Where do I even begin? I’ve been in Gainesville at the AIM base for a little over a month now. That consists of over a month of porta-potties, bucket showers/shipping container showers, LOTS of bugs, Georgia’s bipolar weather (because why should I expect anything less?), among lots of other things. The thing is that it’s also consisted of a whole lot of growth (spiritually/emotionally/physically), incredible relationships I know I’ll have for the rest of my life, and the most spectacular memories, but it’s also been incredibly difficult. There’s much to get used to when you’re living in the same place, talking to the same people, and doing the same things, yet it’s incredible how much the Lord works through us at the most unexpected times. I’ve learned more about myself here than at any other point in my life, and for that, I couldn’t be more grateful (especially when I remember that it has literally been a month out of nine… that’s mind-blowing.)
I just wanted to get on and give an update of what life has been like, so we’ll just go through a couple of things that have happened/more info for y’all to know about.
This here is my team. You can call us Barefeet.. yes, I know it’s an odd name, I’ll elaborate more on that later on but it consists of a group of incredible women that I’m surrounded by daily. These are the women that I’ll be doing life side by side with for the next 8 months (still mind-blowing). They are incredible women of God who pursue the Lord whole-heartedly and I couldn’t be more grateful to be on this team. Our team leader who will be with us for these next couple of months (plus hopefully a little bit while we’re on the field as well) is the one and only Lauren Kobe who is an incredibly strong human being and a light to have in your life, to say the least. And then we’ve got the one and only Regan Horn who is our Squad Leader and will be with us for the full 9 months. There are no words for how to describe this woman. Long story short, we’re very similar. It’s scary. That’s all you need to know for now.
The last little update, for now, is that we’ll be driving over to Foley, Alabama on October 31st to do some disaster relief for residents that were impacted by Hurricane Laura. I personally am incredibly excited 1. To be out and serving in any way that we possibly can (that’s definitely exciting news when you have a hundred and something missionaries in training who are in one place with their hearts on fire to serve the Lord) 2. That this is the ministry we’re serving because it’s so close to home and it’s incredible when we come to the realization that there is so much work to be done right next to us. So that’s something that we’re very much looking forward to. We’ll be in Foley for a week with the hopes of possibly extending that time.
I want to dive more into the nitty-gritty of all things training camp in my next blog but this should be it for now. This place is crazy. The Lord is moving. God is good. Love y’all.
Oh also here are some random pictures because why not?
This is from the day we left for Gainsville (mine, Sofia, Taylor, and JP’s families had a random dinner before we headed out)
This is a picture of right when we started the fitness hike (hardest thing I’ve ever done by far (mentally, physically, and emotionally) that I may elaborate on some more later on)
We bucket showered for 2 weeks before the shipping container showers were done being built and this is what I would see when I went down to dunk my hair (good memories)
These are the men on our squad (Payton, JP, and Josh) who are the incredible brothers that we get the honor to walk alongside for the next 8 months. Great guys. Us women have a whole lot of fun and learn a lot from them day by day.
Yay for laundry days… We do laundry every Wednesday by filling up 2 buckets (1 with detergent and the other as a rinse bucket) and then hang them to dry on the lines (sometimes they don’t and get stinky so you have to wash them again the next week but that’s just a part of life) It’s a good time.
We had 3 people shave their heads (one being my Team Leader Lauren–This is the video of hers, highly highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-KjNnXoPjY&t=12s) in addition to 5 other haircuts all in one day. Yep, our squad is crazy.
Alright well, that’s all for now. Will update and post more soon!
