Your Journey Begins Here

You have reached the end of this series, and perhaps the beginning of something much larger.

Over the course of these posts, we have tried to give you an honest, warm, and practical picture of what life in APPLE looks like. We have talked about practical preparation and pacing guides, about the mindset it takes to thrive in a competency-based program, about the experience you bring to your studies, and the feedback that will sharpen your thinking. We have talked about the support surrounding you — your faculty mentor, your cohort, your MLC family, your home congregation — and about the very real tension of balancing work, family, and coursework when all three matter deeply.

If you have read every post in this series, you know more about APPLE than most people who have considered it. More importantly, you know something about yourself and the kind of learner you are, the kind of educator you are becoming, and the kind of calling you are answering.

To Our Current APPLE Learners

If you are already enrolled in APPLE, this series was written with you in mind from the very first word. You are part the first cohort of learners to walk this path at MLC. The road ahead will ask a great deal of you. It will also give a great deal back.

You will be challenged in ways that make you a better teacher. You will be supported by people who are genuinely invested in your success. You will grow in knowledge, in skill, in the attitudes and behaviors that define a faithful called worker. And when you stand in your own classroom for the first time as a licensed teacher in the WELS, you will know that the preparation you completed was worthy of the calling you accepted.

Keep going. Your students are waiting.

To Our Prospective Learners

If you are still considering whether APPLE is right for you, we hope this series has answered some of your questions and perhaps raised a few new ones worth exploring. We hope it has shown you that APPLE is not a program for a particular type of person. It is a program for anyone who has heard the call to serve in WELS public ministry and is ready to do the work that call requires.

The questions that matter most are not about your background, your prior experience, or the number of years you have spent in a classroom. They are simpler than that: Do you want to serve? Are you willing to grow? And are you ready to begin?

If the answer is yes, we invite you to take the next step. Reach out. Ask your questions. Talk to someone who has walked this path. And when you are ready, join us.

The Journey Ahead

Whatever brings you to this page — curiosity, conviction, or a quiet sense that God is calling you somewhere new — you do not take the next step alone. You take it as part of a community of learners, educators, and called workers who are walking the same road for the same reason: to serve the children and families of our WELS elementary schools with knowledge, skill, faith, and love.

That is the heart of APPLE. That is the heart of everything we do at MLC.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” — Joshua 1:9 (NIV)

Wherever this journey takes you, He goes with you.