It is Finished

On Monday Carl had his thesis defense at 10:00. His thesis was titled "The Ecclesiological Deficiency of the Democratic Practice in Congregational Churches" or to make is simple Why Voting in Church Isn't Good Enough. He rose early to buy doughnuts and fruit for those that would be attending and even got the kids breakfast and set out the video camera. I was thankful for our neighbour Megan who offered to watch the kids for the morning so that I could be at Carl's defense. It was an exciting morning!

I could tell Carl was nervous, and I wasn't helping by taking forever to set up the camera. He started off giving an overview of his thesis and as he spoke, became less tense and more expressive. He spoke for over 30 minutes, with passion and excitement. It's been ages since I've heard him speak and I've missed it.

After Carl was finished, his thesis adviser Tim, got up and gave affirmation to Carl. Tim said that thesis writing is either hard, very hard, or very very hard, and he figured for Carl, it was hard (what a compliment!). He knew that he had written a lot in a very short time, stating that Carl probably had days where he ate three meals, spent time with the kids, talked with his wife, and still managed to write 10 pages. I tell you, Carl is quite the writer! Tim had a few hard questions and Carl did a very good job responding to them.

Then it was the second reader's turn, Valerie, who is another professor on staff. She congratulated Carl on a job well done, and also had some questions for him. She commended him on making the paper readable and easy for those to understand. And Carl said that was the whole point because he wrote this paper to be a resource that anyone in a church could use.
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With the little remaining time, three people were able to converse with Carl and ask further questions. It was neat how people from classes, people from our courtyard, some professors, a friend from church and I all gathered to hear Carl and learn about this topic, which seems to be an important one in many churches. I was blessed to receive congratulations as well from Valerie, who said that I had a lot to do with the success of the thesis writing. I thanked her for recognizing me and felt good that I supported Carl along the way. I was also blessed by words of affirmation from Carl's classmates that were there. They expressed how they appreciated Carl and that his thesis and his passion for ministry has impacted many already.

I'm so proud of Carl and I'm sure that he is very relieved that his thesis is finished. It has been a long process of writing, 4 months, but an even longer time in the making, 8 years of ministry. Carl says that he had to quit writing once he reached 120 pages, but there's still so much to write. Maybe there will be a second thesis.....