Picture this: it's 3:32 in the morning, you wake up and realize your feet are in a puddle of water. That's right, your tent is leaking, your hair never dried from your shower, and there's a cricket on your pillow. Welcome to training camp! The sweet city of Gainesville, Georgia has been our home for the two weeks as we've begun our training for the World Race. A typical day at training camp looks like breakfast at 8am, worship, bible study, team building, lunch, practical training (evangelism, safety, insurance, culture) personal time, more team building, supper, and off to our sleeping bags. Built into the schedule includes time to bucket shower or hand wash our laundry, every three days or so. We all realized pretty quickly how difficult it is to produce clean laundry with incessant rain. Needless to say, my squad, all of our clothes, and everything we own smells. Did I mention we're using portapotties? No flushing ladies and gents. Woohoo.

Now let's get to the redeeming factors, which so greatly overcome the difficulties. My squad is a group of 20 women and 7 men. We are mature, eager to grow, loving, and committed to each other and to the Lord. None of us had met before we arrived in Gainesville, but in the last 2 weeks, we have grown together so quickly and we know things about each other that most people have never shared with lifelong friends or family members. We figured out pretty quickly who snores (Kevin), who sleeps in until the last minute (Elijah), and who is the best at braiding hair (Morgan). My sanctification is so beautifully spurred on by these 27 people. In the last two weeks, I have began to put spiritual disciplines in place in my day to day life that I aim to continue for the rest of my life. I am learning so much about living a life of ministry, 24/7, that no matter where we are or what we're doing, ministry should be a habit of every Christian's life. The same goes for prayer. How can we expect to deepen our relationships with Jesus if we don't stay in communication with Him? We are definitely a praying squad. We consistently pour out our hearts to each other, speak life over each other, and lay hands on each other. A few nights ago, we took turns one by one with our squad mentor Lindsey, signing the World Race contract and taking communion to lay a foundation of devotion to the World Race and to the ultimate race Christ has laid before us.

We got the amazing privilege of sleeping on the concrete floor of the pavilion last night and wow, am I thankful! We're trying to pack our things a little bit better than we did the first time, make a last minute laundry run, and enjoy the time as a whole squad before we split into teams and fly to Guatemala! More to come on my blog about my team of 5, our ministry in Guatemala, where we'll be living, and so much more! I am so thankful for those of you following along with me. Please pray for our travel day to Guatemala, for safety, for health, and that we will press in to every opportunity the Lord has for us to know Him and to make Him known. He is so good!!!! If you are interested in supporting other racers on my squad or team who are still fundraising, or you'd just like to pray more specifically please reach out to me!

Your sister in Christ,

Caroline

P squad at squad wars, where we took second place out of 5 squads!