Learning, Growing, and Hiking

Another week has passed and we’ve officially finished all of training camp! The Lord has been so good and been teaching me so much over this time! I can’t even express how thankful I am for this community and for the Lords goodness!

This week has been filled with so many different sessions and so much learning! We started the week with a session on the validity of the Bible and the physical evidence that supports it. Taking a good look at a what’s actually inside the Bible and the history around it. We also broke it way down to get a solid, firm foundation of how the bible was written and what’s inside it. It was really good to get a refresher and some resources to be able to defend the Bible well!

We spent the rest of the week learning about spiritual warfare and how to combat it. Learning the truth and the tools we need to be able to fight well! Up until now I always knew and believed there was a spiritual battle but because no one ever really talks about the reality of spiritual warfare I hadn’t ever fully grasped it and seen how vulnerable I’ve been to the enemy! Ephesians 6:10 says “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”As Christian’s the most dangerous thing we can do is to pretend that there is no battle, which makes us so vulnerable to the devils schemes. We’ve been recruited by the one true God and the reality is that the enemy is looking for any open doors and opportunities he can find to speak lies and distract us. If this week has taught me anything it’s to be on guard against the enemy and to hold fast to the truth of God! We’ve learned how to continually renew our minds and close any doors that might be an opening for the devil! Even though there is a battle we have no reason to fear because we already have the victory in Christ; but that doesn’t mean we can walk around in denial of the spiritual battle that’s going on!

While we had a lot of sessions and learning this week we also had some more physical training as well! On Thursday we packed up our stuff for the night and hiked a local mountain called Mt.Yonah it was two miles of pretty much straight incline. It was incredibly hard and challenging but the view we got to see when we got up there was so worth it! The Lord is so good and the beauty of his creation points to him! I’ve always loved mountains and they’ve always reminded me of the Lords greatness and majesty; getting to see his creation and the sunset from on top of a mountain was insane! Not to mention how good it felt to accomplish getting up there!

Seeing the beauty of God’s creation from on top of the mountain was amazing but God also blessed us with an amazing full double rainbow earlier in the week! The beginning of this week started off pretty rough with lots of rain, cold weather, and sickness but on Wednesday night during dinner the sun came out and we were blessed with a rainbow! It was such a good reminder of God’s goodness and faithfulness, even when things are hard he’s right there! It gave us a whole lot of joy and just such a good reminder of the Lord’s beauty!

Another thing that we did this week was come up with team names! We spent a lot of time thinking and praying about what our name should be and what the Lord was speaking over our team! Jubilee, a word that our team leader Libby felt like the Lord was really speaking over us this summer! Now you might be wondering what Jubilee means. Jubilee was a year of celebration, when people were forgiven of their debts and set free, a year filled with lots of joy. We’ve really felt like the Lord is speaking joy and freedom over our team, like we’re in our year of jubilee!

There’s so much more to share but this is already so long! I’ll wrap it up with some things we have coming up! Tomorrow we leave for our domestic missions which is so exciting! We’ll be going to North Carolina for the week to partner with a college up there and help with their ministry! Some of the things we’ll be doing there include some manual labor/landscaping, running a boys camp, and working with a children’s home/orphanage.

Prayers for the week would be for safety as we travel to North Carolina and for the ministry we’ll be doing there! Prayers that our hearts would continue to be so open to the Lord and that we’d continue to learn and grow well! Prayers that we’d continue to grow and find community in one another especially as homesickness starts to creep in! Prayers for continued strength and energy as we are starting to get tired!

I’m so thankful for all your prayers and support! Thank you for taking the time to read this and following along! If you have any thoughts or questions leave a comment or message me!

Sincerely,

Emilee

Sitting on the mountain

Team Jubilee!

The Full Rainbow!

The view!!

Training, Praying, and Evangelizing

It’s hard to believe we’ve already been at training for two weeks, it’s been such an amazing time! This last week has been so busy and filled with so much of God’s goodness and joy! There’s so many things to write about but for the sake of time I’ll just talk about a few!

First off I want to explain a little bit about our set up at training to give more context for the future! To start with I’m part of a squad that consists of 35 people (including leaders) that are all traveling to the same countries at the same time. From there we’re split into 5 smaller teams of 4-7 people. These teams are the people we’ll be doing everyday life and ministry with. I’m so blessed to have an amazing squad and I love each of them so much!

