Going on a year-long mission trip obviously takes a lot of preparation and training. Thankfully, Adventures in Missions (AIM) puts together a week-long training camp for all the squads to attend. My training camp was last week and if I'm being honest, I was so incredibly nervous for it. I had no idea what to expect and the fact that it would be my first time meeting my squad members, my mentor, my coaches, and my leaders stressed me out quite a bit. I was terrified. But as it turns out, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. 

We all hung out at the airport for a few hours, crammed ourselves into a van, and headed into the best week of our lives (so far). Truly, this was the most incredible, exhausting week for me. Every day was challenging in every way. We did an intense (but beautiful) hike, constantly packed and unpacked our bags, experienced drenching rains, and learned our squad dance in a single day (shout-out to Cass, Dana, and Jackie for being the most amazing choreographers).

While AIM certainly pushed us physically, the hardest part of the week for me was how emotionally and spiritually difficult it was. Our days were packed with amazing lessons from some of the wisest teachers I've ever met. I filled up my journal with notes but still haven't really been able to process it all. Each lesson was encouraging, convicting, and melted my mind just a little bit. We also had some of the best worship sessions ever. I've never before been in a room where the audience sang louder than the band during every single song. Speaking of which, the band was beyond talented! They inspired us to worship in completely new ways and to fully submit to the glory of God while worshipping Him. 

By far the most incredible spiritual moment for me, however, was being prayed over by an enormous group. After I confessed that I struggling to accept God's love for me, my squad and several others decided to pray over me. This prayer session unearthed things that I had tried to bury for years and completely broke me down. I spent most of that day in tears as I tried to work through God taking down my walls and digging up toxic things I'd stored away. But then the next day, He began to rebuild and fill me up with His love. If you're interested in learning more about this whole experience, be sure to read next week's blog where I'll go into depth about it. 

Now before you go thinking that training camp was nothing but challenging and exhausting, you should know that each day was filled with adventures and so much fun. We tried different foods from around the globe each day, camped on a mountain for a night, hung out in a cave to wait out a rainstorm, had a movie and spa night, played ridiculous games, and so much more. I definitely laughed harder during this week than I have all year.

Training camp was truly an amazing start to an amazing journey. My nerves have completely vanished and turned into pure excitement. I can seriously say that within one short week I've grown to love every single one of the 23 members on my squad.