Week 1 has been a whirlwind. At the very beginning, it was harder than I ever anticipated. Friday was launch day, my birthday, travel day, and I was running on one hour of sleep. When I arrived, I was questioning everything--wondering if I could do this for nine months and if I had made a big mistake in choosing this. While it was incredibly difficult saying goodbye to my family and accepting the fact that I committed to this until May, I quickly realized this is going to be an amazing experience.

I've been blessed with the best squadmates and leaders (shoutout Q-squad!!). Our days have been filled with laughter, sweat, worship, bucket showers, and so much learning.

Some highlights/significant events:

• Celebrated my birthday with my squad!! Did the chicken dance and was surprised with a top tier chocolate cake. It was a couple days late, but actually came at the perfect time and truly meant so much to me!

• Lake day!! Our wonderful coaches, Don and Heather planned this for us! We spent time in prayer with our teams, they shared their testimonies with us, and then we swam in the very warm lake.

• Hiked a mountain!! We hiked Mt Yonah with all three gap year squads (about 90 people!) which involved 4.4miles and 1570ft elevation gain. I’m a big hiker and this was definitely a challenge with the lack of sleep and heat. I probably sweat more than I have in about 7 years—it was wild. But the view was so worth it!! We also got to cook and eat dinner at the summit :)

• Squad wars!! Our last day, all six squads went head to head in a series of heated competitions. This included a dance battle in which our squad took the song, “Real in Rio” from Rio, rewrote some lyrics to match our Training Camp experience, and choreographed an epic dance. Complete with stunts, drumming, and sun glasses. 

• Bucket laundry/showers!! We washed all our clothes in 5 gallon Home Depot buckets (which takes way longer to dry in Georgia humidity than Colorado btw). I also took a “bucket shower” each day we weren’t in the scheduled shower units which was adventurous (many spiders) and refreshing. It was, however, more adventurous and less refreshing when our spicket stopped working and we had to walk over a few hills to fetch our water. This experience definitely made me more grateful for washing machines, but I also genuinely enjoyed these tasks!

• The sunsets!!

• Last but not least, the Lord is MOVING (as always :) I loved starting each day with a squad devotional and learning so much from all the guest speakers. At pretty much any given time, campus was filled with songs of worship, either all together or in smaller groups of people with their own instruments. Even in my own heart, I can really see how even these fleshly difficult circumstances spark a greater reliance on God. My whole squad is so incredibly encouraging and loving and I’m so grateful for how God put our team together!

COMING UP:

My squad is heading to a week of domestic ministry in Adrian, GA. More updates to come :)

Prayer requests:

• Health! Please be praying for strength as most of my team is currently recovering from a cold.

• Open hearts! We want to love the people where we are going well!

• Obedience! We want to serve well and seek opportunities for ministry in everything we do. Pray for ministry opportunities as well as the obedience to say yes to them!

• Sleep! I honestly have had a really hard time sleeping and it’s catching up to me. Please pray for ease and quality of sleep!

• Strengthened team connections! We already have so many wonderful relationships, but please pray that the Lord will bring continued unity so we can serve Him well!

Ok if you made it this far, thanks for reading!!

Anna :)