Week 2- (pt. 1) Training Camp!

This week we did a marketplace scenario when the leaders and staff all dressed up and set up tables of food (with leftovers from the week), and acted as if we were in India. We were split into our teams, given a certain amount of money, and had to use the currency of the country. We wore our backpacks on our front to avoid getting stolen from and the goal was to get dinner for the five of us. My team ended up getting chicken tenders, fried rice, and fries. People were also evangelizing to the leaders/staff who were role playing beggars, drug dealers, police, etc. Debriefing later was interesting because we talked about where is the line between sharing the Gospel and overstepping boundaries or whatever else, which is something I had a lot of questions about. We talked about how there are always opportunities to share His Word and we can seek that out with the Holy Spirit leading us. We also talked about how the heart of it all is love and sometimes the best way to tell people about Jesus is simply through loving them as He would!

We did another scenario where we acted as if we were in Nepal staying at a host family’s place, so we had to pack our day things and sleeping stuff all up to leave. We then had to take all of that and squish into two vans, it was tight haha. We then were given dried sardines to eat (and it is very rude to refuse food from your host, so yummm then) and we slept in the training center which is harder ground than the dirt outside haha.

We have been playing lots of games and spending time with our squad. We have played basketball, soccer, spikeball, and LOTS of card games.

We got to receive our roles on our teams! The roles are storytelling (blogging and social media), beauty for ashes (a women’s program), worship (organizing and leading), hospitality (organizing ways to celebrate and connecting with hosts), logistics (travel plans), and treasurer (money). I got chosen for hospitality which I’m so excited about! One of my favorite verses has always been Hebrews 13:2 “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by doing so you may show hospitality to angels without knowing.” One thing about the Winingham house is that we always have people over and everyone is welcome to be part of our family, and I’m excited carry that over to World Race! As hospitality, we are in charge of planning celebrations for birthdays and holidays, being point for hosts in other countries for good or bad feedback, and finding ways to lift squad spirits in hard times.

Another cool thing we did was “Prayer Watch” which was 12 hours of prayer from 8pm-8am. Our squad signed up for different time slots, but there were always at least three people awake together in prayer or worship or simply spending time in the Bible. One guy in my group chose to stay up all night haha, I ended up being there from 10pm-4am, and then slept until our next thing at 8am. I had never done anything like that before and it was so unique and beautiful. There are so many things to talk to God about and some times we forget that, so it was good to just sit down and be still. We also played guitar and sang worship songs a couple of times throughout the night:)

this was the first half of week 2! I’ll post again later for the second half!