A Typical Day

I will run you through a typical day and tell you my thoughts on it.

Wake up and be at the gym by 7 for workout.
The workouts are killer, I didn't know pain until I came here! It's so brutal but it really is showing me that my limits physically are much farther than I thought. They always focus the workouts around GOD and this generation which is really cool. Basically we do daily what most people won't, to do tomorrow what most people can't. I love how I feel afterwards but I feel like I'm going to die during it. I have never worked so hard in my life and that's honesty at its best. A few of us hiked the incline tuesday morning for fun without the rest of DLA. The incline is a mile of stairs straight up a mountain. And the stairs are brutal, the last half you are basically crawling up them because it gets so steep. A physically fit person will take more than a half hour to complete it. I stayed in the back and pushed people forward so I ended up at the top after 59 minutes. But I really think I could do better. But ya, workouts are very struggle-ful, but well worth it in the end. "We beat our bodies and make them our slaves."

Then we head to church for personal GOD time.
This is really fun. Light music is played in the background while we can do whatever we want. We can pray, read, worship, sit silently. I always pray, read a little, journal, then sit and focus as much as I can on JESUS and his personality. I really enjoy diving into silence and seeing what, if anything, GOD has to say or show me. I have gotten a lot of cool visions of his attributes and I keep forgetting to write them down but the point is engrained into my head. It's a great way to start off the day, keeps our focus in the right place.

Classes come next.
These are great and very informative yet casual. The classes we take don't ever make me think, "well when will I ever use that?" I had that happen a lot lot in high school but here it's all very practical and very heartfelt. My favorite class so far has been Aaron Stern teaching on Marriage/Famly/Dating. It's so cool to hear my thoughts put in to words and stuff I have always known but not known how to express explained clearly. I love learning about the impact of prayer and what it means to be a leader and different worldviews. I love it all.

Ministry tribes!
I'm a part of theMILL which is the college-age ministry here. It's such a blast and it's amazing to be a part of what goes on every friday. I get to help out around the office, help Aaron with his sermons, help with the short videos they make for fridays, and just make sure everything goes smoothly. They are so chill and funny there too, everyone is just so much fun to be around. Plus we get free stuff, but that's beside the point :P

Free time (quote-unquote)
We have it labeled as free time in our handbooks but there always seems to be something going on. Whether it be a speaker or something that we need to help with and get done. It's fine and I like helping out as much as possible, but I also really enjoy spending time with my host family and that free time is time to do what we need to around the house and be with them.

Nights
There is always something going on at nights that we get to help with. I love every second of getting to serve around the church. I get to hang out with junior/high school students on wednesdays, college kids on fridays, the adults on tuesday nights, and more throughout the week. It's so great getting to know different people from all over the church.

Overall
This program is designed to train leaders that will go anywhere, do anything, and pay any price to lead a generation in desperate pursuit of GOD. It's working very well, I can see leaders emerging all ready all over the place in DLA. They take you to your breaking point and are very real (they don't sugar coat stuff) and pour out their love into you. They get you focused on GOD and build you up in Him. It's working very well and I know this is where I am called to be. I'm part of an army that is storming the gates of hell, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's teaching me patience, perseverance, humility, and a ton more. I can't wait to look in the mirror at graduation and say, "This is just the beginning!

That's just a small bit on my day and I never know what to expect everyday I wake up. I'm suppose to be here and I know it!