Going to Seminary

A frequent question we face is “How do we get done all that we want to do?” It’s a very important question, but if we think about this way, it’s the wrong question. A better question is “How do I do all that God has given me to do?” There is one person who has walked among us who has been able to do just that. John 17 is a well known chapter in which Jesus prays for His disciples. But right before he does that, note carefully what He says in verse 4: “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” (NIV)  That’s quite a shocking statement, especially given the fact that he says this before He has gone to the cross. Yet He has completed all that God has given Him to do. He has not done all he could do, and definitely has not done all that others wanted Him to do, but God simply doesn’t ask us to do more than we can. Ever.

I was thinking about this in reading Nancy Wilson’s recent post on GtS on “The Balancing Act.” She realized that she had placed too high an importance on her coursework, that “while I needed to attend to my studies, I didn’t have to give 110% every time.” How did this good advice go together with my post on “Maximize Your Learning Experience”?

When it came to getting things done, Jesus was a master of prioritizing at two different levels: strategic and operational. He got the big picture right – He knew why He was here, what His priorities were, and where He needed to invest most of His time. That meant for some very tough decisions. He focused on doing the will of the Father, on reaching the people of Israel, and on building deeply into the lives of only a handful of men. Everything He did reflected His top priorities. Equally importantly, he always seemed to get it right in-the-moment. He took time out for individuals, to heal people, to go to dinner parties with sinners. His sermons got to the point, His teaching time was focused, He never got bogged down arguing with His critics, and He balanced family and ministry perfectly.

Well, we don’t have perfect knowledge what God has called us to do in detail, nor do we know perfectly what is going on in the lives of those around us – so how do we do better at getting things done? We also need to think in terms of our time and priorities both at a high level and in the details, and tie the two together as best we can. It starts with making the most vital things top priorities in our lives (not just on paper) – time with God, with family, taking care of ourselves, serving others, and sharing Christ. Also at a high level, we need to spend time listening to God and exploring His call for our lives. We need to understand our gifts and strengths, as these shed much light on what He expects from us.

What’s the tie-in to moment-to-moment decisions? How does it impact letting a course slide versus maximizing learning? Return on investment of time. With our fixed budget of hours, where do we see the highest return in the light of our calling and priorities? If family is a top priority, block out time on your calendar for it. Figure out how much time you should be spending on studies (the balancing act), then make the absolute most you can the time with your study time (maximize your learning). For example, spending an extra 30-60 minutes writing notes and reflecting on application after I’ve read a book greatly increases the value of reading it. That’s a super return on investment. All courses are not equal in the light of your calling. ‘Get by’ with those that aren’t, and do so guilt-free knowing that you are focusing your time where God wants you to. Your seminary professor will choose what is required reading vs. what is supplemental, but that doesn’t mean you give all books equal attention (or ignore ‘optional’ ones). Skim some, read others, and devour the ones that can really impact your life and ministry. Go the extra mile when you see an opportunity to tie in studies with your current ministry, do the minimum when the benefit is minimal. Share what you learn with others who would benefit from it – that’s a triple win: you learn more by teaching others, they benefit from hearing, and you build relationships and build leaders in the process.

We can’t get done everything we would like to do, but when we tie-in what we’re doing and where we spend our time with what God has called us to do, we get a lot more of value done – without short-changing ourselves or those we love.

“There is a danger of doing too much as well as of doing too little. Life is not for work, but work for life, and when it is carried to the extent of undermining life or unduly absorbing it, work is not praiseworthy but blameworthy.”

Ralph Turnbull (1901-1985)

How good are you a tightrope walking?  How many items can you juggle at one time?  What are the most important balls to keep in the air?

These are among the many questions I was faced with during my first semester in seminary. I knew it wouldn’t be easy…not with a husband, two young children and two geriatric dogs in tow. I understood it would require a sizeable adjustment having moved our family (as well as my mother-in-law) to a new area, requiring us to find new dentists, doctors, libraries, schools, grocery stores and more. I sensed it would involve great sacrifice since my husband would be gone nearly five days of each week for his job…only leaving us a small window of time together on the weekends.

So, how did I juggle all of these responsibilities? And, how well did I do in meeting them?  To answer this question, I called upon Stephen Covey’s time management grid where Covey* identifies four areas (quadrants) signaling how we should spend our time:  (1) urgent and important, (2) not urgent but important, (3) urgent but not important, and (4) not urgent and not important.

