Chicken Stir-Fry

Before we get to the food, I want to do a little intro to "Cooking With Rachel". As my roommate can vouch for, I tend to use recipes more as guidelines when I cook. So, I will be blogging the original recipe and making notes of things that I have changed along the way. I will also be linking you to the website that the recipe came from, because there will be other tasty things for you to try there.

This first recipe is actually one that I made up last year after I wandered around the supermarket. There are no actual measurements, and the amount of veggies/chicken/peanuts you use is totally up to you. I do everything by taste/feel/smell.

Ingredients:

• One chicken breast (boneless, skinless if possible)
• Sugar snap peas/snow peas
• Bell peppers, chopped (I prefer red/orange/yellow)
• Shredded carrots
• Peanuts 
• Rice (brown is preferred, but white will do)
• Soy sauce (to taste)
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Prep:

• Cook rice as directed on package. 
• Cube the chicken breast into bite-sized pieces
• Pour a quater-sized amount of olive oil in a pan and let warm. Add chicken breast and cook until just slightly undercooked. Add more oil if the chicken sticks.
• In a larger, separate pan, add olive oil and let warm. Add veggies and let cook until just tender. 
• Add chicken to the veggie pan, along with the soy sauce. Cook until chicken is done.

To prepare, put rice at the bottom of a bowl, add chicken and veggies, and top with more soy sauce if desired. Garnish with some peanuts and enjoy!

"So, What's God Doing in Your Life?"

I started four different blog posts, saved each one, and have since deleted all of them in my quest to figure out just what exactly He is up to in my life. I've had a lot of people excited to hear what God is doing, and I so badly want to share, but even after sitting down with Ashley and talking through all of the events of the past week and a half, I am still a little lost.

I have absolutely no idea what God is doing in my life. And I'm okay with that.

Talking with Ashley really helped. One thing that she said, and has really stuck with me, is that it can be hard to see exactly what is going on when you're still in the middle of the work He has planned. I thought that after I came back from Training Camp, I would have some down time to process through and see what the heck was going on, but I am coming to find out that He just isn't showing me what is happening. In The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom recounts a time in her life when a family member died. She is talking to her father about what happens and is frustrated that she doesn't know why it happened. Her father tells her to think about when she was a little girl. They would ride the train together, her father never giving her the train ticket she needed to board the train until just the right time - right when they were boarding. God, Corrie's father says, is like that - never giving us anything until just the right time.

I can tell you that God has answered prayer over this past week and a half. He has allowed me to do life for a full week with true, genuine men of God. Men who are seeking Him, His heart, His character, and His will for their lives. For the last six-to-eight weeks of the school year, I did a lot of traveling and spent a lot of time around grown boys. It can be discouraging when that is the only picture of guys that you see. Praise God that He decided to show me just how wrong and ugly that lie is. I am incredibly thankful to have met and done life with the men that I met at Training Camp and I am excited to meet the men that God has on Team Belgium.

Another answered prayer was that of community. Now, don't get me wrong, the Lord has blessed me with an amazing group of friends on whom I lean, cry, and collapse when life is tricky. I wouldn't trade them for anything. I go back to my job, where I am the lone Christian in my athletic department. I cannot fellowship with the athletes in a way that I fellowship with my friends, so the feeling of being isolated is pretty overwhelming sometimes. Training Camp provided the opportunity to meet Christian athletes (ones that I was not directly responsible for) and coaches (that I didn't have to worry about messing up any working relationships), and I was able to establish meaningful relationships. One of the directors said something that has stuck with me as I have been praying. He was talking about how he met his wife while working with AIA - "Jesus and sport. That's enough to build a life together." For me, it wasn't a romantic relationship that formed, but we as a team were able to come together as a family because Jesus and sport were enough for us. It was something that was truly beautiful.

Answered prayer number three is that He has blessed me with a new Christian athletic trainer friend. Granted, she lives in Virginia, but the opportunity to get to know her, do life with her, and having the chance to take care of each other (she took care of my strained quads, I took care of her concussed brain) was encouraging. It was encouraging because I was able to talk to someone as a certified athletic trainer, not translating my stream of consciousness for someone not familiar with that language. She found out that she got her very first big-girl ATC job while we were at training camp, and it was so awesome to be able to celebrate with her. It makes me feel kind of old to think that I have been practicing for two years now, but also just amazed that God would bless me with the opportunities to serve where I have served so far. And I'm only 24!

