Week 1 – Check

One week down and it already feels like home. I have officially been away from home for a week and I have already grown so much in my relationship with the Lord and with my fellow squad mates. We keep on commenting on how although we’ve only known each other for 6ish days we have gone deeper than we have gone with life long friends and truly feel like siblings. I guess 24 hours together will do that to ya. But for all those who are worried about my well being I am doing fantastic. I love it here. To give you a picture of what our daily schedule is I will walk you through a day. 

    7am: wake up in my tent (just me and my stuff) and do quiet time with the Lord until Breakfast 

    8am: Breakfast (we’ve had pancakes a couple times but usually just oatmeal or cereal)

    9am: Worship (I’m telling you this is the most Spirit filled worship I have ever experienced 

    10:15am: Session (different speakers talking to us, so much information)

    12:30pm: Lunch (all sorts of things from curry to hamburgers) and then hangout time 

2:15pm: Session 

4:30pm: Squad Discussion Time 

6:00pm: Dinner. Then free time where we chat and play games 

9:00pm: Squad Worship (optional)

10:30pm: Going to bed in tent. 

And then we do the same thing the next day. And it is so much fun. And I know you are all curious. I’ve taken two bucket showers. One Monday and one Thursday. What’s a bucket shower you may be asking yourself, you take a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with hose water and clean yourself. And laundry you ask? A different 5 gallon bucket with laundry detergent and you wash them by hand and then throw them on the clothes line. I’ve done that once. Quite fun if you ask me. Grandpa you’d be proud, I thought a couple people to play cribbage. Camp friends you’d be happy to know that we are loving the “he’s perfect in every way but …” The ones we are caught on is the muffin baby one. 

Anyways, this is what daily life looks like and on top of it all the Lord is working in such cool ways. This is an awesome testimony so listen up. It’s Wednesday night, I’m feeling like I need prayer for my back (which has been hurting for the past year) but I’ll find the courage to do that another day. At this point I don’t really believe the Lord has the power to do that but I prayed that the Lord could help my disbelief. A group of about 15 of us are worshipping and my friend Sydney is jumping up and down and she falls and thinks she breaks her ankle. She’s broken it before and thinks its the same. We all freak out, get some leaders to come and before we do anything else we try healing prayer. She’ll probably, or already has posted a blog on this sydneyhelton.theworldrace.org so go read that if you want more information but recap is that her ankle was completely healed. Wow God, ok. That was weird. I have heard stories of this happening but never in front of my own two eyes. I go to bed that night confused. Next morning one of our leaders Drew tells us about healing prayer he has done for people. Ok God, I’m starting to get it. Still weird. Next day comes along, Friday morning, the end of worship and someone asked if anyone needed healing prayer. I didn’t want to go up there but I felt this very strong nudge to go up there. So I did. I prayed for someone. It felt weird, not exactly sure what happened. Now its my turn. Hands are placed on me and people start praying. I feel this intense heat in my back. Like I’d never felt before. And when they take their hands off me I feel this freedom in my shoulders I had never felt before. I could move them freely. And with that I had a strong layer of peace wash over me. A peace that told me I would be fully healed one day. Whenever I think that thought the pain goes completely away. It’s like God is showing me a glimpse of what it will look like. And you may think this is weird. I get it. I thought it was weird and I was right there. But for me personally, God has taken power over my doubts. Here’s where it gets even cooler. When you get prayed for you get to pray for the next person. So I take this man’s hand, he has been battling depression, struggling to find joy. So I started praying over him. I feel powerful. I have never used this power that the Lord gives us all to heal someone. And he said afterwards that immense amounts of joy washed over him when we finished praying. We cried together on stage. It was so powerful. And now whenever I see him around camp he looks so joyful. Whereas before when I saw him he looked sad and lost. So praise the Lord for these things and the way he is already at work. 

Now some funny updates:

1. Very humid here but I’m doing all right with it 

2. There has been a tropical storm down here in GA so we are getting the rain effects of it. Absolute down poor for very long periods of time. Luckily the tent has stayed dry. Last night I was woken up at 4am because the rain was so loud on my tent. 

3. Sorry family and friends for not texting. I haven’t been on my phone for the past 4 days and that was a conscious decision on my part to be fully present here. I’ll call home soon 

4. I tree branch fell on my tent yesterday morning when I was in it and it was scary. All is fine but it was very large and I thought it was going to rip my tent. 

5. Bugs here are large and I’m not a huge fan. 

6. There are at least 6 people from Spokane here which is so weird because we are on opposite sides of the country. I would say it is the city where the most people are from here. 

I hope you are all doing well, thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Prayers are always welcome. I’m praying for you all at home as life starts to pick up. 

With Love, 

Lauren