Where I'm at with school

Man oh man...it seems like its been ages since I've had the time to post anything on here. Thankfully, Leah has really taken ownership of our blog and keeps all of our friends and family caught up on what's going on with us. And lets face it, Kendall is the real star of this show anyway. That being said, there may be one or two of you who are interested in how my schooling is coming. With that in mind, I thought I'd take a few minutes to catch you up.

As most of you probably know, I transferred all of my hours into Liberty University before the start of this school year and have been taking classes through their online program since then. Boyce College, the undergraduate school of Southern Seminary I had been attending since we moved to Louisville in 2007, is a fantastic school and I thoroughly enjoyed all of my classes and professors during my time there. Those of you who give through your Southern Baptist churches can be confident that your Cooperative Program dollars are being put to good use there.

When I started at Boyce, I wasn't sure whether or not I would go on to seminary. I was 29 at the time and was basically starting over from scratch because I was only going to be able to use about 20 of the 60 or so hours of college work I had completed over the years. The program at Boyce is very ministry specific, so they don't require a lot of the "general education" courses that most liberal arts schools require (biology, physics, sociology, US history, etc.). Since I thought there was a good chance that I wouldn't go on to seminary, I intentionally looked for a college where I could get as close to a seminary education as possible. Boyce definitely fits that criteria.

However, over the past year, it started to become clear that I did want to go on to seminary. That being the case, I wanted to get started as soon as possible. I'm 32 now and while I enjoy school, I would like to finish before I'm drawing Social Security! A friend from church told me about the online program though Liberty, so I decided to check it out.

By transferring to Liberty, I've been able to utilize all of my previous college work, which instantly put me several years closer to graduating (I had only been able to take 6-9 hours a semester, so 40 hours made a huge difference). On top of that there have been additional benefits to transferring to Liberty. First, the program at Liberty is 120 hours vs. 132 at Boyce. Second, as a Liberty student, I am able to get federal student aid (a Pell grant) which covers the majority of my tuition (Boyce does not take any federal money so that they don't have to answer to Uncle Sam). Finally,the online format is more conducive to my full-time work schedule. All in all, it's been a really good move for us.

Last semester, I was able to take 12 hours, which consisted of three classes at Liberty and one at Boyce. This semester I am taking 9 hours, all of which are through Liberty. The Liberty classes are offered in an eight week format, as opposed to the traditional sixteen week semester. This past week I finished my first class (on Romans) of this semester. I start two more classes on the 22nd. At the end of this semester, I will have completed 102 of the 120 hours I need. Barring any unforeseen setbacks, I hope to graduate next spring.