Hello from the magical world of tents, porta potties, bucket showers, hand washed laundry & full hearts!! 

I have officially been in Georgia for two weeks now! If I had to describe these first two weeks in one word it would probably be adjustment. Y'all. Moving here was so. hard. I went from having my own room with my cozy bed in the AC surrounded by my family to living in a tent in the Georgia humidity sleeping on a two inch sleeping pad surrounded by people I'd only talked to online before. I cried in my tent the first night and sincerely asked God what in the entire world I was doing there. I missed my family & my friends & I was more uncomfortable than I had ever been before. 

Slowly, though, by the grace of God, things began to get better. I got to take my first bucket shower and that was a TRUE blessing. It's basically a shower where you get a bucket of hose water and a measuring cup to dump water on yourself after you're done cleaning yourself... Lol! It doesn't sound fun but trust me it's not as bad as it sounds! 

I also got to know my squad a lot more. To help you better understand life here, let me explain a little bit. There are 30 racers on my "squad" of people. The 30 of us are then broken up into "teams" which are five other people that you get to do life with more than the rest of the squad. Personally, I think I was blessed with the BEST team in the whole entire world. It's me and five other girls and then we have an alumni team leader named Kate. We have bonded SO MUCH over the past two weeks and they are just the greatest. We laugh together and cry together and it's just the best. 

I have also gotten the chance to know the other people on my squad and they are also incredible. It's so fun to finally have people who know my heart and want the same things that I do! 

The Sunday after I got here we did this thing called the fitness hike. To put it simply, it was horrible. It is a 2.2 mile "hike" up and down a bunch of hills in the GA heat with our 40 lb packs on our backs AND it was to be done in 38 minutes. This was by far the hardest thing I have EVER done but the Lord came through and somehow I managed to finish. It was such a good bonding thing for our squad because we all encouraged one another and a few of them even ran it a second time to run with us on our first! 

After the fitness hike things settled down for me. We kind of got into a routine and I think that has been very helpful for me as far as being settled. We usually do teachings in the morning and then in the afternoons we have different rotations such as showers, cleaning, squad time, and hand washing our laundry. 

The Lord has REALLY been at work in my life during this season. I wish that I had time to write out every single thing that has happened but I simply don't have the time. Within the first week I had to surrender a HUGE part of my heart for the duration of my race and it was SO difficult but God has been faithful to work through it and for that I am thankful. I am learning that God is so deeply involved in every aspect of our lives and that He can be found everywhere we look. He is also teaching me how to sit with Him and be still in His presence which has done my soul WONDERS. 

I have gotten used to living in a tent! And using a porta potty every day! And for the record, we now have normal showers that are made out of shipping containers and y'all they are a DREAM. Thanks God for warm water and water pressure! Woohoo!! 

While most days are a lot better now, please here me say that there has been a lot of back and forth and ups and downs. Some days are a struggle. Yesterday I cried because of how homesick I was. If you would, pretty pretty please continue to pray for me and my squad because this minimalist life is NOT always easy. 

We found out that at the end of October we will get to leave the state of Georgia to go do disaster relief with Samaritan's Purse!! We are THRILLED to have the chance to leave campus and go serve! Dates and more information coming soon! 

If you want to write me letters, please feel free to reach out and I can let you know how we can do that. I love you all so much and I'm so thrilled you guys are partnering with me! Thank you so much for all of the love and support! I hope to blog again soon! 

Here is a picture I took from my tent one of the first days: