Guys, I am just 2 weeks into the World Race, and let me tell you, it has been crazyyyyy! We finished up 1 week of training camp, which I will be sharing all about, and I am currently still in Georgia doing domestic ministry for a week at a camp! Only 2 weeks in and it has been filled with so many God moments, lots of tears, and lots of crazy! An overflowing of information, as if a fire hydrant is shooting out at me and I am trying to soak up everything I can! But throughout it all, God is good, God is faithful, and I am so so blessed.

This blog is all about Week 1: Training Camp! After a long flight from California to Georgia, as well as a mini meet-up with some of my fellow racers at the airport and a 2 hour van ride to the AIM (Adventures in Mission) base, I arrived at training camp!

I quickly checked in and set up my tent (in the woods btw… the woods…) and let me just say, in Georgia, it is SO humid. So every day, from the moment I wake up until I sleep, and then the entire night while I sleep, I sweat! And the cicadas love to sing me to sleep while massive spiders crawl on the outside of my tent to say goodnight! It is a thrilling experience :)

But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Every day of training camp, we have had worship, informational messages, meals (some of which we had dish duty!), and so many amazing bonding moments with my Squad! We are R-Squad (every squad here is a letter). Let me try to recap the most important parts of training camp for you all:

Understanding God More

Coming into training camp, I truly did not know what to expect. Right off the bat though, every person working here you can just see Jesus shining through them. They are filled and overflowing with the Holy Spirit, and the first thing that stood out to me is how they talk. They are so quick to praise God, give Him credit for every good thing, and speak life and truth into everyone they talk to. The environment is just different here. It feels like what I would imagine heaven is like, just in our sinful world. They are so so so on fire for Jesus here, and it is evident in every part of their life.

Throughout the week of training camp, I have had really good conversations with 3 of my leads, Amanda, Sydney, and Braden, about how God moves and works in us according to scripture. I learned that God still gives us as believers the gift of prophecy, healing, and speaking in tongues, and the ability to cast out demons in Jesus’ Name. Over the summer, this is something that I have wanted to understand more, but never had the resources to do so, but here, so many people have witnessed and/or they themselves have prophesied, spoke in tongues, healed people and casted out demons. This is real life. This is still happening to this day, but the American Christian church functions differently than those over the world and in their understanding of these things.

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Knowing that all Scripture is profitable, this means that no Scripture can be disregarded. 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 go through spiritual gifts, including those listed above. These gifts are meant to be profitable and lifting up of the body of Christ and to all, and we see that these gifts are still active to this day. I wish I could word all of this more clearly, but I am still learning about God and who He truly is, not who I want Him to be, according to His Word, and the gifts He still gives us as believers to do. I have full faith that on this mission trip, I will heal someone, I will cast out demons, I will speak in tongues, and I will prophesy, all in the Name of Jesus to His glory. I seek to serve God, and right now I will continue to strengthen my relationship with Him and serve Him with the gifts and abilities I have right now, but I have full faith that I will do these things. I am going to shake things up, and my teammate Blaze says. I am going to bring back an unbelievable but 100% true testimony of the power of God in and through us. I am going to shake up hell by the power of the Holy Spirit in me, and I am going to bring Jesus, the gospel, His love, and His power, to the nations. I am going to keep understanding who God is, and how He is and will use me. I am His vessel, and I am willing.

On the first evening here, we had a speaker give a message where the central message was on being in agreement with God’s Word. He asked us bluntly “are you in agreement with God’s Word?” I of course was thinking “yes, how could I not be?” But being in agreement with God’s Word includes what is written in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, Luke 10:19, Acts 1:8, Philippians 4:13, James 5:14-15, Matthew 10:1, I could go on. Scripture is clear: we have the power of God in us as believers. What we do with it, or even believe that this is who God is, is up to us.

Braden, one of my squad leads, spoke a prophetic word over me. He said “you are an intercessor”. I am slowly learning what that looks like, but since receiving that word, along with a note that said “a leader of intercession” with Scripture, I have been walking in intercession, through personal prayer and through praying over individuals face to face. I am learning still, but walking in the Spirit, in God’s calling over my life, and all the aspects that includes, is the most incredible and close-to-God feeling I have ever experienced. I have a zeal for the Lord that cannot be silenced.

I have authority in Jesus Christ, and you best believe I am going to use it.

Teams!

