Adventures Of Training Camp

Updates 🙂

Welcome back to the blog, I hope you brought your tea…I brought mine! Let’s settle in!

I realized I am offering updates on the emotional side of this journey, but I have had plenty of physical adventures too! So let’s rewind and catch up!

08/31 – 09/22 – Training camp // Gainesville, Georgia USA

Training camp was a portion of our time in the states committed to listening, learning, and connecting. This meant days would have sessions filled to the brim with cultural knowledge, experience, biblical teachings, social interactions, outreach, and gaining tools of knowledge to take with us as we meet and serve people in communities world wide!  Some of my favorite teachings included cultural norms, feedback for teammates/crews, tools of knowledge – understanding diagrams & how to recreate them, women of christ & styles of worship. All of these lead me a bit closer to feeling connected, asking more questions, and opportunities for growth.

I thought it would be fun to show you the events of the week through photos…

09/07 – Women’s team building day 

This day happened to land on a very sun and hot day, we all gathered just after lunch completely unaware of our challenge. After a quick warm up and instruction we found out we would have 90 minutes to complete 8 physical challenges as a team. For information there were roughly 6 squads each with 3 or so teams of 8 girls..so in total well over 100 girls doing this challenge. The challenges had to be completed as a team but you wouldn’t be allowed to move on until the whole squad completed. To encourage unity. The challenges included caterpillar line running, building a tent blind folded, flipping monster truck tires, water sports, carrying each other, work outs in high sets, field games, and wheelbarrow walking. The challenge treated everyone differently but the overarching goal was to encourage each other and work together. Coming out of the day we had some team tension but I would say a majority of us felt strong, confident and connected, I know I did!

Squad wars – 09/12 

This was an afternoon of squad field game competitions, highlighting different skills of squadmates and encouraging them as they competed. A lot of points were allotted for team spirit – making sure everyone was dressed in team colors, cheering, helpful, and kind! We also had points given for pre camp tasks completed. My team – M squad was red! After the team games

We then had to present a skit and song we prepared. Everyone joined together to customize a song and dance to fit the training camp theme, creating a – squad chant as well! This was a stressful week leading up but truly an afternoon of bonding and smiles!

In town – 09/13-14

13th – After being at camp for two solid weeks, we finally ventured into the town of Gainesville! On the first day we went to Kroger and offered to help assist anyone shopping, offer prayer, and overall make community connections! This definitely stretched me out of my comfort zone but it was beautiful to be at a store for the purpose of community instead of self!

14th – This was a day in town for myself! We got to go to Target, Walmart, and town! In town we got much carved coffee, pastries, wifi, boutique shopping, and pizza! It was so lovely to live a normal day again, soaking it up with newly made friends! I got a chai latte and matcha latte, because why choose lol! During our outing some of my teammates even chose to practice discipleship, striking up a conversation with two homeless men, taking time and energy to learn their story!

Mt Yohan – 9/17

This was an adventure I was looking forward to since the beginning of training camp! A hike up a local mountain, then a sunset, dinner, and fire at the top, before we spend the night, wake up prompting in the morning and hike back down! Well that was the goal anyway…we got about one hour into our hike before it started pouring down, after some quick discussion it was determined that we would hike back down. The leadership didn’t want us to have to sleep or hike in a thunderstorm. So to my dearest mt Yohan, I hope I have another chance to climb you!

Rain storms  – 9/17

Coming back from the Yohan hike we managed to make a fire and roast some hotdogs back at camp. Eating them in the rain, signing and dancing, choosing to enjoy the evening! It felt like fall for the first time so I decided to go to the campus buildings, set up a blanket, cup of tea, cookies, and the T.V show Ted Lasso for some light hearted laughs! I also watched as teammates soaked up the rain, dancing, hill sliding, sharing hot coco, and making new camp memories! The rain storms brought thunder, lighting, and wind, so the following few days were wet and muddy but reminded me of my home – Washington!

Laundromat // Outing  –  09/21

This day was pure chaos of clothing! As a squad we traveled to a nearby laundromat, a joyous celebration in comparison to our normal hand washing and dried laundry for the past 3 weeks. Though when we arrived the chaos insured, not everyone came so each person that did had roughly 4 other teammates worth of laundry to do as well. Crashing through the swinging door 20 gillies heaping with clothing immediately sold out the laundry deterrent, ran them dry on quarters, and filled each and every washer! The locals watched amusingly as we paced around, checking on our laundry. Then came the drying, the dryers did not favor us so each load of clothing had to be broken down into half or quarters and run on 4-6 cycles to have them be dry. Of course we needed a reward after this chaos so we piled back into a van, now with clean laundry and got some beloved chick fil la! It’s always chaos to watch our squads load and unload in and out of restaurants! We also made a few quick stops in town for snacks before heading back to camp!

Beauty for Ashes – 9/21

After returning from the chaos of a group outing some of the girls have prepared a women’s dinner and encouragement night! We all dressed up, helping style each other, twirling dresses, and passing compliments left and right! Yet again another beautiful day to feel connected and loved by my team and women around me! During the event we had an amazing meal, music, randomized seating to engage with new gals, little messages of knowledge and encouragement, and of course many many photos as the night closed! From my understanding Beauty for Ashes is a global organization and safehouse for women, so they commonly throw community gatherings for women. This event was a practice for my teammates who are a part of B4A!

Team fires – Nightly 

Huge thank you to our outdoorsy man David for having the knowledge and skill set to start fires! (And also help us with anything and everything else around camp including daily magic tricks!)

Around night one while still getting to know each other we all agreed to start a campfire, having smores, and sharing stories! We quickly fell in love and almost nightly had squad camp fires, sometimes only a few of us, other times the whole squad! Roasting apples, bread, our cold toes, pulling out the guitar, and always enjoying a lovely wind down with our squad! Even inviting other squads over for s’mores or stories!

Team Dinners – 09/08 & 09/15

As hungry teens living in tents, eating 3 assigned meals a day, and no ability to leave camp, we all began to quickly crave fancier meals, cooking, and the small simple freedoms of life. When the weekends and days off rolled around we figured out we could get food delivered to camp! The guys in my group decided to order around 20 steaks, potatoes, and bread to cook over the fire. So our Sunday afternoons were spent in a community around a fire, singing, dancing, eating, learning, and endless laughter! Our squad grew to love this so much we made it a goal to repeat it weekly if possible! The second week we made street tacos and corn! This was a huge time of team building, asking for help building fires, shopping, prepping, cooking, serving, and creating a lively environment!

Thank you so so much for following along! 

Updates on Mississippi next! 

With much love & many adventures! 

  Aliya Koziol 🙂