After months of planning, hours of packing, and countless tears, I said one last goodbye to my family and stepped into my next big adventure. I boarded my 45 minute flight, and before I knew it I was landing in Atlanta. After retrieving my gigantic blood-orange bag, I headed to the food court to meet my “family away from family” for the next three months. We wandered around the airport and finally found our vans. Everyone squeezed into the van and we were off.
As we arrived at training camp we began to get to know each other with awkward hellos and stories of our homes. The first night was easy with a worship session and a brief explanation of what we would be doing over the next few days. But what they had in store for us was something nobody could’ve seen coming.
The next morning seemed like a good day to shower, so I set my alarm for 6:45 and crawled into my sleeping bag on my floppy green mattress. The shower coming in the morning was nothing I could’ve prepared for… As I sleepily stumbled down the hill and into the “shower,” I came to realize there weren’t any real showers. There was a 5 gallon blue bucket, a little measuring cup, and a hose. So I stepped into the “shower,” grabbed my soap, and poured the first cup of water on myself. And as the freezing cold water poured down my body, I very quickly realized I wasn’t in Florida anymore.
As I took my last bucket shower tonight, I look forward to the next 3 months with an expectant (and slightly nervous) heart. Our team has 30 hours of travel ahead of this in the next 2 days, so pray for safe travels and very few bucket showers in our future.
