by Joni Astrup
Associate Editor
As members of the Elk River High School Class of 2016 settle into college this fall, Bailey Albert is not among them.
She is taking a year off to participate in the Young Daniel program through Tentmakers, a Christian ministry headquartered in Chanhassen. The program started Aug. 14 and culminates next summer with a 30-day international mission trip.
“One of the main ways I look at it is a gap year,” Albert said. “I know that I will be going to college afterwards.”
It has long been a tradition for high school graduates in Europe to spend a “gap year” traveling the world and volunteering before college, according to U.S. News and World Report. Now this practice is becoming more popular and accepted in the United States.
“I feel like it’s the best way to figure out what you want to do with your life,” Albert said.
The American Gap Association doesn’t know exactly how many U.S. students take a gap year each year, but indicated that interest is growing.
Gap years can be a time of personal insight, an exploration of future careers, or simply a way to recharge in a meaningful way, according to the American Gap Association.
Typically the two most commonly cited reasons for taking a gap year are a desire for increased self-awareness and to address academic burnout, according to the association.
Ninety percent of students who took a gap year returned to college within a year, the association reported.
Albert has already been accepted at North Central University in Minneapolis and said she plans to go to college in the fall of 2017.
Former Elk River Mayor Stephanie Klinzing, Albert’s grandmother, said the “gap year” can be valuable for students to find out more about themselves and their interests before being swept into a particular college or area of study and life-long career.
“It’s really wonderful,” Klinzing said. “We’re just excited for her.”
Albert heard about the Young Daniel program through her youth pastor, Sean Nelson at Christ Church in Otsego. Albert is interested in college ministry and likes the leadership training aspect of the Young Daniel program. She sees it as a way to clarify her plans for the future while helping others.
The first 40 days of the program are spent at Wilderness North, a Tentmakers retreat, conference and training center north of Duluth, where Albert is going through leadership and instructor training in a wilderness setting. She then will spend the next nine months working at a job and doing ministry work. The next 30 days will be spent on the international mission trip. The previous group of Young Daniel participants went to the Czech Republic, according to Mark Eliason, an instructor with Tentmakers.
Eliason said the Young Daniel program trains participants who are then put in positions to use those skills.
“It gives them a chance to develop confidence and gives them experiences to discover who they are and the strengths that they possess and how God might be leading them,” he said.
Asked what she hopes comes from her year with the Young Daniel program, Albert said, “I really do love the aspect of being able to figure out what exactly I want to be doing with what God has given me and being able to figure out what it really means to live as an adult in today’s society.”
She said she doesn’t know exactly how that will play out but is excited to see what happens.