So I wanted to let people know that I am pretty much fully funded (praise God!) and how I got there. Although it's not using a strategy any of you (teammates) are likely to be able to replicate before September I thought it would make sense to share God's provision for me, as I am of course very grateful to Him.
Before I started Uni I had in mind that I wanted to travel somehow when I finished although I wasn't sure how I wanted to do that yet. God had already been speaking to me about the poor, and I had already been challenged to learn to live on less. The summer before Uni God really challenged me to have a global perspective – to understand how blessed I am to be where I am, and to live in such a way that I can try and bless those who are in worse off conditions than I am. This heart for the poor was a call to live with less for myself and to give more to those in need, and so I have been trying to live that way ever since.
Now, the UK higher education system works such that tuition fees are currently around £3300 a year (about to go up to £9000 but the lesser is what I've been on fortunately) and the UK Government offers you a tuition loan to pay for that. They then also offer a maintenance loan each year, about £3400 for me, to go toward rent and bills, etc. These two loans are then paid back in installments once you are earning over £15,000 a year. Then further still, for those who are from a low income background there is a maintenance grant of about £2900 available each year, and the University in Portsmouth supplements that with a bursary of £900 a year. When applying for funding household income – for those under 25 parents household income – is assessed, but my parents are divorced so I got in touch and asked who I should put. I was advised to use my father, who is retired, as he is on lower income and so I did, and so because of this I have fantastically been awarded both the grant and bursary each year.
At Uni then, my tuition loan has paid for my tuition fees, and my maintenance grant has covered most of my rent and household bills during my time. Then, by getting some part time work I have been able to use the earnings from that to help pay my food bills and have some spending money each month. Whilst this has not been very much, I am happy to live on less (including pretty basic food supplies) and have still been able to give money to some charities every month.
So, because the grant and bursary money is basically free money being given to me I made sure to put it into a savings account every year. Minus the amount that I used to supplement my giving to charities, I have ended up at the end of this year with basically exactly the amount I was expecting the world race to cost! How amazing is that?
(In fact, the conversion from pounds to dollars actually left me with £550 left over that I wasn't expecting! As it happens that was the amount it was going to cost to go on a short term mission trip to Crimea in the Ukraine with my church here in Portsmouth, and so off I will be going for ten days in April to get stuck in there. God provides and then He provides some more.)
(I'm also blessed with very supportive parents, and I thank them with all my heart, one of whom has offered to fund me by giving me money each month so that I have enough whilst we're out there, the other of whom is paying for my vaccinations, flights and insurance.)
So teammates – although the University funding I have gotten is probably not something you can connect with in terms of your own fundraising, and whilst not wanting to inadvertantly come accross as bragging that my fundraising is done – I hope that this encourages you that God does provide! For me it has been largely from plans put into place 3 years ahead, but I believe God can be raising up provision for you even into the time that we are out there.
Let me finish by sharing fundraising in my 3 years volunteering full time for Youth for Christ, in the hope that that can encourage you too. My first year I knew from a while beforehand I was going to do and so spent the year before it preparing financially in various ways (not dissimilar to ideas given to us for this, but I only needed about a half of the money we do per year). My second year I only signed up to about a week before the end of my first, and yet I had the whole second year paid off within 2 months of starting through amazing and unexpected provision. And then finally, near the end of my third year I actually had to send a cheque back to a group and explain to them that I would have too much money if I took it!
In more ways than one I have known first hand that God provides – although obviously it requires life choices and effort from us – so keep on pressing on in your support raising, in praying, and in trusting that if this is right, He will provide for it one way or another.
God bless
