So, here it is.
I recently went back to World Race Training Camp. I had completely conflicting feelings. Should I be excited? Or should I be nervous? You see, when I went through training camp my first time, I was a newby to this Adventures in Missions stuff, plus the fact that I was going through personal stuff.
A few weeks prior I felt like God had said let go of all expectations and so to me that met don’t ask any questions. Just let it be.
I get to camp and see all these new racers, some of them jumping with all sorts of nervous excitement and then there were those others, the introverts, who were close to tears, because it was people overload. I looked around me and could see myself almost 3 years prior again in this nervous excitement.
-This is just to clarify what I felt going into camp. How I felt coming out of camp? EXTREMELY DIFFERENT! God blew my mind away this past week. I will be honest and say that leading a team of radically changed believers scares the crap out of me. How do I lead if I’ve never led a team before in my life?! I felt very inadequate, but God kept saying to “relinguish control” and to be present during the week.
THE WORSHIP!!! Oh my goodness! I haven’t experienced this worship since my training camp! I hadn’t felt the Spirit show up so strongly in 3+ years. I don’t know about you, but I believe the Spirit can manifest in crazy ways, even to the point of feeling others’ pain, because that’s what was happening with me. When this happens, I have to find whoever it is with the pain….it ended up being a fellow Long-Termer. She had been feeling this pain since she was young and as I prayed, tears just streamed down my face. Moral of the story: God has redemption and healing for the brokenhearted.
This is just the beginning of what God did at this camp….I ended up getting resources to know how to lead, other than listen to the stories and the Spirit. I was given real concrete wisdom from those who have gone before me. I was also giving ways to counter spiritual attack and lies.
I don’t know if others can see it around me, but I feel like I had grown a lot during the week in spiritual freedom. I had finally surrendered a few things that had been getting in the way of everything: every single interaction was affected by these issues I had. I have a better outlook as to how to respond now, that I have literally witnessed God speak and grant me peace.
Not only is it I who is going out into the field, there are several others. The girl that I had mentioned before with the pain issue, is heading to Italy. It’s so nice to know that I’m not “alone” in this whole leading a base thing. There are countless others who are being sent out into the world and we have become somewhat of a family.
Here they are:
Please be praying for these folks as we are all going everywhere, including Romania, Italy, Kenya, Honduras, and Guatemala!