While everything is so good and I’ve loved so much I think one of my favorite things we do is team prayer! Everyday at 2 o’clock we split off into our teams and we pray for 30 minutes! Now we don’t always spend the full 30 minutes praying, sometimes we talk with one another and lift up prayer requests for part of the time but it’s always so good! Sometimes we’ll pray for the person next to us, lift up specific needs we see, do waterfall prayer (my new favorite thing) or just pray by ourselves! I think it’s so cool to just pause and take some time with the Lord in the middle of the day! It’s such a good time to reset your focus on him and just continue to hand him the rest of the day! It’s such a small and hard practice to implicate but so worth it!

Another big thing we did this week was street evangelism! This last Friday our leaders took us off campus and we split into teams of two and just walked around the square praying for people! To be honest it was super nerve wracking and scary at first, approaching strangers and talking to them is not in my wheel house but after we finally worked up the courage to talk to people it was really good! We didn’t have to much conversation but we did get to pray over everyone we talked to! It’s so clear to see that people are hungry for the Lord even if they don’t realize it!

One more thing that the Lord has really been doing in my life is teaching me how to spend time with him and to listen for when he’s speaking to me! The Lord speaks to everyone in different ways and he’s so very present in every moment! It takes time and practice to really hear the Lord’s voice and a lot of discernment to know whether or not it’s him! How amazing is it that the God who literally created everything has a relationship and longs to speak with us?

There’s so much more that I’d love to share but this is already so long so I’ll just give out some ways you can be praying for me and my squad and some things that we have coming up! This week is our last week of training before we head off for domestic missions so prayer that we’d be able to prepare well for that! We also have some big training scenarios this week so prayers that we’d have strength and energy to do those well! Also we had some other squads leave for the field this weekend so prayers for safety as they travel!

Thank you for all your support and for taking the time to read this!!

Our Squad!!

My Twin

Headed out to evangelize

Movie Night (in the tents)

Trip to Walmart

Hanging in the hammocks

A Week Like No Other

Wow! This last week has been absolutely crazy but so so good! I’ll try to recap it the best that I can but it’s been so busy! To start we got here last Saturday and I finally got to meet everyone on my squad! I already love every single one of them so much and we really are just one big family! As far as the rest of training camp goes it has been super challenging and hard but it’s preparing us for the field so the challenges are so worth it! 

Our everyday life is us sleeping in tents which might not sound amazing but is actually so fun once you get used to it! We wash our own laundry in buckets and hang it up to dry. We’ve also had the blessing of learning to take bucket showers! Bucket showers are literally where you fill a bucket with water and then use a little cup to dump it on you. I know that might not sound like a blessing but it’s actually so fun and so refreshing after being all hot and sweaty! We also have lots of sessions everyday where we’ve been able to learn a lot of things about the Holy Spirit, unity, our identity as Christian’s, and what truth is. 

One of my favorite things that we do is worship! I’ve always loved worship and had a heart for it but the worship here is just so different and free! They’re very intentional to leave space for the Holy Spirit to move and work and to just let people worship in whatever way they want to! That can look so different for everyone from standing, to kneeling, to dancing, and shouting. It’s incredible to see so many young adults absolutely on fire for the Lord and worshipping him with their everything! 

While this is more of the daily stuff we do we’ve also done lots of crazy scenarios to really prepare us for life on the field. Our first scenario was packing up all of our stuff early in the morning for a pretend travel day. What we didn’t know was that half of our stuff would get “lost” at the airport and those that still had their stuff would have to share with those that didn’t have anything. This was actually pretty fun and helped us bond a lot! We also did a culture day where we had to pretend we were in Indonesia and dress/act like that all day. We wore long skirts/dresses for girls and pants for guys. With culture day all our meals were from other countries so for a Guatemalan breakfast we had eggs, beans, tortilla chips, and plantains. Lunch was an African favorite jam and cheeses sandwiches, and dinner was an India coconut chicken curry. Yesterday we had a 2 hour women’s physical fitness activity that was incredibly challenging but really strengthened our squad as a whole! 

The Lord has been so so good this week and I’ve grown so much in my relationship with him! It’s hard to believe it’s only been a week! We’ve talked a lot about being set on fire for the Lord and I truly feel set on fire! We’ve also felt so clearly that the Lord has anointed our squad with a crazy joy for the Lord which is so beautiful and evident! 

Prayers requests for this week would be for strength to continue to train and to learn! For rest and good health as many of us (including me) are getting sick. Prayers that the Lord would continue to keep the fire burning in us and keep our squad joyful! 

Your prayers mean so much to me! Thank you for reading and following along! 

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Laundry

Guate breakfast 

Squad church