Training Camp

Hello everyone!

I’m sure you’re all dying to know what’s been going on with me these past few days, so I’ll do my best to fill you in on what’s been happening here. I’ll start at the airport, where I said goodbye to my family, which was super difficult, followed the signs to my gate, got on the plane, flew for an hour, and before I knew it, I was in Georgia. Surprisingly, we had a three-hour drive from Atlanta all the way to Gainesville, where the Adventures in Missions Headquarters is located. As soon as I arrived there, I checked in and finally met my squad in person. Everyone in my squad is so cool. We’ve only known each other for a few days, and it already feels like we’re best friends. I’m thankful and blessed that God has brought us together. I couldn’t ask for a better squad.

Now on to training camp. We have a nice open patch of dirt and grass in the woods. I pitched my tent underneath the trees in our squad campsite, where there’s shade and not as much rain can get through. The only downside to being underneath the trees is the birds that relieve themselves onto my rain fly, but thankfully, the rain does a pretty good job of cleaning that off.

How a typical day looks is we wake up usually around seven o’clock, sometimes six, to do a workout as a squad. But when we’re not doing workouts, we shower (which are scheduled, and if we want to shower on a day we aren’t scheduled for, we take a bucket shower), brush our teeth, and head straight to the outdoor dining deck, where we do a devotion. After that, we have breakfast, and for every meal, we have a squad that will be assigned to do dishes, and the squad that gets to do dishes gets to go first in line for food. Moving on, after breakfast, we head inside the Training Center and do worship, and we do a session, which is where someone will come up and speak on a specific topic. So far, to name a few, we’ve talked about truth, forgiveness, repentance, and quite a few other deep topics. Afterwards, we get lunch and have a break, then head into another session (we usually have two to three sessions a day). Towards the end of the day, we have dinner, and then every squad is assigned to clean a part of the campsite. After dinner, we are free for the rest of the night. Quite time starts at ten o’clock, and bedtime or “tent time” is at eleven o’clock.

There you have it, that’s how things have been going so far. Every Friday, we observe a Sabbath, which is currently happening. Things are good. I’m all set on remembering names for everyone in my squad. I’m also beginning to acclimate to all the creepy crawlies. I genuinely feel that the Holy Spirit is stirring within me and that my relationship with the Lord has grown in just a matter of days, and I can’t wait to see what He has in store for me in these next nine months. That’s it for today, hope you all are doing well, and I’ll keep you posted on how things are going.