School Update

Awhile back I posted about my struggles with Greek, and all the work I had to do to stay on track to graduate this June. After much thought and prayer, and upon the recommendation of my advisor, I've decided to drop my Greek classes - as well as a few others - and take a reduced course load this quarter, the better to focus on my recovery & rehabilitation.

Although I was not able to get a refund for the classes I had already signed up for, the registrar worked out an acceptable solution - I'll take an "incomplete" for the courses I had to withdraw from during the Winter and Spring quarters, then will audit them again when they come around next year. I'll do the homework then, and the professor will simply enter a change of grade once they grade my assignments. This way, not only do I not have to pay for another course ($1300 per class), but this arrangement also ensures that an "F" grade does not show up on my transcript - which would've been the case if I'd simply dropped the courses.

What this means in practical terms is that my graduation timeline has been pushed back - instead of graduating this June and finishing my remaining classes in December, I'll now be finishing everything and graduating in June 2010. Naturally, I was a little perturbed at this initially, but I've come to realize that this is the best (and most realistic) course of action. It simply was untenable for me to "make up" ten hours of credit while simultaneously taking another twelve hours of classes this quarter - all while trying to fit in therapy sessions 3x/week.

I feel a great sense of peace in this decision, and know that God has a plan for all of this - I just need to keep in mind that I'm operating according to His timeline, not my own.

It's All Greek to Me

I've recently become aware of one of the most colossal blunders I've made during my time in seminary. Allow me to explain:

As an M.Div. student, I'm required to take either Greek, Hebrew, or a combination of both.

I chose Greek.

I took the first course in the fall of 2006, and did okay - ending up with a C. So far, so good. But then I took a wrong turn; my professor, Mark Strauss, took a sabbatical and his replacement took over the next course with an entirely different teaching method. Soon, I felt myself sinking and decided to simply withdraw from the course rather than risk failing. I thought I'd just pick it up again the next year when Mark was back and go from there - after all, how much difference could one year make?

Unexpectedly, I was faced with a dilemma when the next year rolled around: a new course called "The Ethics of War" was being offered, but it conflicted with the Greek class I had intended to take. Thinking that the ethics class would be much more valuable to my future career, I opted to take it instead, thus putting Greek off for yet another year. Bad move.

Finally, I resumed my Greek studies in January 2009, more than two years since my last Greek class. I quickly found that I had barely retained anything from my previous class, and began cramming to catch up. However, unlike most other classes, one does not "cram" Greek. It has to be built layer upon successive layer, starting with a firm foundation - which I lacked. To make matters worse, my accident occurred in the middle of all this, causing me to miss several weeks of classes and fall even further behind.

Though my professor was kind enough to grant me an extension to complete the course, this means that I now have to hastily work to build and strengthen my foundation of Greek knowledge while simultaneously enrolling in Intermediate Greek this quarter.

And all of this while I still have make-up work from other courses, 12 hours of new courses (Greek included) to complete, a senior Statement of Faith to finish, and my physical therapy sessions to attend three times a week!

So keep me in your prayers, as it's going to be a long, hard road these next 10 weeks.

God's Timing

You know, a funny thing about being one who is "in need" (as opposed to having everything in order and simply trying to maintain the status quo) is that the Lord has a remarkable gift for bringing just the right people into your life at just the right time. Allow me to illustrate:

Around Thanksgiving 2005, I was beginning to think seriously about pursuing the chaplaincy. One of the first orders of business was to decide where to go to seminary, obviously. Since it was important to both my wife and me that we be near family, I had narrowed the choice down to two places in Southern California: Talbot School of Theology and Bethel Seminary San Diego.But I couldn't decide between the two schools. Then my wife and I attended an OCF retreat. There we got to know Chaplain Fred Robinson and his wife, who taught many of the classes that weekend. Just before we left, we happened to sit with them at lunch. When he heard that I wanted to become a chaplain, he naturally wanted to know where I was going to go to seminary. I told him my two choices - and my dilemma, and was surprised to find out that he had degrees from each of them! He told me everything I wanted to know about both schools, and based on his recommendations I chose Bethel, which has proved to be the perfect place for me.

Another example of this occurred just this past week. I have been a long-time reader of a blog called "Neptunus Lex," written by a now-retired naval aviator whom I've actually had the pleasure of meeting a few times. He posted a brief article about my accident, and asked his readership to wish me well. A few days later, I was contacted by a woman who also happens to live nearby and is the Assistant to the President of an organization called Soldiers' Angels, whose purpose is to provide support for servicemembers in many different ways. When she heard about my situation, she offered to check and see what she could do for us. Imagine my surprise when she called the next day and told us she had been authorized to purchase me a brand new laptop with voice recognition software! Not only that, but she came by the same day to deliver it and help set it up and get it linked in with our desktop computer.

Now I no longer have to wheel myself out to the garage and sit there trying to type with one hand while my injured leg gradually begins to throb because I am unable to elevate it. Instead, I can now work from the comfort of my bed, allowing my body to heal while still keeping my mind engaged with schoolwork and blogging.

My friend Jay Tobin once gave me this bit of knowlege; he said that "God is rarely early, never late, and always on time." I'm continuing to find out just how true that is.