Hallie, Mack, Maggie and Sarah in your prayers for the next ten months. We have already peed our pants laughing and cried together for the pain and growth we have experienced in the past week. I truly whole heartedly love them and I can’t wait for y’all to love them too by the end of these nine months.
Every morning we wake up at 6:30, sometimes we have to take down our tents and repack all of our packs. 7:30 we begin team devo then head to breakfast at 8:15. After we eat we head into the training center for lessons that day. One day the girls had a talk about women’s retreat ministries, we had a blog talk, and talks about living in community. After this we head to the pavilion for some exotic food from one of the countries we are going to. One day we had banana rice and chicken, another we had soup, and today we had chicken salad and watermelon. Then on to more talks, later we have free time or team time. After dinner we head into worship.
Worship is something I could talk about for days on end, and I probably will blog about this at some point. Worship at training camp is nothing like I have experienced before, everyone here is so bold in their faith and God is moving so obviously. Just being in the room with my brothers and sisters as they sing/dance out their praises is enough to bring goosebumps to my body. It is so loud you’d think we were at a journey concert and the passion is more real than any sporting event (this includes football in the USA). There is absolutely no judgement about how or what you do during worship. There are always twelve different verses being sung and people yelling out prayers to God. This is the atmosphere that needs to be at home in our churches, there should be no judgement in the way we praise our Father. If you want to dance then dance, if you want to sing then sing, if you want to jump then jump, if you want to scream then scream. God knows exactly what you need in these moment and if were honest with ourselves we would know that our Father deserves more than half sung song and two claps at the end. It’s time for worship to be revived in the church and for God’s people to be as well.
The first time I heard “child of God” was one night during worship we were singing “no longer slaves” the saying “I am a child of God” just kept repeating in my head that night and I never quite knew why. I know I am child of God, so I didn’t understand why God put that so heavy on my heart. Eventually I forgot about it, until tonight. Tonight we each took time to pray over each country and different hardships the people face there. As I begin to pray for Thailand tears came to my eyes. One of my goals in life is for the sex slave trade to be stopped and for the people responsible to receive punishment. Thailand has been taken over by the trade, tears streaming down my face I began to say something that would usually never come out of my mouth, “Father, the oppressed are your children, but God there oppressors they’re your children too.” I paused and listened to what God had to say to that. Again it was, “Tierney, they’re my children too.” This phrase continued as I prayed for each country. The people with aids in South Africa, “They’re your children Father.” Buddhist and Muslims in Myanmar GODS CHILDREN. The missionaries and people of costa rica are his children. After we were done individually praying we came back together for a group prayer, Kevin one of our leaders began to pray and, Father, these are your children.”
Training camp alone has already radically stirred my heart and I am so pumped for the next nine months. This week has given my peace and God has again shown his goodness. Now to update you on fundraising I am just about $4,000 off of my second goal of $10,000!
Thank all of you for your support! I can’t wait to tell y’all more super soon, and get on the field and tell you all about the sweet stuff God does.
Peace and blessings children of God.
Lots of Love, T!
