I am not worthy of your greatness!!!! That's pretty darn cool.
Please share how you got in. Let me pop some popcorn first.
Well, here goes...
I start this with a profound truth: "A coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous."
After I got out of college and the turmoil of the following years, my student loan went into default, which meant that I was no longer eligible for any other educational financing.
A few years ago my brother, who was in his late 40's at the time, went back to school at the local Community College and got a two year degree in Computer Science and eventually landed a great job with Adelphia Communications. He encouraged me to do the same thing, but when I applied, I couldn't get any financing because of the default on my record. So school was not an option.
Then something very strange happened. Shortly after this time, the firm that was handling my default attempted to take several thousand dollars out of my checking account, which only had about $300 in it. Needless to say my account was "slightly" overdrawn. This led to an arrangement for me to make payments on my default balance, which in turn led to my eligibility for student aid to be reinstated.
It was about this time that I began to think about seminary, but I only had a two year degree and needed a Bachelors to enter the sem program. After thinking about it for a bit it became extremely obvious that it would be near impossible to go back to school for two years to earn a BS or BA.
One day, while driving home from work, I was sitting at a red light. I looked up at this huge billboard advertising an adult degree completion program through the local Weslyan College. (I had stopped at that light almost every day and had never noticed that advertisement before.) The program was for adults who had a two year degree and had classes one night per week running 18 months to earn a BS in Management. So I looked into it and enrolled.
When I told my pastor that I was considering seminary and wanted to go to Fort Wayne (it was closer to home, besides I was not to keen on going into a mojor metropolitan city like St. Louis) he encouraged me to apply to both Ft Wayne and St Louis. He thought my being divorced would be an issue with Ft Wayne.
I was accepted at both, and still wanted to go to Ft Wayne, but they had no on campus housing. St Louis offered me an on campus apartment, but I couldn't afford the $500 security deposit, besides I hadn't decided that I was even going to go there.
The kids and I visited both campuses. Our reception at Ft Wayne was very cold (I never got to even see the admissions counselor), and the housing costs were too high for us. At St Louis our welcome was cery warm and we were informed that despite my not paying the security deposit, we still had an apartment reserved. We even got to tour our new digs while we visited the campus.
Wasn's a hard decision as to which seminary to go to. And we had a place to move into right away.
I leaned to love St Louis and I would go back there if I ever have the chance. (My oldest son still lives there.)
When time came to move, I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for the moving expense. But one night, at about 3am, my daughter woke me up and said she heard water running. I went out into the kitchen and found the water line that connect to the ice maker in the freezer had broken and flooded the kitchen and ruined the floor and much of the livingroom carpet. My dad held a homeowner policy on my house (which I didn't know about) and the settlement not only paid for the repairs, but there was enough left over to cover most of the moving cost. The church and our youth group had fundraisers to help us raise the rest.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Coincidences? I think not.
Come on Rev.
