Unsure how to retrieve data from a custom endpoint?

Context to this post is I'm a java developer attempting to teach myself Ember. It isn't going well. I realize this question is pretty vague so I apologize, I'm not even sure what I should be asking...

I need to pull data into a model, i.e. via some sort of query, from a heroku json endpoint. In the application.js file, I have the following:

import DS from ‘ember-data’;

export default DS.JSONAPIAdapter.extend({
    host: 'http://ift.tt/2yTc7Vd'
});

Ideally I would like to pull this data into a user model, then display that data on a page as a sort of proof of concept. This unfortunately gets me nothing. Nor am I even sure I'm going about this correctly. Should I be doing something different than attempting to use Host Customization? Any guidance would be much appreciated!