SLAM Week Impact

Journal Prompt

SLAM Nashville week: What did you learn? How were you challenged? What will you take away from this experience?

My Thoughts

This week consisted of so much. I’ve never been more stretched and more pushed in my life. It was task after task with very little downtime, but it was always amazing. Through the rigor of Nashville week, I was able to learn a lot of lessons. The first two days really taught me about freedom in Christ. Through worship and losing badly in soccer, I was able to learn about two different aspects of freedom: the freedom to come to Christ honestly and the freedom to lose and learn. Both of those things have been hard for me recently, but being forced to lose and fail over and over again really made me able to bear it. If I’m gonna fail, then I might as well learn from it.

Alongside Nashville Bootcamp was SLAM week. We got to help facilitate many aspects of SLAM as well as participate in others. I facilitated the service projects for two different churches. The first was Hope Rising and the second was First United Methodist Church from Tullahoma. Both of these service projects were kids’ camps in largely Hispanic apartment complexes. I was able to take a lot from this experience. Spending time with the kids really softened my heart in general and having conversations with them reminded me of my roots. Being in a Hispanic community again was refreshing, especially with the children. My time spent at the kids’ camps was one of the highlights of the week, but worship was super impactful as well. I was able to push that concept of freedom even more and come alive in Christ. SLAM was amazing and I hope to remember my time with both the kids at the camp and the SLAM kids for the rest of my life.