Finally, my last answered prayer (that I can think of right now) is the fact that I feel like I have been poured into for the first time in a long, long time. Again, not saying that the community that the Lord has blessed me with here doesn't pour into me and build me up, but it is so wonderful to fellowship with people who see sport, competition, and workouts as a way to worship God. We seek to leave it all on the field or the gym as a way to say, "Thank you."  I spend so much of the school year pouring out and serving that sometimes I feel like I need to be filled back up in order just to get out of bed in the morning.  After the crazy eight days that we spent getting broken down, I have never felt more full in my life. I am ready to be sent, to meet people, to serve them, to love them, and to be poured out for them. I know that I will be doing not just those things, but also getting filled up while I am in Belgium. He will pour into me so I can pour out to my athletes come the start of the school year.

So, I may have just listed a bunch of what God is doing in my life, but I am still blind to it. Perhaps it is because God hasn't handed me my train ticket yet. Or I can't see the forest amongst the trees. For whatever reason, I'm okay with it. I trust that He will show up and have me see just exactly He wants me to learn from all of this, and if that doesn't happen until the time I'm in Italy, or even after I get back from Europe, that's okay, too. To quote Prince Erik from "The Little Mermaid," it will just hit me... like lightning!

My "Special" SPECIAL

God saw it fit to give me a different SPECIAL, a "special SPECIAL" if you will. I had been spending a lot of time in prayer with Him over the course of the week, focusing primarily on being able to apply the principle lessons in competition. He was speaking to me each day, saying that the SPECIAL would be just that for me - special. That should have been a heads-up right then, but I didn't see it. I continued to pray as I warmed up at the track before the decathlon, right up until the first event, the 100m dash. I remember thinking as the race was about to start, "Lord, help me through this race and every event to come." I took off, and not five steps into the race, it felt like someone had taken a dagger and plunged it into the center of BOTH of my quads at the same time, ripping and tearing the muscles from the top of my thigh to just above my knee. I don't remember all of what happened next, only that I didn't fall down (praise God) and that I managed to make it to the finish line. The ATC traveling with the Zimbabwe team was waiting for me at the finish line; I looked at her, stumbled toward her so she could support me, and sobbed, "Rectus femoris, pain 8.5/10, range of motion 3-/5" and I knew that I was done with the SPECIAL that AIA had planned, but I had just started the SPECIAL that God had planned for me.

I could barely stand, my quads were wanting to shut down, walking on flat ground was proving to be a feat in itself, and now my team was down a man. I was not happy, but not because I couldn't compete or because I was angry at God, but because the amount of pain that I was in was so intense. I was able (and when I say, "able," I mean "am too stubborn to know when to stop." I'm sure there's a spiritual lesson in there...) to do the shot put, discus, and javelin, though I had to climb a gravel hill twice in the process and couldn't do a full motion, just the twisting at the core and using my arms. So, I prayed for the duration of the SPECIAL. And I took care of the other athletes, including the Zimbabwe ATC, who ended up getting a pretty nasty concussion about three hours after I got hurt and had to join me on the sidelines. But I still had this intensity, this drive to compete burning deep in me, so I hobbled up and down the fields, shouting encouragement and Bible verses for my team while they competed over the course of the next 18.5 hours.

I prayed that I would be able to do Golgotha with my injury. I prayed that I would experience a miracle, because I knew how badly my quads were hurt, but I know that God is bigger than some damaged muscle fibers. By the time 11am on Wednesday rolled around, I was able to squat down in a mini-squat position with relatively little pain, though I definitely wouldn't call the position comfortable. After the Scripture reading, Team Phoenix came into the huddle one last time to pray and decide in what order people would go. I looked at everyone and said, "I don't care what number I am, but I am doing this. I can't sit this out." No one tried to dissuade me, and I was fourth in line. Finally, it was my turn. One of my teammates helped me up off the ground, made sure I was standing solidly at the top of the dam, and handed me the 2x4. By then, thunder had started rumbling in the distance and rain was visible just past the trees. God really has a way of adding some pretty dramatic touches to a situation.

As soon as I took my first shaky step down the hill, I began to hum. To be honest, it caught me a little off guard. The song that I was humming and singing in my head was a hymn - "Come Thou Fount (of Every Blessing)". The fact that I was singing "Come Thou Fount" was not surprising (it's my absolute favorite song ever), but it was the fact that the song sprang up within me so quickly. I was focused on my breathing and trying not to think about how much my legs hurt, not thinking about if I should sing a song to take my mind off Golgotha. The song was a gift from God, and I am so thankful that He popped it up in my heart while I went down the hill. It turns out that "Come Thou Fount" is the perfect length for jogging down the side of a dam. Once I got to the bottom, I shook out my legs (horrible, horrible decision), looked up the hill, and asked God to send me another song to sing as I made my way up the hill. I knew that I needed to focus on Him, worship Him, and seek Him while I went up the hill, not focus on my legs. He came through, whispering me the lyrics to "How Great Thou Art". I don't remember a whole lot about going up the hill, only that my legs were on fire and the line, "Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art!" was on repeat for most of the way up. The crazy thing is about the entire thing is that is that line reflects exactly how I felt during my way up the hill - my soul was singing, BURSTING with joy. One foot in front of the other, one step up the hill at a time, I continued to sing a song of praise to Him.

