Saturday 21 September 2013

My First Prayer Request

First of all, I'd like to say thank you to you all for your support and kind messages! It's nice to know I have so many good, supportive friends and I hope I can update you as much as possible during my time at Bible college! =)

With just over a week to go, I have my first major prayer request!

I had been hoping to fund the course with a loan from Student Finance. However, after lots of mixed messages from them I have just found out that I am unable to get a tuition fee loan for my first year, despite the fact that I have never had one before. Although, I can have one for years two and three. Fortunately, I am able to get a maintenance loan, which at the moment isn't enough but I have been told that I can get it changed, which will cover my tuition fees. This still means I'm short on money for other things.

I have worked out I will have enough money to pay for accommodation at the Bible college, which includes food! Hurrah! But the counselling course has extra costs which the regular theology course doesn't have. This includes an intensive training weekend away (Thursday - Sunday) each term and counselling sessions. Each weekend away costs £190 and the college recommends around 20 counselling sessions at £30 each. On top of this I will also have general living expenses.
I don't want you to feel like you have to but if you feel that you want to and are able to give anything towards any of these costs then please contact me directly.

If you are the praying type, please can you pray that I...
can get the maintenance loan amount changed and quickly and easily without too much hassle
can raise the money in order to pay for these extra expenses
can carry on with the course without being too worried or distracted about it

Thank you! =)

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Friday 13 September 2013

Bible College aka What I'm Doing Soon

Hello!

This was my blog from when I was at uni before but now it's changed to this! Enjoy! =)

Some of you may know, and for those of you that don’t, I have been accepted at London School of Theology (formerly London Bible College) to study Theology and Counselling. I start this on Monday 30th September.

In my interview my new New Testament lecturer told me it would be a good idea to write update letters for people who may wish to support me in any way or are just interested in what I’m doing. I hope to keep it interesting and a little bit amusing because you don’t want to read some boring letter and I like to think that God has a sense of humour. Why else would He create this? 











I guess it would be a good idea to tell you why I’m going. In all honesty, I don’t really know! It’s something I believe God wants me to do. He tried to get me to go a few years ago but I went and did a course in Paramedic Science instead. That went a bit wrong and I was kicked off the course for failing some coursework. But it’s ok! God was with me all the time and just told me again to go to Bible College. I’ve learnt my lesson so this time I’m going.

It’s kind of like a modern day Jonah. God said do this so I did the opposite, it went wrong and I ended up back where I started, God said do this again so I did it. The good thing about God is that He’s nice to us so instead of punishing me He has given me another chance to get it right.

As I said, other than the fact that God obviously wants me to go, I don’t know why I’m going! I’ve always thought that you don’t need to go to Bible College and have opinions on fancy, long words to be a Christian. Which is true. When God told me to go to Bible College this year I thought, “Ok, I’ll go for a year, then try and get into the ambulance service.” I was planning on doing more work for a first aid company and hopefully doing the paramedic course part time with them and the Open University this September. Now, after lots of thought and prayer, I’m going to be more open to what God wants me to do, whether that is to leave after a year or to stay longer. Therefore, I also don’t really know what I’ll be doing when I leave. But hey, God’s got it all sorted so it’s not anything I need to be thinking about at this stage.

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