One area in which I think I succeeded (in some small measure) was that my family remained in quadrants (1) and (2). Obviously, I had to make judgment calls as to when the needs were urgent or not and I had stress maintaining those levels but I sacrificed to make sure they were honored.

Where I fell short was in how I treated my seminary work, my devotions and myself.  Regarding seminary, more often than not, I had placed my coursework in the urgent/important grid. I did that knowing that my family sacrificed a lot to allow me to follow my calling so I thought I was doing them a favor by pursuing my seminary coursework “all out” such that their support would not be in vain. What I realized later was that they had already given enough and, while I needed to attend to my studies, I didn’t have to give 110% every time. Regarding my devotions, I often found myself empty and exhausted from the reading and the writing of seminary work and it ate away at the time I had set aside for personal study and prayer. I think this is what troubled me most because I knew how monumentally important it was. And, concerning myself, I neglected good eating and exercise regimens and I did not get the level of sleep that my body most desperately needed. Frankly, I’m still feeling and seeing the effects of this personal neglect.

As I look toward the fall term and the balance of my seminary journey, I realize I need to make some adjustments or I’ll be paying a price I am no longer willing to pay. Regarding coursework, I’ll give it a good effort and be willing to consider completed assignments to be “good enough”. Regarding my devotional time, I simply need to observe the Sabbath day as it was intended. In so doing, I can spend more time with my family, be more caring toward myself and be able to reconnect more fully and deeply with God. To remind me of these commitments, I plan to keep a copy of Covey’s grid posted on my wall along with Jesus’ commandments to love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength and to love my neighbors as myself (Mark 12:30-31).

Perhaps Galileo said it best when he noted ”I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.”  I, for one, need to heed God’s words of wisdom when it comes to understanding what is truly important and how best to balance that to which I have been called.
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*Stephen Covey is the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

I wonder if you have a growing list of things you are going to do “when you get time.” For most people there seems to be at least a few things that are on a project list that are waiting for the right time or resources to be implemented. Some of these have more to do with the way we structure our priorities, and others are just waiting for the right pieces to fall in place. Either way, I bet that list (for most of us) is getting longer – not shorter.

My wife and I have experienced this at a couple of times in our marriage. We tried to get the timing right for me to step into fulltime ministry from a parttime role. We tried to wait for the right time to have a child. Once our boy came on the scene we wanted to wait for the right time for her to become a stay-at-home-mom.

In these few cases and SO many more, if we had truly waited for the “perfect” time – we would still be waiting. We have found it easy to find multiple reasons for delaying some life-changing decision; everyone does. But we have also learned that once we acted on those things – God provided. In fact, it became difficult to understand why we had not acted sooner rather than later.

I have had a similar experience with seminary and it became even more evident to me as I completed my journey at Rockbridge Seminary last month. For several weeks I had been longing for (and dreading a bit) the day when I had a week with no assigned reading, with no papers due at midnight, or some other seminary-related action to complete.
I just knew that once I graduated I would have tons of time to jump into the ever-growing pile of books I want to read. I would have more quality time to spend with my family. I was looking so forward to my well-deserved break of doing whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it.

My realization, however, was found on the opposite end of my assumption of all the free time I had coming. What I found is that I have absoutley no idea how I ever completed seminary! When I look at my schedule, there is no room for classes, homework, or papers. There is no time for me to engage professors or fellow students. And defintely no time to read page after page of something that I’m certain would make even God yawn two pages into it.

My point is that if you are waiting for the perfect time to jump in to furthering your education – that time might be right now. If you are thinking that you just can’t add one more thing or that your schedule is too cluttered – just ask yourself if that situation will be better, worse, or the same a year from now. My bet is that you will be just as busy or busier later as you are right now.

Now, admittedly, there are significant reasons to delay the timing of such an important decision, and the contributing factors are much broader than the scope of this post. But waiting for life to cease its incredible demand on you physcially, emotionally, and spiritually will be a long, long wait. Why not jump in and give it a go for a semester? See if you are able to do with seminary the same thing you do with every other hurdle life throws at you – face it head-on and conquer it through Him!

As a volunteer leader attending seminary online I sometimes feel out of place. I don’t have the experience or skills of many of my classmates. But as an ex-professor and someone with a PhD in Chemical Engineering, there is one thing I do fairly well… I love learning! God made me a learner, so I want to share some of the top things I’ve found helpful in my studies. The professor in my very first class at Rockbridge said something I still remember with a smile: “You really maximized your learning experience!”

