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Koloff once again made his feelings very, very apparent. It's been a long time, but the win is over. That's a bad man. That's a bad man, no. That's a bad man.
It's time to man up with Satan's nightmare, Nakia Kola. With me today, oh, this is a special one.
Well, you know what? They're all special. You probably get tired of hearing me say that, don't you? But this one right here, just recently with this man of God, had a wonderful time at his church up in Wilmington, Delaware. Adam Zlopko, welcome to the Man Up Show.
It's time to man up. Thank you, Nikita. Good to be on here. Good to hear from you again.
Well, good to hear from you. Good to talk with you. We've got a lot to cover here today in a short period of time. But what was your What would you say in attending the Man Up conference, the Man Up Intensive? Uh might have been one of your biggest Takeaways or one or two highlights.
from the conference that I did.
Well, first I have to say, you know, attending attending the camp already back um Back in October, so that was about October last year, right?
So, yeah. Right, so about two two months, you know, three months You know, from that. that I wanted to be there because Of my brothers in the church that didn't get to go to the man camp. 'Cause there was four of us that went. Uh two that went prior.
So I was excited for all of that. But the fact is that I even was able to get more out of the material because and I know I talked to you about this later is that It's It's kinda like I went into man camp not expecting not knowing, not expecting anything. Pastor Haas was the one who talked to me about it. And the intensity in his eyes when he told me About how transformative Man Camp is and And just coming back a new person, like a a whole new creation in Christ. And r you know pretty much a a man on fire.
you know, is what he explained to me that I would be. And he didn't even have to explain it. When I saw the look in his eyes, And the intensity and just like the he was even tearing up a little bit, like talking to me about it. I'm like, that's what I want right there. I want that kind of intensity and fellowship with Christ.
and to also be someone that can grow in this church. And you know, uh be a man that is accountable.
Okay, 'cause I come from a past. Um uh being of when I prior to being saved I was I was a um I abused drugs, alcohol, and everything.
So I look at myself as a very non-accountable, unaccountable person at that time in my life. And I've since then been able to turn that around.
Well, you know, and I appreciate that and and we'll we'll A lot of ground to cover, as I said. But so let me just kind of pause right there and, you know, little backstory for our listeners. You know, you mentioned you and three other guys.
So four of you, four of you, drove down from Delaware down to a little town called Royston. Georgia. Have you ever been had you ever been to Royston, Georgia before? I had not. I've been to Atlanta a couple of times for work, but never to Royston.
All right.
So, home, home of baseball player Ty Cobb. He's got a little museum there. But so you guys you guys are part of several milestones really for the camp last year. The four of you driving down from Delaware. Three guys driving down from the state of Maine, which was amazing, 20-plus hours.
And their testimony of going to church together, thinking they knew each other, but didn't really know each other until they spent 20 hours in the car and really got to know each other. They said, Man, the five days at camp only highlighted it. And then the 20-hour drive home, they said was just the icing on the cake. It was even better than 20 hours down. And then one other milestone: Daniel, who became our eldest attendee, eldest camper, drove 13 hours from Louisiana at the age of 81.
Um and then one other milestone, two other milestones real quick. Was we had men represented from 12 different states that drove in, flew in, and 11 water baptisms. That was the most we'd ever had.
So a lot of history. You were a part of a first there, and Let me just say this, Adam, because, you know, it wasn't really even putting the cart before the horse, meaning, you know, you coming to camp before going to the conference. A lot of people think, oh, I need to go to the conference and then I'll go to the camp. And a lot of times, yeah, a lot of times it works out that way, but the conference isn't a requirement to come to camp. But both of them can impact you, just like you just mentioned.
Of course. You know, going into the camp is like um Is building your faith, is going, is having that. having that um that courage and the fearlessness to go into the unknown. Because you know you're going into something that is only going to be beneficial to you, your family, your friends and your church. You know, you're going to come back a better person.
