Blessed

This week marked an exciting moment for Karmen and I. For the time being, we are debt free! We made our final payment to the student loan services and now we are able to save/give/travel more! Our goal was to  pay it off in a year. We made our first payment on November 1st, 2011 and our final payment on November 12th, 2012. So we made it in just over a year!

We feel very blessed to have our four years of Bible College paid for. How did we do it? We both worked for a year after high school, saving as much money as we could. We worked hard during our first two summers in between semesters. We received a few scholarships along the way. We had some portions of our student loan forgiven by the government. We were able to raise some support from our home churches for our third year internship. We received a discount in our fourth year for being married students. And finally, we were very intentional the last year and a half, to pay off as much of our students loan as we could manage while having enough for rent, food, gas, etc.

We are very thankful for our parents who were willing to help us out near the end of semesters when the bank account was approaching 0 and for helping us out with flights to Saskatchewan and weekly meals and encouragement. I am very thankful for my father who dedicated significant portions of two summers shingling roofs with me and doing other work projects, specifically to help me pay tuition. We are grateful for family support, home church generosity, surprise letters from the government, scholarships and the blessing of finding work throughout. We feel blessed!

Please pray for us as we discern what is next. We have been enjoying some aspects of teaching a lot and we have signed a contract until at least next summer. We still have missions on our radar. Our first goal after college was to get out of debt. Now we will praying through what God has next for us...

Also pray that this time away from family and close friends will really allow us to cling to and grow in our relationship with God. Our lives teaching here are quite busy and sometimes we feel lonely. Maybe this is a time when God really wants to prepare our hearts for what lies ahead!