A little over a week ago, I got back from training camp for the World Race in Gainesville, Georgia… the hardest AND best two weeks of my life all in one. I was pushed so far outside of my comfort zone, and not just physically. I found myself asking God questions I didn’t even know I wanted answers to. I grew more spiritually than I ever could have seen coming. On top of all the growing and hearing from God (a LOT), I learned so much about what life will look like on the field, and finally got to meet the people I will call family for the next 9 months (and for life).
Here’s what a typical day at training camp looked like for me:
6:30 – wake up in my dirty and only slightly flooded tent. Put on clothes that I’ve already worn once or twice, setting myself up to smell absolutely delightful all day.
(Here’s a picture of our little tent neighborhood!)
7:00 – spend a little bit of quiet time with my journal and Bible. Best way to prepare my heart for the busy day that lies ahead!
7:30 – team devo! Spending time together to pray over our day, and share about all the ways God has been at work.
8:15 – breakfast! Every day was focused on a different culture from around the world. For example: Asia day, Africa day, or South America day! Trying tons of new food was always an exciting way to start the day.
(This is me and some of my squadmates on India day! To honor the culture of the day, all of us women covered our heads during meals and sessions. We definitely had to improvise a little with our head coverings!)
9:00-12:00 – Between breakfast and lunch, the days were packed with sessions. We learned SO much over the course of those two weeks. Some of these sessions covered things like commitments and expectations, hearing God’s voice, how to best respect the people we serve, or how to preach the Gospel to people of certain cultures or religions. The list goes on and on, and every day was packed with tons of new information to take in.
12:00 – Lunch! Still learning about new cultures while we eat!
(Every meal was eaten community style, meaning our tables always shared from one big plate of food. Here’s a picture from Asia day, where we of course used chopsticks all day!)
1:00 – more sessions 🙂
3:00(ish) – squad time! At this point we were able to break away from the huge group to spend time with the people we will be traveling in a group with. The 34 people on my squad became my family SO quickly, and every minute spent with them gets me more and more excited to live with them. During squad time we discussed more specifics about our countries, and even got to practice putting together activities for children’s ministry or lesson plans for teaching English. All things I have never done but am so excited to put to use!
4:30 – personal time! Between squad time and dinner, we were given time to do whatever we wanted. This usually meant spending time in the Word or journaling. During this time was also when I took my showers… or should I say dumping a bucket of water over my head and calling myself “clean.”
(here’s a picture of our “showers” for the week. Believe it or not, a big bucket of ice cold water was actually a BLESSING in the Georgia heat! Too bad we always started sweating again immediately after…)
5:00 – Dinner! You know the drill 🙂
6:00 – WORSHIP. I’ve never experienced worship like this in my life. Being in a room of over 200 people who are more on fire for the Lord than I knew was possible…Singing at the tops of their lungs and not caring what they look like… let’s just say it was something I will remember for the rest of my life.
9:00 – Time to crawl back into that sweaty tent and try to sleep through the heat and rain and the bugs crawling all over your stuff! Laying in my tent was always the perfect time to wrap up with some final journaling for the day and reflect on everything I learned.
As you can tell, each day was packed with opportunities to learn and grow alongside my squadmates. And to say I learned a lot would be a huge understatement. I could probably write a whole book about everything God did through me during those 10 days, but for the sake of my readers I’ll narrow it down to one INCREDIBLE story that definitely has to be shared.
Like many people, I came into Training Camp with a lot of fear. I knew that God called me here for a reason, but spiritual warfare is a REAL thing, and it seriously took hold of me. During one of the first nights of worship, we sang the song “No Longer Slaves.” Trying to sing those lyrics with confidence was HARD. I got choked up singing the words “I’m no longer a slave to fear” because it just didn’t feel right… I knew I still had way too much fear in my heart. I didn’t even realize how scared I was for this next chapter of my life until I got to training camp and everything hit me at once. I realized that this crazy adventure was actually happening, and all the emotions flooded in. So every day and every night I prayed like I’ve never prayed before for God to take away my fears. I got so frustrated because just when I thought I was making progress, the fears would creep back in twice as bad as before. It was an overwhelming cycle and I wanted nothing more than to be able to block it all out.
Then on the last night of worship (which was INSANE by the way), we sang “No Longer Slaves” a second time. I got choked up way more than before, but this time for a different reason. Singing the lyrics wasn’t hard anymore. Without even having to think twice, I knew those words were finally true for me. I felt so free and had no explanation but the Father’s faithfulness. The fear was gone… COMPLETELY gone. God answered my prayer in such a huge way.
During the bridge of the song, we sang “You split the sea so I could walk right through it, my fears are drowned in perfect love” and I think that moment might have been the closest I have ever felt to God in my entire life. He split the sea for me… the sea being all the fears I had at the beginning of the week. He didn’t just get rid of them the first time I prayed. He had other ideas. Instead He held my hand and walked me right through it to the other side. I know that He could have just taken all the fear away before I even came to training camp, but He wanted to take me THROUGH all the ugly stuff to teach me to depend on Him, and more importantly to show me that He is greater than those fears.
And there’s ANOTHER part to this story too, so bear with me for just another minute. For the last 3(ish) days of training camp, I had a horrible migraine. Throughout the week so many people prayed over my head for the pain to leave, but every single time, I doubted that anything would happen. My lack of faith definitely stood in the way of anything changing. Nothing seemed to work and I woke up every hour of the night with horrible pain! But during that last night of worship, during that SAME song, I opened my eyes for a second and realized that for the first time in 3 days, I felt ZERO pain in my head. So let’s recap: God took away all my fear AND all my pain… crazy! When I went back to my tent that night after worship, I slept through the night without waking up ONCE. Just like with my fears, I know He could have taken away the pain on the first night it started. But instead He used my circumstances to teach me, once again, to depend on Him… Even for the things I once doubted He was in control of. I didn’t believe God was in control of something as small and silly as a headache, but He sure proved me wrong.
When you give your life to God and trust that He will provide, HE WILL PROVIDE. It really is that simple. I came into those two weeks with the wrong mindset, thinking that I was the one in control. I quickly learned I can’t put any limits on Him, because He will completely wreck your expectations of His power. God is so much greater than I thought.
“No Longer Slaves” has been sung at my church plenty of times, and it’s always been a powerful song to me, but it took on a whole new meaning at training camp. It didn’t stop there though! A few hours after getting home from training camp, I hopped on another plane to Nicaragua for a week-long mission trip with my church. Throughout the week, that song just kept coming up! First in a spontaneous worship session with friends, where singing those lyrics was a HUGE reminder of His faithfulness. Then it came up again, this time in Spanish (so cool!!!), blaring through speakers at a Nicaraguan marketplace. I couldn’t help but thank God for putting that together SO perfectly. Such a sweet sign that He knows what’s on my heart.
The things I learned at training camp, whether in sessions or through prayer, are going to stick with me forever. Knowing that fear has no hold on me has me more than ready to say “see ya later” to the life I know right now. Its time to help people all over the world recognize His faithfulness like I’ve seen it.
And now last but not least, allow me to introduce you al to my new family. These are the people I will be living and serving with for 9 months, and the people I will call brothers and sisters in Christ for LIFE!
Thanks for sticking with me through all this word vomit. I truly didn’t know how to put this experience into words… Overall, I’m never going to forget the things God taught me at training camp. I was broken and built back up again. I learned to depend on Him with everything I’ve got.
So here are the biggest things I learned at training camp… things I’m going to hold onto for the rest of my life.
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God is a lot bigger than I thought. If God was only as big as our understanding, we’d be in big trouble!
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I’m no longer a slave to fear.
