HA

HONOR ACADEMY

The Honor Academy is a place that I have come to absolutely love with all of my heart. God has grown me so much, and I completely love what the ministry does and how we affect people all around the world and around the nation.
The first part of my life at the Honor Academy was a very training intensive time where we pretty much did a ‘world detox’. We limited our access to the outside world all week and took extra doses of God every other hour or so. The only way that I can describe this place is as a spiritual green house. Because of our constant 24/7 immersion in God, we experience incredible growth in every area of our lives. God has blessed me in so many ways and has revealed gifts that I never knew that I had until now AND he’s taught me how to use them for his glory.
All of the classes and leadership that I have, have been incredibly beneficial to me, and one of my most favorite parts of this ministry is my ministry placement (job). For the first semester, I worked as a promotional representative that called youth leaders about taking their groups on missions trips. I made an average of about 76 calls a day + or -. Now I’ve been switched over to be what they call an ‘encouragement representative’, and basically what I do is … well, everything after the application, so I’m doing tons of paperwork, helping out the youth pastors with getting all of their students applied, dealing with money issues & finances for the teams, and so on. It’s great and I love the fact that I am able to help get so many people on the missions field so that they can have such a paradigm shifting experience that they will never see the world the same way… at least that’s how my mission trip effected me, so I can only pray that God will deliver that to all of my missionaries, and I know He’s faithful .My MP team is called dependant, and our verse is John 15:5. God has used this to grow me so much this year. I constantly have to remind myself about relying fully on God and letting myself and my desires go 100%. Everybody at my workplace has definitely had an impact on my life because we are all so incredibly different & we all have something different to bring to the table, but God brought us all together because we all had a hidden passion to get people out on the mission field, and through that, we have become united and through the power of Jesus, we have become strong.

One of the big parts of the HA is the part that becomes like your family for the year. These structures are called your Core. A core consists of a Core Advisor, and anywhere from 6-18 guys. They have a core name and a core verse and core values & things like that. My core name was Untamed, & my first CA’s (Core Advisor) name was Chase,he left after Christmas break due to personal decisions. Our core verse was Hebrews 11: 33-40 & the whole idea of the core was just to live ‘untamed’ and do what we believe to be right in the light of eternity due to the beliefs that we receive by becoming followers of Jesus Christ. I’ll write another reflection blog dedicated to that. Now, due to some changes that occurred, my brothers & I are in a new core called Brotherhood. My new CA's name is Chris Johnson, and I'm super stoked to get to know him & the other guys so much more throughout our remainging 7 months here. In addition to our core, we also have a sister core (or two in our case) which have the same composition as our cores, and together we make a family core. So now, instead of only having one sister like I usually do at home, I am now one of 20-30 people haha.

Some of the most unique things that have grown me in so many ways are called LTE’s (Life Transforming Events). These events are just that, Life transforming. Some of the ones that we have experienced so far are ESOAL (youtube it), the Fasting LTE, and the Men’s LTE. These have had a lot of influence in the way we are molded and shaped. ESOAL especially was something that wrecked my life, body and spirit. All I can really say about this one is that it is exactly what it stands for, an Emotionally Stretching Oppurtunity of A Lifetime. Pretty much the whole idea of it though, is to die to yourself and be able to find joy in all situations. Another one that was definitely life-altering was the fasting LTE. We fasted from Thursday morning all the way ‘til Sunday morning, we also took a vow of silence from 10PM Thursday until we broke fast at 8 on Sunday morning. During this time, we just prayed and worshipped for the whole weekend. God revealed so much about my life and the path that I’m meant to take during that time. We also had a worship leader from the International House of Prayer share some teachings with us. His name was Blaise Forret (Spelling? It sounds like Blaze foray).

In conclusion, from everything that I’ve listed above (which is just a small taste of what we really do on a daily basis) there is an incredible amount of growth and development in so many different ways. It’s a great blessing & I’m so excited to embark on a new experience for 2010. It’s still the same internship, but everything has been switched up again, AND I’ve joined the School of Worship program as well so that I can develop my musical skill and worship leader ability as well as my normal leadership ability. This is definitely going to be a huge step for me in developing the future that God has set aside for me to be a part of. His plans are coming to fruition in so many different and amazing ways that I never would have thought of in a million years.