Week 1

Day 1 of Parent Launch: Tents

I am not a camper. At. All. The mere sight of a tiny spider gives me a heart attack.
On drop off day, I was whisked away to the campsite. I set up my own tent (I had previously practiced in my backyard in preparation). Being the first one to set up and having displayed my obvious outdoorsmanship, other people asked for me help. Within five minutes of getting to the AIM base, God was challenging and making me practice new skills. The night was spent crying and praying with parents.

Day 2 of Parent Launch: Crying. A lot.
Sunday morning we got to have lunch with our parents off campus before they dropped us off officially. All throughout lunch, I kept avoiding eye contact with my mom because I knew I would burst into a teary puddle in the middle of a Mellow Mushroom.
I knew that saying goodbye to my family would be the hardest part for me, but no words could describe the heartache of that “one last hug”.

Day 3 (But really Day 1); Food!
Our schedule throughout the week was very easy to remember. Breakfast, worship, session, Squad meeting, lunch, session, squad meeting, dinner, chores, and finally sleep. The first three days of Week 1 pleasantly surprised me with how good the food was. Buffalo wraps, protein bowls, oatmeal bars, nachos! But that all changed on day 3.

Day 2: Sky
The picture above was taken Tuesday morning before session

Day 3: Lunch.
The day was going normal; breakfast, worship, session, etc. Then we were hit with lunch. What most people would consider a light afternoon snack was what we were supposed to be running for the next 4 hours. After that lunch, they started introducing more cultural food for meal time to get us used to foods in the countries we’ll be visiting. Some food was surprisingly amazing, some food was just fuel for the day. I knew that God wanted to remind us of how lucky we have it here in the West. We can pick what we want for food, when we want our food, how we want our food. We don’t realize how blessed we are until that blessing is taken away.

Day 2ish and 4: Bucket showers
Picture this.
A small wooden shack in the middle of the forest. Home Depot gallon buckets near a small hose attached to the shed. You walk in and see 8 small “stalls” lined nicely in two rows. The “stalls” are little 3ft by 3ft closest with a thin shower curtain as the only protection for your body. To get clean, you take 1 bucket, fill it with freezing hose water, go into the closest that is also home to a wasp nest, and dump the water on yourself using a measuring cup to scoop. Sounds fun, right?
I loved it. In the Georgia heat, the cold water was so wonderful and the 7 other girls in the shed with you laughing makes that whole situation seem less lonely.

Day 5: SQUAD WARS!!!
Everything stops on Squad Wars day. Your whole squad gets decked out in your colors, you chant back and forth with the other squads, and you sweat a lot. Much like a field day combined with a church talent show, you face off against the other teams in games, dance battles, and who can be the loudest (W Squad, obviously). I ran, I hula hooped for 10 minutes, and at the end of it all, I got to lead my squad in a song and dance that I had created. It was phenomenal.

Choosing to go on the Race meant I had to give up things I really love. My friends, singing and dancing, being part of a community. But God is so good. He took those things and increased them tenfold and put them here in the middle of nowhere Gainesville. And I couldn’t be happier.