Hello Friends!
Here is the long awaited Part 2 of 11 Views of Training Camp! If you haven’t read Part 1 you can find it here
7. Food!
If you’re anything like me, you keep a running tally of the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten. Each day there was a theme that would dictate the food, clothes and customs. On Asia Day we ate with chopsticks. On Africa Day we wore long skirts and ate with our hands. The most intriguing day for me food-wise was Adventure Day. Included on the breakfast tray of rice, bread and eggs with sausage, there was a cup of black crickets and an enigmatic speckled egg. When we cracked open the egg we found that what would have normally been the egg-white was a brown, gelatinous substance and the yolk was a grey-ish green color. A few other adventurous eaters and I tried it- most reacting with a gag. I had a couple bites, experimenting with combining it with rice, eggs, crickets, etc. We found out later these eggs are called century eggs. They are fermented duck eggs (not fermented for a whole century like I hoped, more like a month). Needless to say I think the century egg makes it pretty high up on my “weirdest thing I’ve ever eaten” list (previously topped by shark steak and fish cakes) and honestly I didn’t think it was that bad. I’m pretty fascinated and I’ve been looking up how they’re made and how people usually eat them. Also I would totally make some cricket trail mix. Peanuts, m&m’s, crickets, raisins? Yum.
I’m excited to eat lots of weird food next year. Stay tuned.
8. Women’s day.
One of the days at training camp, the guys all go off on a grueling 24 hour man-hike and build shelters from branches and the skins of bears that they wrestled to death with their bare hands.
(Okay, not really. I’m not sure what they do on the man hike. No bears were harmed during the making of training camp)
Bear jokes aside, Women’s day was a good one. My squad actually only has two guys on it so nearly all of my squad got to enjoy this day together. We talked about image and identity, shame, and looked at stories of Biblical women. We talked how the Lord sees us (as His daughters), and how we need to respect ourselves and honor that. It hurts Him when we harshly criticize our reflections in the mirror, saying things that should never be said to a daughter of the Lord.
Making training camp history, we actually went off campus and spent the afternoon in the park where some amazing women from leadership taught studies about some amazing women from the Bible. One of my favorites is Deborah- the fourth judge of Israel- who not only stands as an example of female leadership in the Bible, but was also a wife, prophetess, and poet!! (You can find her in Judges 4 & 5)
We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out in the park- walking the loop, talking, watching the ducks down by the lake, playing volleyball, napping in the sun, and of course talking and sharing stories.
After dinner we got hot chocolate, apple cider, and snacks and we sat in a big circle in the training center and braided each other’s hair, talked, and got real and vulnerable with one another.
One of the things we did that evening was anonymously fill out papers, circling “yes” or “no” on things we had thought/done, or that had been done to us (abuse, eating disorders, self harm, body image, drug and alcohol abuse, etc.). We handed in the papers and they were shuffled around and handed back out. As our Squad mentor read down the list, if the person whose paper you had circled “yes” then you stepped forward.
As we went through the list, silently stepping forward and back, we could see that everyone had things they struggled with, and we could see that no one struggled alone. There wasn’t a single thing on that list that only one person stepped forward for. It may seem like you are the only person struggling with something, but you are never alone. More people than you might think are struggling with the exact same thing.
This also showed me something really beautiful about my squad: We stand up for one another. We stand in the gap for one another. When someone feels alone, we will gather around and fight for them. I saw this happening many times at training camp. My squad is a squad who will fight for people. This was just a beautiful (and heart-wrenching) illustration of it.
9. Sabbath Rest
As we prepare for a year of ministry and hard work it is really important to talk about rest. Often ideas about the sabbath are vague, confusing, or just completely overlooked. In one of the sessions we addressed what Sabbath rest should actually look like. It’s more simple than you might think.
Here it is:
“Sabbath Rest is getting in the presence of God and staying there”
Things to Remember:
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God loves you and wants to spend time with you
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It takes practice
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It will look different for different people
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Sometimes you will hear from God and sometimes you won’t
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You might fall asleep and that’s okay
10. Forgiveness.
You will probably hear many people say that the sessions at training camp are like drinking from a hose. They are designed to prepare you in every possible way for the year ahead, and a lot of what is involved in that is dealing with the mental and emotional baggage that you carry with you.
One of the most powerful sessions was about forgiveness.
Most of what was said I had heard before, maybe it was how these words were framed, or where I was sitting (far away from home and ready to take on the whole world), or how my heart had been prepared in the previous couple days, but I saw these things in a new light.
Here are the bones of the matter:
Jesus’ blood covers ALL SIN. It covers not just your sin, but every sin that has ever been perpetrated against you.
By way of explanation: There was this guy, say he was a wealthy business owner or CEO or something like that. One of his subordinates owed him several million dollars – an amount that he would never be able to pay off. The poor guy begs him to just give him more time to pay his debt. The business owner, knowing this guy will never be able to pay back several million dollars, feels bad for him and forgives the debt (just says “you know what, don’t worry about these MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that you owe me. I got this one. You’re free to go.”)