No matter where you are in your faith, if you've been someone who's been saved for 20 years. one year like I had been prior to going to to camp, Um Uh it's it it there's there's no fear in it. You could it's only to to build upon. But I think I was lucky that it fell the way that it did because It was kinda like having a refresher course. and a way to kind of also gauge myself.
From what I learned at camp, what I put into practice into my life Okay, 'cause not just, you know, like you Like you had said there at Camp, it's not just learning the material. It's learning it and putting it into action. Application. And application. And that is something.
that when you were going through the different steps of, you know, what it means to be a man, like what does What does manhood in the world versus manhood to God look like? And I am so happy to say that I fall so much more on The godly Um manhood versus the worldly manhood. And it's amazing to see you know, just just right there. the transformation that I've been able to make. But not only that, but And we talked Again, you and I, about this later, but what it has done with my family.
Yeah, hold that thought. I want to get there. I want to get there. Right. But it's not just for me.
Uh but it's it it really does affect all those around you. By being the the the person that that this man up uh conference and the man camp Helps create you to be and and I and I want to get there we'll we'll just kind of Pause on that. We'll keep the audience wondering just exactly how it impacted the family. Because there's a couple of things you said there that I want to just highlight. You know, when you talked about, you know, however long you've been walking with the Lord, or if you have never been walking with the Lord and you come to camp, you know, Daniel, going back to Daniel again, our 81-year-old, would be a great example of that, right?
50-plus years of walking with Christ, yet he was still hungry for more of God and was impacted without. Sharing or giving away what happened, sharing his story. I have to get him on the show and let him share his story sometime. But. You know, it it's uh no matter what your walk of life, like you don't have to be in ministry, you can be in out in the marketplace like like you are.
It du it doesn't matter. You just have to have that hunger for God. And then you said a key word, the unknown. The unknown. And most guys come into camp, as you alluded to, not knowing what you're walking into.
But that's intentional. I want our listeners to understand it's intentional from this standpoint. We don't want guys going home and sharing all of the intricacies of the camp because we don't want to build any false expectations, like, oh, like, okay, yeah, I can't wait for that to happen. No, we just want you to trust the process, come and allow God to do what He does best and see what happens. And of course, you know, your return home from camp, you know, used the words on fire.
If I heard that once, I heard that several times while I was up there with you at the church, just how on fire you came back. And you had another key word: transformative. What a great word, Adam. Transformative. It really is.
It's like transformative metamorphosis. It's just it's taking what I have built upon prior to going to man camp, which was leaps and bounds from where I came from. Um prior to Coming back into the church and doing my discipleship program. Um, accepting Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, being baptized again. what it did for my family and everything, but I mean It it's just like Like you get to one plateau and you're like, where's my next leap going to be?
You know, what do I have to get there? What do I feel that the Lord is telling me that I need to do or or that I need to not do? You know, right? And let him do for me. And and that's been another you know there there's many things that Each of us have in our journey that we've been reluctant or hesitant to change in our lives.
But the further we go, Into our relationship, we learn to just trust God, trust Jesus. He has it covered for us, you know? Yeah, I'm really. The battle's already been won. Nikita Koloff here, and I am excited.
Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?
Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff Fans, and like it. And follow today. Love isn't where to be alive. If you would like to support Kolaw for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration.
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How would we say it that way? The war has been won. We know at the end who wins, but there's still a lot of battles along the way. You just said something else that was interesting, too. I want to focus on for a moment: plateaus, plateaus, plateaus.
Being continuing to be hungry for God, continuing to want to grow. You know, I'm reminded of a scripture. It talks about the depth and width and height, you know, our relationship with God. And my daughter Kendra asked me one time, her and her friends had taken him out to lunch, grabbed him out of school, and took him all to lunch. And they said, Dad, do you believe there are different levels of Christianity?
And I said, I said, well, I said, yes, but let me explain why I think that. And what I added was a word called maturity, different levels of maturity. And now you used the word plateau, which is similar, right? That, hey, we can grow, we can grow in our faith and grow in our walk with Christ and reach different plateaus or reach different levels as we mature. Let's back up just for a moment, a little more backstory, and then we'll move forward to how all of this has impacted your family.