By God's strength and power, I made it up the hill without falling. I stopped a couple of times to catch my breath and to refocus my attention back to God and not the fire in my legs. It was an incredible blessing to be able to experience something like AIA Training Camp, and an even bigger blessing to be a part of a miracle. Once I reached the top, I hit the ground. My legs were completely shot and I couldn't stand any longer. After everyone had a chance to go, we all gathered in a circle to sing "Amazing Grace". Two of the guys had to stand on either side of me just to keep me on my feet, as my legs were buckling every few minutes. Just as we started the walk back to the vans, it started to rain. I grabbed the guys again, and they helped me move a little bit faster back to the vans, reaching them just as it rain really started to pour.

I still can't believe that Training Camp really happened. I think some of that is due to a lack of sleep and being overwhelmed by God wanting to teach me a lot of things. I feel like I'm walking around in a daze, or looking down at a huge pile of clothes that need to be sorted and having no idea where to start. Once the dust settles, I'm sure I will have a lot to share, but for right now, I'm at a loss for what to type. Check back in a few days, and hopefully the Lord will have revealed to me a lesson or two.

AIA Training Camp - The Details

The amount of work God did June 8-16th is overwhelming. I'm honestly having trouble trying to keep it all straight and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to blog about it all. So, I think that I may have a plan of attack. First, I'm going to give you the details of Training Camp (which will be pretty similar to the details that I shared in my June Update), the details of Golgotha, and then the following posts will be me talking through it. So, without further ado, the details:

As part of my being on leadership this summer, Jodi wanted me to come up to Xenia for the Training Camp that was being held for two other Track and Field teams being sent out this summer (Team Zimbabwe and Team USA East [OH, MI, and NYC]), as well as for a Volleyball team going to Brazil. I would be able to experience what AIA really focuses on and see what most teams do before they leave for a project. The first day was spent checking athletes in, going through paperwork, and getting things ready for the week. The next five days were pretty much the same thing - breakfast, quiet time, Spiritual Principle, a lab where we learned how to apply the principle during competition, lunch, workshop, practice, dinner, team time, bed. On occasion, we wouldn't have practice, so we would be able to hang out and get to know one another, but for the most part, friendships were made on the court during labs or over meals.

Then came the SPECIAL on the last two days. For those of y'all who don't know what that is, it is an acronym for "Spiritual principles Plus Exhaustion equals Confidence In the Almighty Lord". What that means is a nineteen hour competition with maybe two or three hours of sleep (so, a nap, really) in between the end of day one and the beginning of day two. The SPECIAL is meant to break an athlete down physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, hopefully having them fully trust in God to get through it. Each SPECIAL is different, depending on location and team. Volleyball didn't join us for the SPECIAL, so ours was very track-focused. The first of eight (or maybe nine, I'm not sure) events started at 5pm on Tuesday with a full decathlon (pole vault was replaced with a relay), followed by angle ball, relay races on the track/football field, a top-level CrossFit workout, nap from 2am-5am Wednesday morning, campus run with the "Ark of the Covenant" and a pencil/paper test to complete at stations, Ultimate Frisbee, tug of war, kickball, and one final relay where you couldn't crack the whip.

My team, Team Phoenix, did pretty well. We decided on Phoenix as our team name because out of the ashes of an old life that has burnt away, a new life rises. Our verse to go with our theme of a fire burning away the old and a new rising up was Hebrews 12:29 - but our God is a consuming fire. The staff members kept the score, but in the end, it didn't matter. I know my team wouldn't have won the overall SPECIAL, but the events that we did win, we won convincingly. The CrossFit workout was by far the hardest one to do, physically, but for some reason, our team showed up. I was so proud of my team for digging deep, relying on Him, and never once quitting. It was by God's power that we did as well as we did.

Then, the icing on the cake - Golgotha Hill. We drove out to a state park and found a dam with some long, green, wet grass on one side. We each took a two-by-four with us down to the bottom and then had to jog/walk back up the side of the dam with the two-by-four across our back/shoulders, as Christ would have carried the cross up His Golgotha. This was a very long, very steep hill that would have proved challenging for someone coming out for a tough workout, but this was our last event of a very trying 19 hours. We were all completely broken down, but we all gladly stepped forward to experience it. This was the point where we would be able to see if God had started transforming our hearts - would we be able to worship God in the midst of pain, exhaustion, and one very steep hill? Had the principles that we had learned that week penetrated?