I am glad our Sabbatical has ended at the same time the new school year and church year are starting. I always like this time of year of new beginnings. I have to walk through the aisles of school supplies in stores. It is an irresistible tug. I want to buy a box of markers. Or crayons. Did you know you can now get them in color families? I want one of each. I don't even know why! Do any of you still need to go school shopping, and if so, may I go along? I will pick out your notebook colors.

My mind turns with such fondness to Megan and her start of another year of college. Today was the day Covenant College welcomed a new class of freshmen, and Megan is part of the team of upper classmen that is welcoming them and helping them with orientation. It was amazing to be able to see her two different times during our Sabbatical, and now it is such a joy to think of her there on that campus for her senior year. At the same time it is hard to believe that this is the last of twelve years that we will have a daughter there. (Emily and Jessica actually doubled up one year due to being 3 years apart in age, and we had no one there for one of those 12 years due to Jessica and Megan being 5 years apart in age -- but enough math!) The school year there will hopefully start again with the traditional message from the president about a Christian's "Big C" Calling and "little c" calling. I hope Megan blogs about it and shares that great message with others.

Whenever our daughters brought home friends, we felt like we knew so much about them before even meeting them. Megan outdid her sisters globally by bringing home girls from Germany first and then Mozambique. I remember saying to one of them that I feel like I know so much about you already, because if your families were willing to send you so far from home to go to school both you and they really love the reformed faith.

Or call it Calvinism. We are so grateful for a school rooted in the reformation and claiming as much as possible a close adherence to the five solas of the reformation. There are many colleges in this country with the word Christian in their name – even Harvard, Yale and Princeton started out as a Christian colleges! But to find one that upholds Calvinism and its emphasis on Biblical Christianity is a treasure. Dordt College is another one with roots in this reformed heritage, and that is where our son went, feeling the tug of the basketball program and of a certain Sioux Center girl named Dorinda.

I would like to encourage more people to consider going to Covenant College. I always hear one of two reasons why people do not go there. The first is that it is too far away. This is true only if you measure geographically. Measure theologically! Like the medical missionary parents of Sara from Mozambique or the parents of Hannah, who are members of what sounds very much like a German version of the URCNA, it is of so much value to find a school right next door theologically. Almost no distance at all!  My view on this was reinforced a few years ago during a sermon I heard in Lance and Emily’s church. Their minister talked about how he would rather have a child of his own or of the congregation be living on the other side of the world and walking with the Lord than in the same city on the wrong path to eternity. I am sure this even then was preparing us for such a long separation from Sam.

The other reason people often do not consider Covenant is the cost. I looked through the world almanac recently for a very unbiased opinion and found the figures for Covenant to be right in there in the same range as other Christian colleges, both Calvinist and Arminian. People unwilling to go into college debt are willing to go into debt for a house or a car. A house is a shelter, a truck is transportation, but a mind is a renewable resource! A solidly reformed college education -- even if only for one year -- is of eternal value to each person that chooses it and continues to place life's building blocks on it. Those building blocks will include marriage, parenting, committee work, church office, town councils, school boards, etc. It makes sense to me that something of the greatest value economically is that which is a smooth follow through of that which our reformed schools, parents and especially churches are equipping young people with. 

And hurray for a new year of that starting up right now.