Training Camp

Combining four weeks of training camp into one post- a challenge I’ve spent a good amount of time thinking about and I figured, no matter how sloppy it comes out, that I should go for it before any more time slips by! So apologies in advance for this super long blog.

First of all, I hadn’t prepared myself for what this was going to look like. One day I’m living life at home, driving everywhere, cramming my schedule, sleeping in my own bed, and hanging out with friends. The next, I’m sleeping in a hammock/tent, meeting a bunch of people I don’t know, doing my own laundry (in a bucket), taking bucket showers every morning, and not caring that a bunch of bugs are crawling over me. Don’t get me wrong- I’m a Coloradan so this is right down my alley. However, the people part, surprisingly, was not- at first. It’s like I got removed from my world at home and put into another one. When all senses of comfort are removed, the boards, nails, and drywall come off your house and you’re left with your foundation (which hopefully it’s the firm foundation of Christ). Day 1: I was a hopeless, sleep-deprived wreck to say the least and was giving myself zero grace. When it came to meeting new people, there were a good lifetime of lies that had been built up in me and it’s crazy that it took going to training camp for it to all come out. On the first day, I had discovered what I believed about myself: that I don’t got this. That I’m not worthy. That I’m going to mess this up. About a week into training, Bill Swan had a session about unforgiveness (idk if that’s a word) and it broke me. I’ve heard my whole life that I need to forgive others because Jesus forgave me. What I had never heard was that I needed to forgive myself because Jesus forgave me. I realized I had been condemning myself. For years. I gave the enemy a foothold to speak lies into my life that I held onto, made my own, and could not get rid of. But I heard that to not forgive yourself is to even say that Jesus’ blood is not enough to cover you. Wow. It’s ugly, but I’m going to write out some of the lies because I’m so excited about the freedom I now have. Lie 1: I am not worthy of speaking. My words are meaningless. Nobody cares about them. They are going to come out messed up anyways. Lie 2: nobody wants to be around you. Truly. They only want to be around the best parts of you. Lie 3: Everybody remembers when you mess up…Writing these out are really hard for me now because I honestly can’t remember the lies! They’re so far gone (praise the Lord), but those are some of them. I realized that I had trapped myself. How are you going to do anything when you don’t consider yourself worthy of anything? Even being covered by the absolutely perfect, flawless blood of Jesus?? How are you going to build friendships when you don’t believe you are someone who is worth having a friendship with? Long story short, at the end of Bill Swan’s session, I was wrecked. I was a weeping pile on the floor just broken by the realization that I had lived my entire life like this. The realization, however, was only the beginning. I knew that I needed to replace the lies with a whole lot of truth. So immersing myself in God’s words was a game changer AND God was so gentle and patient that He blessed me with an AMAZING, encouraging community- W squad. I came ready to serve and be selfless. God said, “hold on. I need to work on you first. You can’t pour out unless you are filled.” I didn’t realize how empty I was. Now I’m over here on a joy overflow! Since that day where I was wrecked by God’s kindness which lead to repentance and healing that I needed, I have never experienced so much joy and freedom in my entire life. I have not had a second thought about my worth and God has given me the words to say when I have none. God is uncovering the free me. There is so much grace and patience for messing up and there is so much rest to be had at the feet of Jesus!!!

So that was a major thing that happened for me in week 1 of training camp- a HUGE mountain in my life that was moved. But what about the other three weeks!? Oh it was insanely awesome. Living in tents, partying it up with the spiders, taking freezingly awesome bucket showers, oh yeah. Also, our squad pretty much learned how to do some snazzy swing dancing moves, so that’s been fun. On week 2 or 3, we took a trip to civilization. Don’t put a chocolate, snack, coffee, etc. deprived girl in the kingdom of Target. It was a whole new world. If that was after 2/3 weeks, I don’t want to know what the culture shock is going to feel like coming back from the race!!

TC was packed with so many different sessions on spiritual warfare, sharing the Gospel, culture, etc, and basically it was a lot of pouring into our hearts and brains- gearing us up to actually go out and do ministry. We had so many amazing times of worship! I LOVE worship so much because there is just something about praising the Lord that I can’t explain that just gets me excited and it’s just led by the Holy Spirit and now I’m rambling on…and, and, and… I was also introduced to blindfolded worship! What is that!? Well it’s exactly how it sounds. Wearing a blindfold while you worship so you’re not focusing on what everyone else’s worship looks like. Having your eyes on the LORD (Even though you like technically can’t see anything)!

I need a whole separate paragraph for my excitement about W squad. How did I get this blessed? We have a community that I have dreamed of for ages. And prayed for. The level of health in this group is just insane. It all has to do with bringing things to the light, having good communication, the desire to love each other well, and just having patience and forgiveness. When I look at W squad, I have learned to see it as the beautiful body of Christ- which is how I’m supposed to see everyone. Each person is so unique, beautiful, and has something to teach me!

Ministry Days!
We did spend some time in Georgia doing ministry before we left. My team got to spend a bit of time at Good Samaritan Food Ministries. In the morning, we unboxed drinks, organized food, and basically just helped where it was needed. Then, at around 5pm, there was a long line of people waiting to get their food. We shut the giant garage door and all the volunteers, staff, and us racers prayed together. Then the fun began! The doors were open and we had an assembly line going where some of us would fill the carts with all the different kinds of food at various stations, and then the carts would circle around from the people, to their cars to be emptied, and then someone would bring it back and then it would go through the whole process of refilling again. That’s random but I explain all of that to get to the part where there were a good amount of people who had the job of helping others with their carts. Specifically, asking people if they needed help unloading or pushing the cart. From there, this was the perfect opportunity to tell people about Jesus. A lot of these people were in tough situations and finding themselves in the food bank line for the first time. I don’t know what that feels like, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good. I got to talk to a few people and pray for them and had one really good conversation with a grandma and her grandson. She only spoke Spanish, but her grandson translated for her. The grandson said it was his first year of middle school and that they went to church, and all this stuff, and I asked him what he thought about church. He said that his mom was really passionate. So okay, I picked up on the fact that maybe he was just in it cause that’s what the family does. I didn’t have the perfect words and I didn’t have three months of time to disciple this kid, but the Lord gave me the fantastic idea to speak some words of encouragement and pray for them. Specifically, I prayed over him that the Lord would encourage him, guide him, grow him deeper in a relationship, that he would have the Holy Spirit living inside of him, that God would be his strength at school, and for their fam. I trust that God used that. Overall, it was really fun to get to love on people and it was one of those days that you ended with a big smile and a lot of joy in your heart. Over the few days that we were at the food bank, I also learned that it’s good to be content with where God puts you to serve and to have joy no matter where you are. Every job is important and no less important than another. For a while, I worked a station that was not in the action. At first, this was hard for me and I found myself wishing I could be somewhere else in the mix of everything. I actually had to pray for contentment and that God would give me joy to enjoy doing the job he gave me to do. After a little while, I feel like God really answered my prayer and my mood and attitude flipped around completely- which I know was not on my own strength.

This next section of the blog is going to be the photo section- pictures of all the fun times and some of my favorite moments/memories