Radically committed disciples
The title pretty much explains it all. Radically committed. “AIM is called to raise up a generation of radically committed disciples.” This past week in Gainesville, Georgia I got to meet part of that generation! It was just such an awesome sight: Boys and girls who are on fire for God and know the right balance of fun and seriousness. Everyone is hilarious, crazy, unique, loving, and part of my family from now on. I feel so blessed to be spending the next 9 months with them!
After flying into the Atlanta airport, we went on a journey to find the church we were meeting at. This consisted of taking a couple different trains, a bus, and walking several blocks. We spent 10 hrs evangelizing and “sleeping” on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia. We did some interesting team builders, such as having the 40 or so of us hold hands in a circle and run to the 2nd stop sign we could see and back, obstacle courses, and throwing around filled nalgenes! We prophesized, healed a teammate’s throat and re-discovered who God is to us! There was only one hospital run the whole week, 2 swollen eyes, hundreds of bug bites and stings, and only 30 calls to the local police department on us for naively jumping off a bridge! But overall, it was a totally moving week.
Before coming into training camp, I was in a bit of a dry spot with Jesus…but everything I learned there brought a monsoon to my faith! I suppose that could be taken literally because I cried more than I ever have in 5 days time! Things I thought I had already given to God were finally gotten rid of and surrendered. All I can really say is praise God!
While in Georgia on AIM’s base, my teammates and I found out where we will spending our outreach period! My team (Myles Long, Garret Berkley, Jenny Christensen, and Rebecca Florke) and I will be heading to South Africa in late November, early December! Words cannot explain how excited I am for this! A lot of you know that I was expecting to go to Swaziland, but God didn’t need me there. While I was at camp, I came to this conclusion: God put Swaziland on my heart so I could give it up. I needed to put my faith in Him that he would take me where He wanted me, not where silly old me wanted to be! After being assigned to South Africa, I really am starting to fall in love with the country. Although the country has modern cities, South Africa is in dyer need of Jesus.
My teammate, Rebecca, found this interesting fact: The world’s first heart transplant was done in South Africa in 1967 by Dr. Chris Barnard. Myles, another one of my teammates had this to say about that: We’re totally going to be doing heart transplants if you know what I mean.
So, in conclusion traing camp was fantastic, awesome, enjoyable, crazy, lively, amazing, and exciting (Yes, I did look up a lot of these words in a thessarus). Even though I was able to straighten things up with The Big Guy in the sky, the Enemy is still trying to break me down- key word, TRYING! Some of the lies he is feeding me are: Swaziland is where you should be, your teammates don’t love you, and your friends at home have moved on since you are spending the next 8 months out of the country. Luckily, I have weapons against him. But, nevertheless, please be praying that I can stay aware to what are lies and what are truth.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose”
Romans 8:28
