“If I say, “My foot is slipping,” your faithful love will support me, Lord. When I am filled with cares, your comfort brings me joy.”

Psalms 94:18-19 (CSB)

Heyoooooo!! It’s another blog post day!! It’s crazy to me that this is my 6th blog post already!! I hope you’re excited for this one cause this one is a big deal… I HAVE ALREADY LAUNCHED!! In fact, tomorrow marks exactly one week that I have been living in Gainesville, Georgia, where my squad has been at training camp!! So that’s what I am going to be talking about: training camp reflection!! Training camp is not done yet; I’ll be here until September 6th, which is when I’ll be heading to domestic ministries in Adrien, Georgia. But for now, I will tell you guys about what has happened so far! So, let’s talk about that!!

Training camp has by far been the most challenging, yet also most rewarding week of my life. I haven’t found a single problem with anyone that I have met so far because everybody is so kind and clearly loves Jesus greatly. I already love my squad, leaders, and mentors so much, and I cannot wait to spend the next 9 months with all of them!!

But to be completely honest, as great as it has been. I have also been struggling quite a bit too. Before getting here, I truly believed that 9 months was going to be a breeze! Like 9 months, no problem. But once the first night came, the sky got dark, things got quiet, and I lay down in my tent for the first time. It was just me and my thoughts. At that point, things were finally starting to feel real for me. I don’t know if I really liked that haha. Cause then I opened my phone and found a countdown: 258 until going home. It wasn’t 50 more days until leaving anymore. It was 258 more days until going home. Seeing that number made my heart sink. I started questioning why I even signed up in the first place! Like you’re telling me I can’t hug my own family for 258 days..? I had to have made a mistake.

So for the first few nights, I cried myself to sleep. Honestly, I was begging God to just get me super sick. Like sick enough to be sent home but well enough to not die. God never did that, by the way. And to be real, the daytime has been amazing. I’ve been spending most of my day in worship and time with God; I love that so much!! It has been mostly the nighttime where it hits hard… I literally told my family to come and take me home already.

Thankfully, the story does not end here. Despite the hard moments, God has been so good to me this last week. One of the Scriptures that has been highlighted to me constantly has been Psalms 94:18-19 (the verse up top). God never lets us fall, but I believe sometimes He allows us to slip. And no, He never is the reason we slip. But I believe that sometimes He allows us to start slipping because it’s then that we learn to fully rely on Him. I learned that in real time this week haha. It was on Tuesday that I was ready to go home, I was prepared to tell my squad leaders that I was considering dropping out of the race. I was praying about this during morning worship, not long after one of my squad mentors approached me. I kid you not, the first thing he said to me was this: “You need to know that we are so happy to have you here.” Those words hit DEEP! I knew at that moment that even though it would be easier to drop everything and quit, I wasn’t supposed to.

God has called me here for a reason. Although I don’t fully know why, God has a purpose for me being here, and that’s enough for me to obey the call. He has made it evident time and time again that this is where he wants me to be right now. It’s not going to be easy; it was never meant to. Otherwise, everybody would say yes. But it’s in hard times that growth is produced. Well, this is all I have for today. Thank you for taking a minute to read. I will see you guys again for my next blog post! Until then...

With much love,

Kielynn :)