Reality check

Ever since I started my theology degree in Bangor, in 2003, I've had the ambition to do a PhD. Now, with slightly more than a half year to go before I finish my master degree, it's time that I start looking for a PhD position.

Recently I started looking for a suitable topic where I can spend 4 years of research on. I e-mailed several professors in The Netherlands, Belgium and the UK with my idea. Most responded positively, saying that they would be interested in supervising such a topic. One professor invited me to meet him at his office to see if we could work out a research plan. Yesterday, I went to Amsterdam to meet the professor. That was when I realised that things aren't quite as I expected them to be.

The first question I was asked was: How do you intend to finance your PhD studies? That was a question I didn't expect. What I've heard, PhD students in The Netherlands are not students, but employees of the university. They are research assistants and receive a salary. It's a proper job. So to ask me how I was going to pay for it, seemed a bit pointless to me. I simply told them what I thought. I expected to be appointed as a research assistant and get a salary. And yes, that would often be the case. Most PhD students are in fact employed by the university and receive a salary. But the money has to come from somewhere. In this case, it comes from the NWO, The Dutch organisation for academic research. They decide where the money goes to, according to how useful it is. Medicine, science and economics are seen as very useful and therefore get loads of funding. Humanities are not so useful, so they get very little funding. There are other private funding resources, but they are very competitive and often only enough to cover the costs for travel or your parking space at university. Almost all PhD students in theology are external PhD candidates. They have a job and spend 2 or 3 days a week at university doing their research. And if I want to do a PhD, that's the way to do it.

The second question was what my future plans are, after completing the PhD. My answer was that I was hoping to continue with an academic career, as a post-doc or lecturer. The answer was another reality check. It's already hard to get a post-doc position after completing your PhD as an internal candidate with a network inside the university. To get a post-doc as an external candidate is almost impossible.

So, what it all comes down to is that doing a PhD will not gain me anything. Yes, I will have a shiny book with my name on it and I'm allowed to put Dr. in front my name. The university will receive a neat amount of money from the government for delivering another PhD. But apart from that, as a theologian there's nothing to gain apart from a sense of achievement.

With career prospects next to none, and a title nobody in the real world cares about, why do theologians spend at least 6 years doing a PhD research. The only reason I can think of is because they love it. They are passionate about their subject and their field of expertise. They love spending hours in the library, reading, analysing, understanding. They give up a significant part of their income by losing out on 2 days work a week, or 1 if you use the Saturday for research. In theology, you don't do a PhD to get a job. You do a PhD because you love it.

The question I need to ask myself now is: How much do I really want to do this? Am I really passionate about theology, or was a PhD just a way to get paid for doing something I enjoy? In terms of income, not much will change. I now work 3.5 days a week, because I have lectures. If I decide to go for it, I can even work 4 days a week, because the flexibility of an external PhD also allows to to work on my research on Saturdays. But I was planning on getting a proper job after my master degree. Anyways, I still have a couple of months to think about this. Maybe I should go to the US, where they do have full funding for theology PhDs. But of course, it's not easy to get in.

Perfect timing

One of the hardest things for me as a Christian is to see how God is at work in my life. Most of the time, it seems that He isn't there at all. But occasionally, He does something so amazing that it takes away any doubt that He is at work. And last week, something like that happened.

After staying at the Travelodge on the M4 services near Reading, I was ready to continue my journey to camp at Quantock Lodge in Somerset. Before I left, I filled up my car. When I wanted to pay for the petrol with my car, the terminal showed the dreaded message 'card declined'. They didn't accept Maestro and I didn't have enough cash on me to pay for the petrol. The cash machine at the petrol station was out of order so I had to walk back to the main service area to find a cash machine there. Back at the main services area, all the cash machines displayed the same message: 'Transaction declined. Please take your card'. I just checked my bank balance and I had enough funds in my account to pay for it, but I had the wrong card. So, there I was. I had just filled my car up with petrol, but with no means to pay for it. I had a bit of a problem. Petrol station owners do not like people who take their petrol and then find out they can't pay for it. As I was preparing what I would say, I was thinking what they would do. Would they call the police and have me arrested? Would they make me work there to pay off my debt? Would they allow me to pay by bank transfer? Anyways, it was  time to go back to the petrol station and explain that I couldn't pay for my petrol. As I tried one last time to get money out of the cash machine, I heard my name. As I turned around, I saw Karen, the head cook of the camp I was going to, and her mother. I can't describe how glad I was to see them there. I explained the situation to her and she was willing to lend me the money. I went back to the petrol station to pay for my petrol and went back to have a drink with Karen and Shirley. After half an hour it was time for me to head off as I needed to pick someone up in Taunton on my way to Quantock Lodge.

