A Day in the Life!

I have been in Georgia at Adventures in Missions’ campus for just over a week now! I arrived on Wednesday and since, have gotten to be in community with my squad. Being here is pretty cool so I thought I would share a day in the life of a 2020 gap year racer with you!

During the week we start our day with breakfast at 8 am! Getting to wake up to dancing, laughing, talking, nature sounds and views, coffee, and good food is pretty rad! Meals are awesome because we get the opportunity to talk to each other instead of being alone on our phones.

At 9 am we start devotions. This time is a whole hour set aside for each racer or leader to sit in solitude and be alone with the lord- it is super important because being in community is amazing but we also need alone time to grow in personal intimacy with God. At 10 am, we start sessions. (This week we have been doing worship at 10 am everyday but that will not be our normal schedule) In sessions a leadership member teaches on a specific topic, which we usually discuss in our teams later (I will explain what teams are). Some of our sessions this week were on honoring eachother, the cost of discipleship, vulnerability, and being in the word.

After sessions we have lunch! Then we have rotations and free time before dinner. Rotations include things such such as cleaning, laundry, showers, squad exercise, squad fun time, and more. We have different rotations on different days. Once we finish rotations we have free time, a great time to spend either in community or resting (because life can get exhausting.) Free time often involves people being at the pavilion, attempting to skateboard, dance parties, karaoke, card games, friendship bracelets, spike ball, and more.

We have dinner at 5:30 and team time afterwards! Team time is time that we spend in our teams; teams are smaller groups of 5-7 people and each team has a leader. The purpose of teams is to dive deeper into relationships with teammates because it can be hard to have deep relationships with all 32 people, and also to do ministry and discussions with those people. Team time looks different every day, but one thing we do every week is feedback, which is both affirmative and constructive to help us grow to be more like Jesus.

On the weekends we have sabbath! Sabbath looks like rest in whatever way we feel we need it, whether that is being alone, sleeping, having fun, sitting with the lord, etc. The sole purpose of sabbath is to rest (as Jesus did.) Rest is especially important in this atmosphere because while life is simple, our days are jam packed with growth and community. I am so thankful for sabbath already because it has taught me the importance of meaningful, spiritual rest in addition to physical rest. We continue sabbath on Sundays and we also have squad church! Squad church is a time for our squad to come together to the lord and can look however it needs to. A different team will lead squad church each week, and it might look like worship, sharing testimonies, bible study, etc.

One of my favorite things about being here is the simplicity in it! AIM’s campus is about 44 acres (in the mountains) and wow there is so much beauty in it. We have wifi available at certain times and cell service, but we don’t have our phones during the weekdays from breakfast until after team time in the evening. This is a long time to be away from your phone, especially in 2020, but wow I am so thankful for being disconnected from all the distractions. Thankful to be able to connect with the people in front of me, to make use of my time, and to find peace in God’s creation surrounding me.

Being pretty much in the middle of nowhere, we hand wash our laundry and take bucket showers. Bucket showers- very refreshing when it’s hot out and make for the best concerts. When it’s cold at night, you hear a lot of screams (very cold water lol). Definitely a more interesting way to shower. Laundry- takes forever to dry but is really nice when your clothes don’t stink anymore. Tent life- love it other than when daddy long legs and other weird bugs make their way into your tent! I actually sleep really well and it’s nice to go to bed and wake up to nature. Didn’t know I would love GA so much!

Overall, I hope this gave you a better idea of what my life looks like right now! I’m so excited to share more in the coming weeks and months.

Also, please continue to be praying for my fundraising and donate if you feel led. I have a deadline of $10,000 due in mid October in order to stay in GA, and I am currently $1,800 away from that. I also have a go rings partnership this entire month, so you can support me while getting jewelry. (you can shop at gorings.com and enter code ANDREAWRGY at checkout. Thank you so much for reading and all of your support!