Top 10 Ways to Maximize Your Learning Experience

10) Your professor is your friend! Don’t be afraid to ask your prof for help. Get to know him or her. In grad school they’re no longer parent figures, they’re your peers. Nothing gets them more fired up than seeing a student develop a passion for what they’re learning. What breaks their heart is to see a student struggle in silence or just plain give up. They’re there to make a difference in someone’s live.

9) Read the “optional” recommended books in the syllabus. Bright minds with tremendous experience and wisdom have hand picked a cream-of-the-crop list of resources to help you learn. Don’t be dissuaded by the few extra hours or dollars it will cost you. It’s a great investment of time and money, small in comparison to your years at school.

Choose electives that will stretch you. Don’t pick all the ones in major or the easy ones. Choose several to hone existing strengths and but also pick a few way outside your main area, one that you think will be fun or just offer a different perspective.

7) Constantly ask “so what?” The goal of your education is not to cram your head with knowledge, it’s to seek wisdom and to be transformed as a discipleship. Don’t complain something doesn’t seem relevant, dig deeper until you find a principle or practice you can apply. Get something on your calendar or to-do list. Application of what you’re studying will either cement learning of truth or reveal your understanding to be false when you try to put it into practice.

6) Share what you’re learning with your team or some other outsider. Talk about it with a friend over lunch, discuss things within your small group, or teach a class. Blog about what you’re learning if you don’t have the opportunity to do this! Nothing helps you learn better than having to teach someone else. This also fosters a learning culture in your own church and within your team that will pay dividends in the long run.

5) Read your textbooks in multiple passes. First pass, skim it fairly quickly, even if you just read headings and call-outs. Do this before your class starts or in first week for a high-level overview of the book. Second, read it in full, taking notes and/or highlighting according to the syllabus/assignment schedule. Third time, when the class is done with that book, write summary notes by reviewing headings, your notes and highlights. As you do this, look once more for concrete items to add to your to-do list, someday list, or calendar.

4) Have an open mind when you read. You do not have to agree with everything you read, but you should definitely be humble enough to learn all you can any book or person. Do not dismiss an author or classmate just because you feel they’re wrong about something or don’t like them. You’re going to have to serve and get along with people who disagree strongly with you on some issues for the rest of your life, why not get some practice handling that well now?!

3) Interact often with your classmates. Ask them tons of questions, challenge and encourage them. Give them permission to ask you tough questions and push you. Especially in seminary, talk about things not in the curriculum, share dreams, pray for one another. Seminary should not be a place where ministry is put on pause – seminary is a place where you continue to minister as you learn.

2) Start your homework assignments early. I know, I know, there’s no way you can do this. You can, and here’s why you should: i) it will take the same amount of time to do a good job whether you do it now or later; ii) you’ll thank yourself profusely when things hit the fan on the eve of a huge assignment, that you finished a few days early; iii) good study and work habits developed out of a sense of discipline now will serve you well naturally later; iv) this is THE best way to reduce stress about school and homework. It takes effort, and you need to be committed to this approach from day one of classes, but it really pays off.

1) Find a good mentor who has the time and interest to meet with you. This is really a big deal where I’m now going to school. It’s a fully online seminary which requires students to find such a mentor before the end of the first week of each class. Make sure they know it’s for a limited duration. When you can discuss what you’re learning – whether things that are exciting or confusing – you’ll learn so much more from your class. When it’s someone who cares about you and has experience related to the class, that’s pure gold!

I know some of these may sound challenging or idealistic, but trust me, these are not pie-in-the-sky ideal things to ponder, they’re very practical tips that will truly help you maximize your learning experience – whether online or in the classroom, seminary or grad school. Got other tips? Share them in the comments!

Jack was frustrated as he stared at his laptop screen. He was on an annual personal retreat planning his twelfth year as senior pastor at Christ Community Church.

The screen showed all his learning activities from the year before – the conferences, seminars, and classes he had attended; the books he had read; the sermons he had studied; and the leadership groups he had joined. He was passionate about learning and kept himself accountable by compiling and checking this list each year during his retreat.

But this year he was not satisfied just having a list – he wanted to know if it was the right list. God was stirring his heart about fresh ministry horizons, and he knew he wasn’t prepared. Shouldn’t he be matching his learning to his future journey? All the items on the list had been helpful to him, but had they been strategic?

