After a year of anticipation and preparation I officially said goodbye to the United States this morning for the next year of my life. As I write this I’m sitting on a flight to Guatemala where I am about to spend the next 8 weeks. It’s hard to believe this moment is finally here!

Leading up to this current moment my team and I have been camping in Gainesville, Georgia for the last two weeks. My 26 teammates, 3 squad leaders, and I spent our days worshiping, sitting under the teaching of countless missionaries, participating in team bonding activities, praying, sharing meals, and being prepared for the mission field!

Words cannot even begin to describe how grateful I am for the last two weeks! We have been challenged individually (and as a unit) but our team has grown so close because of it. It’s hard to believe that I met all of these people only two weeks ago because in many ways they already feel like family! 

The purpose of training camp was to gain practical teaching that prepares us to enter the mission field, as well as get us out of our comfort zones. These two weeks prepared us to adapt to a myriad of situations that may get thrown our way this year! 

In other words training camp looked like this: 27 strangers camping all week in the pouring rain, learning from incredibly wise individuals, hand washing our laundry in 5 gallon buckets, getting bucket showers three times a week (a 5 gallon bucket of cold hose water and a state of the art scoop), grinding out morning workouts, and eating food prepared from around the world. 

To say we were stripped of our comforts would be an understatement, but in the best way!When we walked into these two weeks, many of us probably assumed we weren’t all that attached to comfortability. I mean we all signed up to live out of a backpack for the next year, and move every two months…so we can’t be THAT attached to comfortability, right? Wrong! I think we all were a little surprised, because as we experienced the removal of nearly every physical comfort it began to expose the things we unknowingly held tight to. It was the perfect opportunity  to grow as a team, press into uncomfortability, and grow in our walk with God. 

During our second week of training we also received the teams we would be serving on for the first leg of our travels, where we would be serving, as well as the positions we would hold on those teams. I have the absolute privilege of serving alongside Maggie Prokosch, Amy Scott, and Joana Quintana! We are so excited to work together and we cannot wait for what Guatemala has in store for us! 

As we rounded out training camp we packed up our gear, loaded into cars, and headed to the Atlanta airport Sunday night in preparation for our flight to Guatemala early Monday September 12th. 

While I could go on and on about the transformational nature of training camp, our flight is preparing to land in Guatemala!

Updates to come :) 

Mikahla