Some people will say it's all just a lucky coincidence. I don't buy that. This is clearly God at work. I needed to see that God is active in my life and He did that in a way that I can't ignore. He allowed me to get into an awkward position and sent someone I knew to help me out. This is not coincidence. It's God showing He is still looking after me.

By the way, camp was great. It was a privilege to work with the people I worked with and to serve the boys in my dorm and to tell them about Jesus. I had a blast and am already missing them. Tomorrow it's back to work again and normal life resumes.

A new start

Hello there, I'm back again. After more than a year of no blogging, I decided to take it up again. Loads has changed since I blogged last time. The last time I blogged, I was unemployed and had pretty much given up on any hope that something positive could ever come out of my life. Now I have a fairly secure job, which allows me to pursue a Masters degree in part-time. I've just finished my first year and will start the second and final year in just a few weeks. Anyways, the direct reason why I have decided to start blogging is because what happened last week. But let's start with some background information. Over the last couple of years, my outlook on life was pretty negative. With everything, I assumed the worst possible outcome. It was a defence mechanism for me. If I assumed the worst, than the final outcome could only be the same or better. I don't particularly enjoy my job. It's boring, tedious, and it's as far from what I want to do as it's possible to imagine. I enjoy my masters course, but if I finish it, where will I go next? I hope to do a PhD, but what if I can't find a PhD place? And worst of all, I was struggling with my faith. God seemed absent in my life. I saw God blessing people around me with good jobs, beautiful spouses and lovely children. It's incredibly frustrating to see other people being blessed so much, but getting nowhere yourself. But last week, I finally got to see God at work in my life again.

Last week, I went to the New Wine Europe conference in Belgium, where I was part of the youth team. The funny thing is, I wasn't planning on going to New Wine at all. My plan was to go to Las Vegas to compete in the Rubik's Cube World Championships. But when New Wine was announced in February, I immediately had the sense that God was telling me that I should go. You know, I'm really not the typical 'New Wine person'. I would call myself a conservative evangelical. I'm reformed in my theology. You know, Sola Scriptura, saved by grace through faith alone, centrality of the Cross, that sort of stuff. Charismatic stuff scares me. I can deal with speaking in tongues, but falling in the Spirit is still something I'm very uncomfortable with. But I felt very clearly that I should go, so I registered and signed up for the youth team. And I'm so glad I did. 

During the conference, so many things happened that proved to me that God is working in me. On the first night, when I was lying in my tent, I suddenly got a pain in my stomach, which got so bad that I decided to go home. By this time, it was around 4 am. I didn't even bother to get dressed. I just grabbed some stuff and walked in a general direction where I thought my car would be. By some kind of miracle I did find the car park where my car was parked. In the car, the pain got so bad that I was screaming out to God to take away the pain. When I finally got home by 5 am, I went straight to bed. I was pretty annoyed that I got ill, because I was due to meet my small group for the first time that day and was looking forward to that. Anyways, I went to bed, still in pain. A few hours, I woke up feeling absolutely fine. I was keen to go back to the conference again but then something happened. I was due to speak the next evening and I had already prepared a talk, when I suddenly got the feeling that God was telling me that my talk wasn't ready yet. Ah... so that's why You needed me to go home! Why didn't you just tell me, instead making me ill. Oh wait, I probably wouldn't have got the hint any other way. Anyways, now I was at home, with my computer and internet access, I was able to adapt my talk, and download a youtube video as an illustration. When I gave my talk the next evening, I thought it was well received. It was definitely better than the talk I had prepared before.  So it was good that God made me to go home to change my talk.

And that's just one of the ways in which God was working. During the conference, I didn't even realise it, but now I see it. It was also great to see God at work in other people as well. It was really great to see my friend, who worked with teenagers for the first time, flourishing and really coming alive when she was working with them. And of course, it was really encouraging to see young people have a real encounter with God and to hear their testimonies about how God had touched them during the week.

I wasn't planning on going, but I'm so glad I did. It was great meeting new people and to see God at work. In a few weeks, I'll be helping out on another youth camp. This time in England and I'm already looking forward to it. After seeing God at work at New Wine, I'm expecting Him to do great things during Quantock 3!