For instance, the books he read were chosen more by accident than by planning – he overheard someone talking about one and happened to see another advertised online. Could other books have been more helpful? And one of the conferences he attended was more out of habit than for ministry development.

Jack thought to himself, “I need to get a better handle on my learning choices.”

Can you relate to Jack? If you are reading this article, you are probably a leader with a long list of completed seminars, conferences, books, and courses. The continuing education possibilities for leaders today are endless – and that is the problem. A busy leader may be tempted to choose learning based on opportunity, schedule, and cost rather than according to personal development needs.

I call this “shotgun learning.” It may have worked well a generation ago when you could choose a seminary program, seminar, or conference simply because it fit your schedule or your pocketbook. You could always count on stumbling across information somewhere that was helpful to you. Today, your choices are too many and your time is too valuable to make “shotgun learning” decisions. A better way is to develop a learning focus based on your ministry development needs.

But how do you do that?

A “Personal Learning Plan” can guide you to make strategic learning choices and serve as a tool to evaluate their usefulness later. The effectiveness of your plan depends on how well you tie your learning to your calling. Here are four steps to help you get started:

Step 1: Rediscover your ministry horizon
How is God stretching you? What do you see on the horizon of your journey with God? How is your call unfolding? What is the direction of the faith steps God is asking you to take?

No matter how long you have been in ministry, God has a ministry horizon for you – future ways he wants to stretch you and use you. Sometimes leaders make the mistake of connecting all of their strategic planning to their current ministry position, causing them to lose touch with their personal calling. They forget that their calling is a journey of experiencing God that is greater and lasts longer than any ministry position.

Step 2: Conduct a personal assessment
Assessing the gap between where you are now and the future ministry horizon you envision is important. Yet it may be the most difficult step, since personal assessment can be so easily influenced by denial and self-deception.

Daniel Goleman defines “emotional intelligence” as “the ability to know yourself.” Spiritual leaders develop emotional intelligence through the discipline of personal and spiritual reflection, through the practice of journaling, and through relational channels of accountability and feedback.

Honest personal assessment is most difficult for the leader not yet free to be that unique person God designed and shaped. Trying to be someone you are not, even after years in ministry, can keep you in denial about the “real you” God wants to develop. Rediscover your personal ministry horizon and honestly assess how prepared you are for the challenge. Then think about the ministry competencies that need further development.

Step 3: Identify priority learning pathways
Once you rediscover your ministry horizon and honestly assess your starting point, you are ready to identify priority learning pathways. These learning pathways will guide your personal ministry development in the direction of your calling.

Keeping the number of pathways to three of four at a time will help you focus your learning. Once you are pleased with your development in one area, you can replace that pathway with another.

For instance, Jack saw on his ministry horizon a greater emphasis on mentoring future leaders. Yet his tendency to be emotionally distant made close, authentic relationships difficult. One of three priority learning pathways he chose was “to learn how to authentically express my feelings in community.”

Step 4: Consider the resources available to support you
With his learning pathways identified, Jack saw with “new eyes” the learning resources available to him. He immediately thought of books, conferences, study programs, and learning clusters with other leaders that could help him develop. Choosing resources became much easier with his learning pathways identified first. Now he could get a better handle on his learning choices!

Jack opened a new file on his laptop and smiled as he typed at the top “Personal Learning Plan.”

This article is adapted from the Rockbridge Seminary course “Developing the Focused Life.”

Today’s guest post is by Dr. Sam Simmons. Dr. Simmons is co-founder and vice president for learning design at Rockbridge Seminary. ©Copyright 2010. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

We’ve heard hundreds of horror stories of students losing their paper. Whether it is computer theft or a hard drive crashing, we are all vulnerable to loss of intellectual property. Days, even months of work can disappear in an instant. Each term we exhort students to back up their data frequently, but faculty members are just as guilty of not taking the necessary precautions to preserve data.

Thankfully, there are some free or inexpensive solutions to this problem. You can rest easy at night knowing that your documents, email, contact, calendar, and all other data are safely backed up; not just once, but four different ways.

Items to keep in mind regarding Backups.

The first thing you must remember when selecting a backup system is that it must be a “Set it and forget it” system. Anything that relies on a human to start the backup each time will never work. We get distracted and forget. The second thing to remember about backing up is to have more than one system in place in case one has a hiccup. Lastly, have at least one back up in the same location as your machine, and at least one in a completely different geographical location as the machine you are backing up.