You know, you hit on the contrast between manhood as the world defines it, manhood as God defines it. And you already mentioned drugs and drinking. And how many years were you out there in the world living that lifestyle?
Well I would sh uh I would say Most of my uh from my From the age of thirteen, I started drinking, you know, me and my friends. Um And it was always just something that we just thought we were just doing for fun. It's like just like a rite of passage on most is what it felt like. Um And then when I you know, as I got older and started experiencing with with more and more drugs through in college, out of college. Then you hit the workforce and I mean, it just got it got so bad.
I mean, I I didn't know really what it was like to just be Um You know, without drugs or alcohol in my system, especially on the weekends. Um and and that was another part of like of of life that was scary to get into once I was able to get clean. Um But the worst part I would say would be with The last the last six or seven years was pretty bad when it came to a head with with heroin and pain medication and things like that. Um where I just I couldn't I had no nothing I could say I really had control, but I had no control at that point in time. And that's when I was introduced to NAAA.
Which I did. uh you know, went back and forth with that. I was clean for a number of years. About I'd say about eight years, it's nine years now. Um But it was uh It it was getting closer to God.
That was able to just take away all of the Um Zire. Desire. uh frustration, unforgiveness. unforgiveness in myself. of myself Um where I was able to actually go back to different people and And show them the kind of person that I am now.
Like, it's not something I wanted to talk about. I wanted to like show them that I'm a changed person. Um And just the love that it's brought back in my life. Because even though I was clean over those eight years, I was battling. uh deeply with with depression, isolation, Um I felt like I was under spiritual attack, and that's where I really Um built my one-on-one relationship with Jesus, that's truly where I was saved.
It's it when you look at it in hindsight, he was there the whole time. Um where I was able to get out of the mess with with the heroin, with with um yeah prescription painkillers and all that. Um But I also had like a short About a a year and a half, two year about with methamphetamine. after being cleaned from the heroin and it was Christ it was it was through Christ that that I was able to just Be done with everything. Good.
And let me recap. Pause right there. Let me recap. That's a lot for people to absorb.
So essentially, I wrote down: age 13, you start drinking, you're spiraling out of control. Life, you know, as you get involved in more and more and more and more, you know, drinking drugs and that sort of thing. I guess since we talked about snow earlier, you could just say it was a snowball rolling downhill, right? Right. And okay, so let's fast forward.
You talked about. Um getting clean and and uh really Your relationship with God when it really became real.
So, how old were you when that happened? When you're finally clean and now you've got a relationship established with Jesus, how old were you, roughly? That was. Making you think, making you think. Yeah, I would say.
I would say forty five um forty s uh B forty seven in April. Um, in a couple of months, I I would say at 44 because it really started to get dark. When I hit 40. Like, it was, it was, that was the darkest part of my life, but. I had already been cleaned from heroin.
Right. But it was just it was just the the isolation at that point where I pretty much No one really in my life. Um at that time. Nobody holding you accountable.
So All right.
So hold on.
So we only got a few minutes left. I don't want people to miss out on the best part of this whole story.
So you get clean. You're 44 years old. You get clean. You encounter Jesus. You accept Christ.
Life's on a different trajectory now. You're introduced to man camp. You come and get impacted there. You go home. You're on fire.
You come to the man up conference, which is different. different material, different teaching and material at the conference than at the camp.
So it only heightens things. But you mentioned your family.
So let's just talk about in the last few minutes here, how it impacted your family, your return home, the conference and the camp.
Okay.
Well, My mother, she had been praying for years now, and she just looks at me sometimes. with like tears in her eyes that that that her prayers were actually answered, that Jesus Brought her son home. Not just brought me home. But But brought me back to her as a better man now than what she ever could have expected. Um For my my daughter, I am now active in in her life.
