Online Master'sA little older, a little balder, a little pudgier, but still game to learn. This is me at 63 working on my first course in my Master’s in Intercultural Studies, an endeavor that perhaps optimistically will be finished in four years and a bit. If I’m still around, I’ll be 68 when I’m done. Seems like a bit of a pointless exercise, right?

However, I consider education to be one of life’s greatest joys and privileges. If you reckon that about five percent of the world’s population has a university degree, it is a rare privilege as well. This may sound intuitively false in Canada, a country recently hailed by the UN to be the first in world history to have a majority of its citizens with a post-secondary education. But if you consider the billions in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East with barely any education, it makes our little pocket of the world the exception, rather than the rule.

So what am I going to do with this Master’s, presuming that I survive till then? Well if I consider both my family’s genetic s and world trends in longevity, I am likely to be around into my nineties. Seen in that light, not to get further education now that I can finally afford it would be foolish. Who knows what opportunities the Lord may bring my way for service in the years remaining? I certainly don’t!

But I do know this: whatever the Lord has for me He is going to need me to be better equipped than I am at present. I have gone a long way on a three-year B.A. and a year of teacher’s college. Pam has gone even further on her R.N. For us to go further, we both need to be better educated. Neither of us can think of anything we would rather spend our time, effort, and resources on that to prepare for the road ahead, no matter how long, no matter how short.