lampshading, pap, and the power of the Holy Spirit

hello friends!! What a story I’ve got for y’all today. On the 16th of June, I traveled at 4 am to Gainsville, Georgia where I would be spending the next 4ish days on the Adventures in Missions campus for BOOTCAMP!!!. Coming in, I expected good community, good worship, and getting a glimpse into what life on the race might look like. 

 

My expectations were blown out of the water.

 

To start- the community between the squads was sweet and pure. It was based around the understanding that we were all there for the same reason- to glorify and grow the kingdom. It was so fun to see online friends in real life for the first time. Hearing their voices, seeing their faces in 3D, and squeezing them tight. It was unreal. Many times, I found myself stopping and remembering, “hey, this is your real life right now”. I’ve followed racer for the past 2 years and the relationships they had, I wanted them. Of course, you can only tell so much about a person from an Instagram story, but still. But now, my time had come, I began living the reality that I had been dreaming about for 3 years. God saw my desire to be a part of a community like this one, and wow did He deliver. All of this is just about EVERYONE there on campus. 

Here’s me and my friend Bree from Route 2!!

Now to talk about the beauty I found in my wonderful squad-words are bad at describing them. I’ve never seen such an excepting, kind, beautiful, group of humans. I know now this group is immensely powerful and a force to be reckoned with solely based on how the enemy tries to dim our spirits but wow, how we prevailed singing Good Good Father and Worthy Worthy Worthy God. The Angels sing your praise, Father, they don’t worry, they just keep on singing. Glory be to God!! He hand-picked each one of us intentionally and He did a fantastic job, as always. I could write novels on the joy that I’ve found in this group-2 months till I see them, that feels like forever. Although leaving my family and friends will be heartbreaking, a new group of beautiful characters will fill this season of my life. I couldn’t ask for a better team to spend such a hard season with. MAJOR PRAISE!!!

Now on to something both fun and challenging! Food!!

Each day, we would be served traditional food from different countries! To be honest, this was a bit scary- my favorite food is chicken fingers and Chick-fil-a. I’m not used to this at all. But this is was the lord provided for us, so there would be no complaints from me, and none from the other racers. Each meal, we prayed for an open heart and open mind when it came to eating these foreign foods and even if we didn’t like the food, we still ate it openly and no complaints! Proud of us! One meal particularly interesting was on Africa day called Pap. Google defines it as “Pap is a kind of porridge made from maize meal and can be cooked to be runny, soft or stiff.” We ate the stiff variety, almost the consistency of playdoh, with lentils and greens. Now the taste was good! The whole “eating with your hands and rolling beans and greens and playdoh” thing was not great. At least for me. That’s what made my stomach turn, but once again- no complaints, this is what we’d been served, so this is what ill eat.

Here’s the dinner from Africa day, Not pap, but pretty good!

Now moving on to the most important thing I’ll talk about. The power of the Holy Spirit

As Christians, when we surrender our lives to God, we’re also inviting the Holy Spirit to live within us and in our hearts, yet it’s often the least talked about God out of the trinity. This is so sad because I’ve experienced the holy spirit before this weekend, but after, I’m sure I will never shut up about it. 

Let me paint a picture for you- It’s our evening session, Friday night, 109 racers, 3 worship leaders, and about 15 other leaders. After a powerful message about the Holy Spirit, our speaker told us that our leaders would be coming over the pray for us. In my time on campus, I experienced many of my teammates being led to pray over each other many times, once for me as well by my dear friend Landry, but as soon as he said this, I had a strong desire to be prayed for. I wanted to know what the Lord had for me. Well, 5 minutes pass, and then 10, and the 15, and no one had prayed over me. I was feeling bad for myself, saying things in my head like “Why God? What is so wrong with me that you won’t send someone over to pray. Do you not have anything to say? Do you just not care for me to send someone?” As soon as I thought these, I knew it was the enemy spreading lies into my head while I was in a vulnerable state. These were bold lies, this was NOT the character of my God. My God loves me and knows me and has words to speak over me. This wasn’t about God’s character, but mine. My pride got in the way, and I told myself I needed to be humbled before the Lord. And (no joke) the moment I thought that, an Elder for AIM, Hope, said something along the lines of “If you’re feeling that you want to be prayed over but haven’t been, I encourage you to humble yourself before God and raise your hand.” And not even a second later, my beautiful and faithful leader, Marrisa, prayed over me. It was such a life-giving prayer, she affirmed me in areas I had been insecure in (things I hadn’t yet confided in anyone in) and encouraged me as a woman of God. God places specific things on her heart, and it took me, taking my pride down, to hear them. I’m not sure if Marissa realized what she did that night or how God used her in such a heart-changing way, but hopefully, she knows now. (hi modeza!) What an intentional gift. God is so unbelievable and incomprehensible and that’s because our small, pea-sized, human brains cannot comprehend things that are not of this world. God was bigger than my pride. My desires. My insecurities. He is bigger than anything I could fear. He’s bigger than everything. Wow is He good. 

To end this, I wanna praise and thank the leader and serve team at AIM. WOW, they served us and loved us so well. God picked them by hand to be in our lives and I couldn’t ask for anyone better. Thank you to AIM for putting on such an incredible time for all of the racers and your intentionality with every step. We appreciate it so much!!

Also, I didn’t address this earlier but lampshading=wearing a shirt so oversized it covers your shorts. NOT ministry approved which is a shame, but we respect it.

Here are some more pictures!!

dancing! I hope we never stop!!

One of our first team pics!!

Tent city!! AKA, our home for the past 4 days and for 6 weeks come September

(most of these photos were taken by my team, but the majority were taken by the lovely, Catherine Robinson, whom I love dearly)

Fundraising Update!

I’m officially 64.6% funded!! Praise be to God!! Major thank you for everyone who has contributed, thank you for being obedient! God is using you in this just as much as me. WE’RE building the kingdom.

Thanks for reading this and opening your heart to hear a bit more of mine.

Much love, Sarah 🙂