...But that’s not all. The story continues, because when I arrived at Regent, I knew that I did not have enough money to sustain me for the two semesters that I planned to be there, and didn’t know how I was going to get the money to cover the costs. Now two days before classes begin at Regent each fall they have a retreat, a time away not only for students, but also for faculty, staff and their families, all together. At the end of this weekend retreat in preparation for the semester and its busyness, we divided into small groups for a time of prayer. The faculty member who was in charge of our small group asked if there were any particular personal needs that they could pray about. I was not one to normally mention my needs, but I felt like I should do so, so I told them frankly that I thought I should be there for the next two semesters, and yet I estimated that I only had enough money to last me through one semester. And so we prayed about that. 

          

When I had applied for the second year program during the previous Spring, there were some graduate assistantships for which you could apply, and which were usually given to non-Canadians with the payment done by tuition waiver. I didn’t have the expertise to be a graduate assistant to a faculty member in church history or Greek or something like that, but there were graduate assistantships to work in the library and the bookstore for which I had applied. The one in the library had gone to someone else, while the one in the bookstore they had decided not to fill. The next day after the retreat, which was the first day of classes, while I was waiting for my classes to start, I wandered into the bookstore and found a woman, who was the new manager of the bookstore, opening and unpacking books, and I asked her if I could help because I love books and was interested just to see what kind of books had come in. For me it was kind of like opening Christmas presents, just to see all of the new books. As I’m opening books, the new manager asked if I was American, and I said yes; she asked if I was a second-year student, and I said yes. She was at that very point in time beginning to look for someone as her assistant in the bookstore who would be non-Canadian and a second-year student, and who needed the financial assistance to go to school. When she had been hired during the summer, she had been promised that she would be able to hire an assistant. She asked me if I could use the job, and I was excited to say, yes, I would love the job!

          

But that’s not all. The bookstore job wonderfully provided most of what I would need to finish that second year. However, as the fall semester came to an end, I concluded that I needed about $1000 more to meet my financial needs for the spring semester. And I didn’t know where that $1000 would come from. Well, student air fares in Canada during the Christmas holidays are very cheap, so I had already arranged to fly to Toronto, as I had done the year before, then go to my home in Erie, PA, which was only a four-hours’ drive from there. When I arrived at my home in Erie, among the mail awaiting me was a check for $1000 as the initial part of an inheritance for me from my grandmother who had died the previous spring!

          

But that’s not all. Back at Regent, as it came close to the end of that spring semester, I had decided that I would not continue there through the summer, which I would need to do in order to finish the Master’s degree. The degree wasn’t important to me, the knowledge was, and I felt like it was time that I should be returning to Pennsylvania and seeing what was ahead for me there.  The question was: How was I going to get all of my belongings and my books back to Pennsylvania from Vancouver? My brother, Ron, in Columbus, Ohio, had volunteered that, if necessary, he would drive his pickup truck out to Vancouver, using all his vacation time, to bring me and my belongings back to Pennsylvania. I was not excited to have him do this because he would use up all of his vacation time, and it would be quite expensive for him to drive the truck both ways, but I didn’t know what other options I had.

          

The week before classes ended and final exams were about to begin, a friend who was from New York state came up to me and asked me a question.  He had just finished the only year that he was going to attend Regent. While there he had met a young woman from New Jersey, and the two of them had become engaged to be married. Now he was coming to me to say that they both had cars in Vancouver, yet they wanted to drive back across the United States together in one of the cars, and wondered if I would be willing to drive one of their cars back for them to the eastern United States. I was very happy to say I would be glad to do that, particularly when I found out that the car would be a small Chevrolet Vega station wagon, which got good gas mileage but also would have plenty of room for my books and my belongings.  Then I thought of the one other person from the eastern United States who was going to Regent, a young man from Pittsburgh who was finishing his first year and was going to continue the next year for his Masters Degree. I didn’t know what his summer plans were, so I found him and asked him if he would be interested to drive back to Pennsylvania with me and share the expenses. He said he would normally be happy to, but that he was planning to go to California and find a job there with some friends for the summer. However, two days later he came back to me and asked if he could reconsider my offer, because he had just had a conversation with his father in Pittsburgh and learned that his father had already arranged a job for him there and insisted that he go back to Pittsburgh for the summer. 

          

So it happened that the two of us were able to share the costs of driving that car back across the United States and, by staying with friends and his relatives and mine along the way, the total cost for each of us was only $65 for food and gasoline to get from Vancouver to Pennsylvania! Since neither of us was in a hurry or pressed for time, we were able to take a leisurely route through the Canadian Rockies and down through Yellowstone National Park, and had a delightful time of sightseeing and camping together.

 

 

Epilogue

           

Since that time the Lord has given me other desires of my heart, including a wonderful wife, four great sons, three cherished daughters-in-law, and seven delightful grand-daughters. He has given me more experiences of His love and grace. And most importantly, He has given me the unspeakable privilege of being His child, and the opportunity to love and serve Him and the world around me. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that God is real, God is good, and that the exciting adventure of walking with Him is life at its fullest.

​

​