The Hardware & Software of backing up

In the old days we used to use tapes to back up and we would rotate them out to a safe deposit box once a week. Was that ever a pain? Working for a digital seminary like Rockbridge brought new challenges since all our staff work in separate locations. We have used MozyPro for about three years and it has worked well. It’s Mac and Windows compatible and centrally managed through their website. It also fulfills our need for an offsite backup.

Alongside Mozy, we each use Drop Box to store all our documents. Drop box not only stores your documents, but also automatically syncs them across any computer you wish. It also allows you to share files with family, friends, or coworkers. Let’s say you are traveling without your personal computer, but you need to access a document. If you can borrow the use of a computer get on the Internet, you can access your account containing all of your documents. Any changes to the document will be sync with all of the computers that are storing your data. You can use the free version of Drop Box (2 gigs) or purchase additional space (50 gigs costs about $10 a month).

You may also want to use NAS (network attached storage) device to back up all the computers in your house. This device is simply an enclosure that has both wireless and wired network access and houses a hard drive. Mine has two hard drives that mirror, or automatically copy each other, in case one of them decides to stop working. However, if you are just concerned with one computer, a USB connected external hard drive? works just as well. Nearly all of these come with backup software. Apple provides Time Machine for Macs that creates automatic backups and works wonderfully.

Archiving the most important files

If you have files that need archived and are critical must haves, such as tax filings or a movie of baby’s first steps, it’s always a good idea to burn a CD or DVD and label it with as many descriptors as you can. In a year when you are flipping through the disk on your desk and can’t remember what’s on a specific disk, you’ll thank yourself for being so detailed. There is also some new technology that we have yet to try, but it’s on our to do list. DVDs that can be burned by personal computers last around 5 years before becoming corrupt so don’t count on them to work in 10 years. Cranberry 1,000 year DVDs are for the documents, images, or database files that must be safe.

What do you use for backing up? What have you used? What didn’t you like, or worse, didn’t work when it needed to? Sing praises or vent in the comments.

For kids, having the summer off from school means lots of sitting around watching TV, riding bicycles or playing sports, and sleeping in. But seminary students are no longer kids, and summer break is not going to be like that anymore. At least they shouldn’t be.

If you don’t take any classes during the summer, it is easy to get lazy. Once the required reading is done it is hard to find the motivation to pick up a book again and read. It is hard find the desire to open the Greek textbook once in a while in order to keep your mind fresh on what the aorist middle participle of a certain verb is. It can also be difficult to keep your mind thinking through a lot of the ideas and issues you came into contact with during the semester when you would rather sit with a bowl of chips in front of the game.

But these things are important. Those of us who are in seminary need to keep our minds fresh during the summer. Before I started seminary I spent a year working, and hardly did any reading during that time. Once the semester started I fell behind quickly and spent the rest of the semester playing catch-up.  I’d let my mind be idle for too long and it wasn’t quite ready for the intellectual challenge of seminary.

So let me offer a couple of suggestions. First, keep reading. If you are like me, you have a lot of books on your shelf that have never been read, or you have seen a lot of new books in the bookstore that have piqued your interest. Go ahead and read them! Don’t feel the need to rush through them like you often need to do during the semester, but pace yourself. It’s very easy to read a book a week, or if you are working or busy with other tasks, to do so over a period of two weeks. The point is just to keep your nose in a book and keep your mind accustomed to reading.  Someone once suggested to me that reading a good novel along with a non-fiction book is helpful.  Novels are much easier to read, and if you spend a half-hour reading that before you go to the other book, reading that non-fiction book will be a lot easier as well.  Plus, your imagination gets a workout then too.

Second, if you are a student of the languages, you must keep active in studying those. There are ample opportunities to do so. At my seminary, a local pastor comes in to the bookstore every Friday morning and sits with about five students reading through a chapter of the Old Testament in Hebrew, translating as they go. They spend about an hour together. See if you can find a group like that to be a part of. Another thing you can do is take your original language text to church. My pastor is preaching through the gospel of John right now, and so I sometimes take my Greek New Testament with me and follow along. It’s a simple way to keep on top of it.

