Part 2 of my training camp blog series picks up on Monday morning. All the guys piled into the van to go to an undisclosed location. We weren’t complaining, it was just nice to get away for awhile with just the guys. After a fun ride we arrived at Unicoi state park.to do some hiking and learn what it’s like to be a brotherhood of men. Fortunantly, I have been blessed with an awesome brotherhood of believers here at home so the whole concept of a brotherhood was not a new concept for me.
After praying together and washing our hands and feet in the waterfall we began the hike. The scenery was beautiful as we hiked and talked with intermittent and random bursts of running. We stop occasionally and shared about ourselves and participated in exercises such as writing a covenant statement that would describe our brotherhood or share our individual character flaws. But something else happened during that time, we actually became brothers. A very subtle and supernatural work of God that’s very hard to put into words, occured in those few hours. A powerful bond was formed between all of us. A bond that had to have come from God, becuase hiking in the woods and talking for half the day wouldn’t do it.
With brotherhoods formed, we gathered firewood and made it to camp in time to greet the girls as they arrived. Once we set up camp we had some free time before dinner so a bunch of the guys snuck off to go jump in the lake. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty intimidating to get in that lake for a lot of reasons. 1) You knew that water was cold. 2) To get in you had to climb up this railing and jump from there. 3) you had to jump out far enough to not land on this underwater tree! But once we all got in it was very invigorating! We swam around for awhile until some of the girls crashed our party. After dinner we all gathered for an awesome time of worship around the fire that no one really wanted to end.
The next morning, after breakfast, we were sent off to find a secluded place to pray and write a grief journal.
In my grief journal a wrote for a while on things in my life that I had chosen to ignore and not allow myself to properly grieve over, thus causing wounds. After lunch we loaded back into the van where we were taken to another area for a “cross walk”, but not the cross walks I’m used to on Easter. We were all supposed to spend time alone in prayer and then for everything God reveals to you in your life that you need to drop write it on a log. I had 2 logs, one for my need for acceptance and one for my need to be praised. Once I was done our squad coaches Mike and Patty prayed over me and I began walking alone. The first half of the walk was very frustrating for me, only becuase I kept getting these flashbacks to things I had done or decisions I had made that were rooted in these insecurities I was trying to drop. By the halfway mark I was pretty doubtful if I’d be able to truly lay these things at the foot of the cross when I got there. Thankfully Jenny was at the halfway point to pray for me, and her prayer was simple. “Help Tim see why he needs to drop these things.” And He did. As I began walking again I came to a really steep hill with fallen trees all around it. And I noticed one of the girls in my squad struggling. I came up to her and asked if I could help and held onto her log for her. Then I helped stabalize her as she worked her way up the hill, where at the top I gave her back her log. Almost immediately I felt God speak to me and say that back there was in illustration of what He’s calling me to do. But I can’t help people if I’m too busy holding onto my own crap. After that revelation I went throught the rest of my walk and when I got to the cross I threw those logs down without hesitation. After seeing the blessings that the Lord has for you, how can you want anything else?
In my grief journal a wrote for a while on things in my life that I had chosen to ignore and not allow myself to properly grieve over, thus causing wounds. After lunch we loaded back into the van where we were taken to another area for a “cross walk”, but not the cross walks I’m used to on Easter. We were all supposed to spend time alone in prayer and then for everything God reveals to you in your life that you need to drop write it on a log. I had 2 logs, one for my need for acceptance and one for my need to be praised. Once I was done our squad coaches Mike and Patty prayed over me and I began walking alone. The first half of the walk was very frustrating for me, only becuase I kept getting these flashbacks to things I had done or decisions I had made that were rooted in these insecurities I was trying to drop. By the halfway mark I was pretty doubtful if I’d be able to truly lay these things at the foot of the cross when I got there. Thankfully Jenny was at the halfway point to pray for me, and her prayer was simple. “Help Tim see why he needs to drop these things.” And He did. As I began walking again I came to a really steep hill with fallen trees all around it. And I noticed one of the girls in my squad struggling. I came up to her and asked if I could help and held onto her log for her. Then I helped stabalize her as she worked her way up the hill, where at the top I gave her back her log. Almost immediately I felt God speak to me and say that back there was in illustration of what He’s calling me to do. But I can’t help people if I’m too busy holding onto my own crap. After that revelation I went throught the rest of my walk and when I got to the cross I threw those logs down without hesitation. After seeing the blessings that the Lord has for you, how can you want anything else?
After dinner we were all sharing stories and started worshipping around the fire that was lit using our logs. It was a great time where we worshipped and danced long after the worship leader stopped. But sadly we weren’t staying there a second night so all the guys loaded up in the Man Van and the girls in the bus and we headed back. Camping was definently my fondest memory of the whole camp experience becuase not only did a lasting bond form between our whole squad but God did amazing works those 2 days that would continue on for the rest of the week.
