Holy Spirit Preparing Us

Where and What
Presently I am with my squad (23 Racers + 3 Squad Leaders who have done the World Race before) in Gainesville, GA tent camping on the Adventures in Missions training grounds. We are in our second week of training and will launch for Guatemala on September 18th!

How God is at Work

Just a couple weeks before training camp, our only male squad leader called me up and basically said, “You know already that I’m taking a job elsewhere, so I won’t be going with you. And the other men who were signed up for your trip deferred to January. You’ll be the only guy.” After that I asked several people to start praying that I would meet local men in each country and develop good relationships with them, and that another man would join our Squad–as well as another male squad leader, if it’s God’s will. Apparently it was His will! Only about a week before training started, God called a young man on the service team who has done the World Race before to step into the squad leader role. The timing was perfect for his lease, but he had to make the courageous step to leave his job, family, and Friends. Also, Jacob joined the squad! He and I will be together on the same team throughout the next 11 months. Jacob’s call was also sudden and God-breathed: he raised the necessary support within 2 weeks!

Don’t get me wrong, I would feel right at home being the only guy. A challenge with that, however, is that I have a lot of love to pour out on others, and it can take a lot of time and trust-building for women to receive that well from me or any man. I serve a deity who is love itself (1 John 4:8 & 4:16), and His Son is love made flesh; when I go long periods without being able to safely express a lot of love, I feel as though I lose parts of myself. Thankfully, Jacob and I have already been intentional about establishing a loving brotherhood. There was also a fun moment today in which perhaps God intervened: during worship, I saw one of my squadmates sit down next to you another squadmate and wrap her arm around her, rubbing her back. I thought to myself, “I’m yearning to show affection freely like that.” Moments later, a tiny little dog (probably as small as my rabbit) prances through the door of the training center right over to me, and I spent the next 10 minutes petting the happy little guy.

The Holy Spirit has really been at work on the campus over the past week, and in a lot of ways that are quite new to many people on the squad. I have a couple quick stories to illustrate this. First, a speaker paused in the middle of his sermon and said, “I’m hearing the name Erica. Is anyone here named Erica? Does anyone here have a sister named Erica?” Out of 200 people in the audience, no one was named Erica, and only Amanda had a sister named Erica. Amanda stood up and 200 of us prayed for her sister for a minute, then we moved on. Turns out that Erica had a brain condition causing chronic discomfort, and the day after we all prayed for her, she called Amanda to say she did not have a headache for the first day in a year! There is also a guy on campus we all prayed for who had Tourette’s syndrome for 11 years and wanted to be free from it. This morning he sort of timidly announced into the mic, for all to hear, that he hasn’t had any tics since the night we prayed for him last week!

What is it really like out there?
In this section of my blog, I will regularly try to include details about experiencing life in each place. As for the camp in Georgia, there are trees all around and too many insects. There are 7 squads here going on various trips in the near future (our 11-month commitment is the longest). We all worship together daily, have large group training sessions and/or sermons, and squad breakout sessions and debriefs, among other activities. We’re living out of tents, hand washing clothes, and taking bucket showers (or no showers) on days our squad is not on the hot shower rotation. We have chores and a campus cleanup rotation to help maintain the grounds as a community.

What do you want to hear? Your questions and comments are always appreciated, and they help me know people are following along and praying for me. If there is anything you want to know, please ask so I have the opportunity to share more!

The entirety of this blog and its contents were written and published without any AI assistance.