Our squad has 26 people including myself, 4 leads and 22 teammates. We have 1 male lead and 3 female leads, and 7 male teammates and 15 female teammates. In some countries, we will be split based on room with our hosts, and they also put us in teams to have more intimacy with a few members of our squad. All the boys are on a team together (of course) and then us girls are split in 3 groups of 5 each with 1 girl lead! My team is led my Amanda, and my fellow teammates are Gabrielle, Emerson, Jada, and Alisa! We also had to make a team name, so we are The Wildflowers, each of us being our favorite flower (mine is tulip). We chose this name because of how different we all are, but all together, we create the most beautiful masterpiece, and the same will go for our ministry, each of us bringing uniqueness to the body of Christ and our ministry, a blend of difference that works so well together, building each other up and strengthening one another. I love my team 🌷🌻🌹🌺🪷🌼

Squad Wars

On our last day of training camp (Sat 9/5), we had SQUAD WARS!!! Basically, at training camp there are 6 squads including mine: three 9-month trips (what I’m doing), two 3-month trips, and one 11-month trip. These squads are all going to a variety of different countries. Each squad is assigned a letter, so our squads look like this: P-Squad (11 months), Q-Squad, R-Squad, S-Squad (9 months), T-Squad, and U-Squad (3 months). Each squad was also assigned a color that our whole squad would wear during Squad Wars (our squad was green!. Soooooo, Squad Wars rolled around, and we came decked out in green and ready to win! The first challenge was running around the base looking for 3 clues (which were stacks of letters) that we then had to arrange to spell a phrase (which ended up being “I am my Beloved’s”) and we got 2nd! We did all of that with 2 teammates being blindfolded, and 2 teammates having to be carried, all while staying together the while time! Then, we were given a t-shirt frozen in ice that we had to get out and put on one teammate without throwing the block on the ground. It was pretty tough, and I believe we got 3rd. Then we did a hula hooping contest that I participated in (each team had 6 people compete) and I was doing SO good until they made us start knocking into each other. I think we got 3rd or 4th. Then we did a giant game of Simon Says and we were doing SO GOOD until they made us play rock paper scissors and whoever lost was out, so we ended up getting 4th. And then, best and last of all, we had the Song & Dance competition! Each squad had a week to prepare a 1-3 minute song a dance to perform for everyone! Our squad decided to get creative and create our own lyrics to the song “Can’t Stop The Feeling” by Justin Timberlake, as well as a rap to “Umbrella” by Rihanna. The video at the beginning is our dance and song, so go watch that! It was SO MUCH FUN, and we ended up getting 1ST PLACE for the song and dance! Overall, we got 2nd, and we were honestly so proud of ourselves and how we did! It was a blast!

Revival Night

Revival Night… man, what a night! We had about 3 or 4 hours of worshiping God, experiencing the freedom of standing kneeling, sitting, dancing, jumping, singing, whispering, all in praise and worship of the One True God. In the middle of it, we had a speaker who gave his testimony and then talked about the lies we believe. We got to interact with this message by writing down every lie we could think of that the enemy had told us that we believe. Then, we wrote on a different paper truths to contradict these lies. We prayed (and screamed, I can’t really explain that part haha!), and then took our paper of lies and threw it in a fire, fully surrendering it to God. It was such an incredible revival night.

Worship is a big part of my life. I love nothing more than singing and raising my hands and praising my Savior. Over the years I’ve become more comfortable with my style of worship, which involves a lot of movement. But at this revival, the speaker said something that has stuck with me and completely radicalized how I worship. He said “I want you to worship like this was the last time you will worship on this side of heaven before being with Jesus”. Immediately I was just filled with the Holy Spirit and started dancing. When I listen to music in my room, I dance around, I make up dances, so it came so naturally to me to sing and praise and just dance around. I have never felt more close to God during worship, it was incredible. Since then, I just worship however the Spirit leads. Dancing, sitting, kneeling, shouting, whispering, face down on the group, hands up, all simply to praise my Savior how He deserves to be praised and honored. Worship looks different for everyone, but for me, this is how it looks, and I don’t have to worry or care about what it looks like or what other people are thinking, because it is all for Jesus. 💕

Role Reveal

Here at AIM, each squad has a list of roles delegated to different teammates. Remember how our squad is separated into teams! They mostly abide by those teams for the roles. Each team has a Treasurer (in charge of all our finances), a Worship Lead (in charge of hosting and leading any type of worship setting, not just music),a Storyteller (in charge of the instagram (go follow @rsquad.worldrace) as well as sharing what goes on in our ministry with you all), and a Hospitality Lead (in charge of making spaces hospitable for hosts, celebrating people, and putting extra effort into making the team feel loved and seen). We also have 2 Logistics Leads, one boy and one girl, who are in charge of where we stay in the countries, our flights, making sure we are all together in the airport, lots of logical things. The last role is Beauty for Ashes, which is my role!!! So I have a bit more to explain on it.

Beauty for Ashes is a unique role that only a female can have, because it is a women’s ministry role. Me along with Hahna (my teammate who also has this role) get to work with our ministry hosts to put on a women’s retreat for both believers and unbelievers! We will see what the biggest need is for the women who are coming and then get to speak to them the love of Jesus and encourage them to share their stories. We will be working with women who are very broken and hurting and struggle to open up about their hurts. This is an incredible opportunity to speak life and Jesus into these women and help them see themselves as Jesus sees them. I am so excited to learn more about this role and be used by God!