She's she'll she's six years old. Um You know, uh there was times before I was I was working late I was working on a a late shift, so I rarely got to see her. And again, that was like a worldly thing, putting money thinking money was more important than family when truly it's not. Um you know, the family The family will The money will come when you have everything right in the world in your world. And I've been able to go since then get into a better employment.
Um work day shift to where I'm with my daughter now and getting to see her every single day is such a joy. Um I I have a relationship again with my dad and my stepmother, my stepsister, um my brother, it was a big one. He was he's someone he s he tells me he never gave up on me. But I could just see it in his face, just like the sadness. that his older brother Um was going what I was going through, and he couldn't really do anything to to help and and just couldn't understand it, but He just hugs me every time I see him and when we see each other and and that relationship has been so much better.
um, with my friends. And then especially also, um, like you and I had talked about, um, was was with my my daughter's mother.
Okay.
We we were together for a short period of time Um after while she before she was born after she was born. Um but then we had split up. And we still co-parented together And there was animosity between us, but because of what I was able to learn, Um At camp. At camp. Where I had told you guys that I feel like God's putting it on my heart to either rebuild that relationship with her.
to where we're just co-parenting or that we get back together again because if we cared enough to make a life, then we should see it all the way through. And that's kind of the way that it's going. Um I know it's kind of like a whole backwards way around it, but it is the way that it's going.
Well, hey, but that's okay. Like I said, you hold up.
Well, like I said to you when I was up there, I'm like, that's amazing. And God stirred your heart at camp to get things right with her. And now you're back and you're working on that relationship. And I said there'd be nothing better for that precious little baby girl than to have mom and dad married and together and raising her. Nothing more special than that.
And so, well, listen, we're just about out of time, but what an amazing story of transformation, Adam. I'm excited about your future. I'm happy for Iron Faith Fellowship, man, that they got you there, part of the men's ministry, a part of what's going on there with Pastor Haas, Pastor Brian, and now a half a dozen guys there that have all been to man camp and more who are coming, right? There's more good. to be coming this year down to California.
So many are excited to go. Like it you there's really there's a true excitement in in our in our men's group about the opportunity to go there. But not only that, it's the women in our church also. They see the change in us as we come to their it's something that they're even excited and are kind of like rooting on guys to go down and do this. Excited and supportive, right?
And that's important. That's important, ladies. I tell the ladies all the time in the churches I'm in, don't browbeat your husband or that special man in your life to go. Just encourage him and say, You have my blessing if you ever want to go to mancamp. And if you want more information, go to mancamp.info.
You're excited about this interview with Adam Zlupko. Go to mancamp.info to get more information and perhaps come to camp yourself. And all right, Adam, last word: Iron Faith Fellowship there in Wilmington, Delaware. Excited for what the future holds. I'm looking forward to coming back.
And hey, maybe one day we'll get you down serving at camp. What do you think? Mm-hmm. I would love any part of that, Nikita. You coming back, me going down there to serve for camp.
It's something that I told you already from the first camp I went to, I'd be excited to do. I j just being around it, it just makes you feel like such a better person and that you're doing so much more in life than maybe what you think you Are assigned for, or what your purpose is. This is really fulfilling a higher purpose. Oh, man. On that note.
This is really fulfilling a higher purpose. That's powerful. And Adam Zlupko, Wilmington, Delaware, Iron Faith Fellowship Church. Check it out if you're ever in the Wilmington area. What a joy, honor, privilege to get to know you, Adam, spend time with you, break bread with you.
And thank you for sharing your story today. Thank you, Nikita. I gotta tell you, I love you and thank you for everything you've done. The power of Christ in my life and all these other men throughout the country, throughout the world. I appreciate it so much.
Well, and I look forward to hearing more wonderful praise reports about that relationship with mama and your little girl. And to all of you out there in listening, Land, thank you for each and every week just dialing in, tuning in, supporting this show, supporting QA with Bolop. Until next time, my. challenges, go out and live a God filled and have a God-blessed day.
