Faith in action

A follow up on earlier post about Faith vs. Action.

Have emailed Good News Lutheran to request a school tour. Received an acknowledgement email yesterday and hope to hear from them soon. After that we'll have a chat with the principal and hopefully get all our questions answered so we can submit the enrolment form.

Have been dropping hints to Beth that she may be transferring out of Heathdale in two years' time so it won't be such a massive shock when it happens. I know she'll grieve over the separation from her friends and her comfort zone, but kids are resilient, and we've tried to highlight the positives: the $ saved could go towards holidays (RACV Royal Pines is still high on her list of favourites).

Other ways I can think of to cushion the blow: regular play dates with her Heathdale friends, Good News Gang on Wed (which is attended by GNL and Heathdale kids).

Last night, I finally got round to reading up on the ASG terms and conditions to get a grip on what we signed up to when we enrolled the girls in '07. More importantly, I needed to know how we would benefit and when.

The good news: when Beth turns 13 (Year 7), ASG will send us the amount of projected benefit ($4k+). The amount goes up every year until Year 12. Then when she starts uni, she is entitled to a scholarship benefit of $1k - 2k for 3 years. Same for Jordanne, except her benefits are more because she enrolled at a younger age.

It's good to know we'll get some help with school fees (esp if Beth's still in a private school and not at Suzanne Cory or on a scholarship to Westbourne Grammar, which is our best-case scenario) five years from now. Which means the years of financial stretch are actually just Years 4, 5 and 6 (2012 - 2014).

Still, at $6k pa for 3 years ($18k), that's still a huge outlay compared to GNL's $2700 x 3 years ($8100).

Imagine how much more good we could do and how much more we could give for God's kingdom with the savings.

Why should a good Christian education have to be prohibitively expensive?