Third, make sure you keep interacting with people on the levels you do during the seminary. Keeping discussing theology, faith, and the Church. Allow your mind to be active because you have a lot of free time to engage these issues during the summer. Also, take advantage of podcasts–sermons, lectures, conference audio–and set aside an hour every few days to listen to these. Some seminaries have material available through iTunesU or available for download elsewhere online. Lots of conferences makes their audio resources available online as well, and almost every church has sermons available for download.

By all means, enjoy your summer. Spend time with your family, take a vacation, and go to a ball game. But by keeping up with some simple things like reading, once summer is over you will be well prepared to get back into studying.

I’ve been meaning to point this out ever since it was posted, but so much has been going on I haven’t had the time.  So, if you haven’t already seen it by now, check out Derek’s list of 45 Ways to Waste Your Theological Education.

I was digging #’s 2, 19, 20, 25, 36, 45 and, for those interested, Terry will be tackling #20 in a upcoming post.  Surely with all those numerical references you’re intrigued enough to go check out his list!

After you read it, let me know your thoughts.

Talk about being a slacker… One measly post this week and it was merely a job ad. Hopefully I can get my act together this week, but I guess only time will tell if I can do that… Until then, since I was a slacker this week, I’ll try to make up for it in one post.

Two Cent Tuesday – Saturday Edition

Saturday is always strange for me because I never know what to expect. On any given Saturday I am as likely to have a project for work, as I am to have school work to do, as I am to have a list of honey-do’s around the house. While I always have something on my plate, I do typically try to spend at least half the day with my wife and kids. I also attempt to get a 30 minute nap in there somewhere. In the end, Saturday is like a half day off for me. Mix that with, typically, a whole day off on Sunday and I am usually ready to go come Monday. So, what’s your Saturday like?

Thrifty Thursday – Saturday Savings

Well, tomorrow is Mother’s Day and my mom happens to be in town tonight. So, in true best-mom-in-the-world fashion, she has offered to watch the kids and give Just a Gal and I a date night. As I was looking online to decide where we should go for dinner, I was reminded of a really great date resource: Restaurant.com

Restaurant.com is a great site that offers you some instant savings on dinner. The gist of the site is that you can buy a gift certificate to a restaurant at a very discounted price. Typically you can get a $10 gift certificate for $3 or a $25 gift certificate for $10. Now, you can only use one per visit, but that is a pretty nice little savings on dinner. Also, if you sign up for an account, they typically send out discount codes towards the end of the month and you can get an even greater discount. Major score on those nights.

One final note… when you buy your gift certifiate and print it out, don’t forget to take it with you! Sad to say I’ve done that more than one! Sheesh.

A link for all you would-be-Ph.D’s

Here is a great post by Sean Michale Lucas on Ministrial Students, Calling, and PhD Studies. It is incredibly insightful and is worth reading for all seminarians. Along with the original post, there is a LENGTHY comment section that I suspect will only get longer once you visit the post. Enjoy.

OK everyone, time to help someone out. I was contacted by Dan and Chris who are missionaries in Poland. They have 2 daughters and are considering going to seminary. Below is a letter explaining their situation and they have asked for our help. So, please take a moment to read it and leave a comment for them. Thanks!

Dan (my husband) talked about going to seminary back in the States a few months ago. It was suggested that we also look in Europe and see what we find here. We have everything to set up house here, etc. We found a listing of accredited Seminaries at EEAA. Through there, we found Tyndale University. For an MDiv, it costs about 3700 Euro (about $5000) per year. We went last week to visit it, talk about living expenses, and see about the programs. The program appears to be very good, and they accepted and scholarshipped him about 50%. The living expenses are fairly high, probably about the same as Chicago or LA. Our outstanding problem at this time is our daughters, aged 13 and 15. Amsterdam has some Dutch schools which teach in English but for the two of them to attend, it costs about 12,000 Euro ($19,000) per year. We thought about taking out student loans to cover their tuition and I will work to cover most of our living expenses. We possibly could continue their education with the online school we have been using, but hope that if this option is available to them, that it would make it easier for them to transition into college. (So, we would have 2 years of education expense for Brittney and 4 for Melanie) They will continue giving us some form of assistance, possibly through the Dutch government or through the school itself, but first we would have to pay the first half.

If you have any ideas/suggestions about attending seminary overseas, scholarships, loans, etc., we would welcome any help or advice, good or bad. Some people might be interested in this university as well, since it is fully accredited and somewhat cheaper, especially if it is a couple (and can possibly stomach dorm life) or for single people.

Ok everyone… thoughts?