As this man, freshly relieved of all of his debt, was leaving the CEO’s office, he ran into a coworker who owed him a couple hundred dollars or so. The guy grabs his coworker by the collar and starts yelling at him, demanding that he pay him back. His coworker begs him to just give him more time and that he would pay. But what does the guy do? He calls the cops and has his co-worker arrested until he can pay him back!!
But some other people in the office see everything that happens (the millions of dollars forgiven and then this drama that unfolds over by the break room) and they go and tell the CEO, “so we know you just forgave all of Dan’s debt, but he just had Bill arrested for not paying him back for $275”.
The CEO is infuriated and calls Dan back into his office. “I just forgave several million dollars that you owed me! Why did you not also forgive Bill of $275 dollars that he borrowed??” Furious, the CEO had Dan put in jail until he could pay his debt. (Matthew 18: 21-35)
This story comes from Matthew 18 (21-35) and the point of it is that if God has forgiven ALL OUR SINS how can we possibly not forgive a few sins that others have committed against us?
After this talk I knew I had some work to do in my heart. While the worship music played and created a space for response, I slid out of my chair and instead sat on the floor in front of it. I sat there and held my knees and closed my eyes and adjusted my diver’s gear as I plunged into the depths of my own heart. Many of you know my story and the exact ways that people have hurt me. You know that the scars run so deep that they bled out of my body, through my fingertips and into my art before I even realized that I was processing so much pain and heartbreak. I sat there for a long time. I cast my diver’s light on the ruins in my heart- each sunken stone sculpture and dilapidated shipwreck. I named the people I needed to forgive. I carefully examined each of the things that had happened. One of my squadmates came and sat with me, to encourage me and love on me and help to lift the weight I was trying to pull from the sand. I told her my story and she gave me the biggest hug and prayed with me.
Giving voice to these things gave the forgiveness more power
And as I stood to worship, stretching out my arms to hand these moss-covered shipwrecks to the Lord, I closed my eyes and found myself standing in a deep pool of water inside of a cave. Not inside the ocean that is my heart mind you, but somewhere else, somewhere bigger. I found that forgiveness was like stepping beyond a barrier or a line that I never thought I would be able to cross. I found myself stepping into a deeper place than I had ever imagined. God promised to take me to new places, and I knew that I would be able to go. I knew that if I could walk in this spirit of obedience- the spirit that gave me the capacity to forgive the unforgivable, then I could do anything.
As all of this flowed over me I found myself sobbing uncontrollably. Shoulders shaking, hot tears pouring down my face. My friend pulled me into a tight embrace and just held me while I sobbed into her flannel.
Usually the bigger something is, the heavier it is. Forgiveness is the opposite. You could say that forgiveness is just an action- that it is the action of casting off heavy things- and that is true. But I like to think of forgiveness as an object. And when you grab hold of it, it is so light that it will lift you up and over the tops of all the trees until you can see how small everything really is.
11. What the Lord was speaking over me
Training camp was an incredible experience that stretched across so many moments and topics and themes. But as I got to spend all this time with my squad and with the Lord, I found a common thread.
During some of the worship sessions the mentors and trainers would stand in the back of the room praying for us. They would come and lay hands on specific people as they felt led by the Spirit.
On the second or third day of Training Camp someone came and put her hand on my shoulder to say something. She had been praying for the group as a whole and said that I had been specifically pointed out to her. She heard the Lord saying of me, “She is mine. Not because her parents are Christians, or because she grew up in the church, but because I chose her.”
Woah. First of all that person didn’t know those things about me, Second of all, while that story may also apply to other people on my squad, I have many squadmates with testimonies that differ drastically from mine. So how did she know that this was so dead on and would touch my heart so deeply? She didn’t. She just listened and obeyed.
This fell in line with what I felt the Lord speaking over me all of training camp. Over and over again whenever I sought instructions on what God wanted me to do or hear I would find Him saying, “Be still with me.” I found that God just wanted me to sit in His presence, that I am His and He delights to just be with me.
Psalms 46:10 says
“Be still and know that I am God”
One of the days at training camp we actually had the opportunity to practice Sabbath rest- with over six hours blocked out for us to get in the presence of God, however that looked for each one of us. I found myself lying on the ground in a small clearing in the woods, looking up at the trees and the patch of blue sky that they framed. God reminded me how much I love the forest, and as I lay there in the dirt, looking up at the trees, God showed me something kind of funny:
Trees know how to worship. I watched the trees gently swaying back and forth. They stand there, and they reach their arms (branches) to heaven and they just are themselves. They don’t try and be something they’re not and they don’t worry about what they are going to do next. As you go about your day, remember that God delights in you. He made you to be exactly the way you are and he LOVES you. Take refuge in Him. Find what it looks like for you to get into the presence of God and stay there.
Much Love,
Hattie