Laundry & Showers

Y’all… I had to include this in here but whatever laundry and showers expectation I came in with was NOT accurate to what goes on here! For laundry, we have to walk down this long hill to get to a small clearing with Home Depot buckets, a small shack-like building, a water faucet, and clotheslines. We get to fill up the buckets, fill one with detergent, and then dip, scrub, and squeeze out our clothes for laundry. It takes so long, takes a lot of strength, but I have really enjoyed it! It makes me slow down, and I truly have had a fun time! However, I am very excited to get to use a laundry machine again 😂 For showers, we have 2 options: either we doing a more normal shower in an old shipping container, or we go to the same place we do bucket laundry, fill a bucket, go in the little shack, and bucket shower, where you just keep pouring water over yourself. I’ve done it once and did enjoy the new experience, but I’m too scared of spiders to do it again! Oh, and the only bathrooms we have here are porta-potties… wasn’t expecting that either! They truly are preparing us for going overseas! I just never imagined what luxuries I would have to give up. It really is a humbling experience - but an experience I am loving!

How To Write A Sermon

One day we had breakout sessions, where we all had to choose a session to attend and then share about with our teammates! The options were Kid’s Ministry, House Visits, ATL (Ask The Lord), and How To Write A Sermon. I was torn between kids and the sermon one, but I decided to go to the sermon one! Y’all, it was SO GOOD! We were walked through the process of writing a sermon (which works for Bible studies too!) where we pray, study scripture, talk to the Lord, all these things before trying to work through what to say, and then the process of what to say! After, our speaker had us take 5 minutes to look at John 5:1-11, where the man was healed at the Pool of Bethesda, and come up with a big idea, hook, and 2-3 points that you would share. A few of us (myself included) got to share, and it was so cool because from one story, we all took different parts with different messages but all relating back to the truth of God! I will include what I had down below. This has got me so excited to start writing sermons and start speaking! I know that God has given me a voice for a reason, and I cannot wait to use it to reach people and do the work God has called me to!

Mt Yonah

Part of training camp is everyone hiking Mt Yonah. It is a 4.4 mile hike with an elevation of 3,166 ft (it was very steep). It took us about 1.5 hours and another 1.5 hours down. Some people (who are much more athletic than I am) were doing very well on this hike, but I was struggling! But it was so worth it, the view at the top was absolutely beautiful, we roasted hot dogs (and lost 7 in the fire), completely ran out of water before making it to the top, and had a good message on team unity! On our hike back down, we got a bit disorganized. All 3 of the 9-month squads were hiking together, so about 100 or so of us, and we all just booked it down… which meant quite a few people got lost. At some point, me, Aubrey, and one of our leads Sydney just sat in the dark waiting for people to find us. Did I mention we were hiking in the dark with just headlamps?! Never have I ever hiked something like this before, so it was quite the distressing and hysterical experience! When we finally got down, we drove to the nearest convenience store and got the necessities: water, Gatorade, watermelon, and raspberry/lemon sherbet (that me and Aubrey very much enjoyed in our dark van ride back to base 😋) Overall, a great hike! Would not do again anytime soon 😂

Sabbath

A few months ago, I hung out with my friend Melody (hi Melody! 😊), and I was introduced to Sabbath for the first time. It’s a word I’ve heard before, but I never understood what a Sabbath was until then. For Melody and her family, their Sabbath is every Sunday, and they go to church in the morning and evening, and dedicate the day as a day of rest. What they do to rest is up to them, but it’s a day of rest and spiritual renewal. The thought is “what can I do that is truly restful for me, honoring to the Lord, and renewing of my relationship with God?” So, coming to training camp, they informed us that once a week (the specific day may differ based on ministry needs) we will have a Sabbath! I got to experience my first Sabbath this week, and it was so wonderful! I got to sleep in until 8am (I was waking up at 5am), took a shower, went to the lake, did Bible time at the lake, got ice cream, and then relaxed back at base camp with my team and enjoyed being in community! I am so excited to see how I learn my ideal Sabbath and keep having a Sabbath every week when I come back home ☺️

Baptisms

On one of the last days of training camp, we had evening communion and baptisms as a squad. One of our mentors, Alex, led us in communion, preparing our hearts for the next week, remember all that Jesus has done for us, and getting us ready for baptisms. We only had one girl planning on getting baptized, but we ended up having 5 of our teammates getting baptized! Every time someone stepped in the water, they shared their story, their why of getting baptized, and then we all waterfall prayed over them. And then they got baptized! Julie, Emerson, Alisa, Davis, and Kristina all got baptized, and it was so so beautiful watching their joy and peace coming up out of the water 💞 after, some of us decided to have a spontaneous worship session, where we just sang praise to the Lord for an hour or so! It was a perfect way to end that night 🕊️

All this to say, I am having the most incredible time here, and I'm loving sharing it with you all! Keep praying for me and my team! I am so thankful for this experience, and throughout it all, I just can't help but be so on fire for Jesus!!!

God Bless,

Jenna :)

(If there is writing below this, it is AI, I don’t know where it came from, I didn’t put it there, it won’t go away when I delete it. Sorry!)

As I sit here reflecting on my recent mission trip, I can’t help but feel the electric presence of God coursing through me, igniting my spirit. It’s as if every encounter with Him has be