How do you handle student loans? Missionary Preparation Tip #014

Student loans often present a hurdle for people headed to the mission field. Pay them off as quickly as you can!

TRANSCRIPT:
How do you handle student loans?

How did you handle student loans?

For me it was school loans that I had to pay off before I was able to really pursue this calling to serve God overseas. School loans are a very challenging dimension of our post-college lives. We often graduate with many thousands of dollars of debt in school loans, and many times we may not have the best paying jobs when we get out of college, so it takes a while to pay these loans off.

In my opinion, I was convinced, I believe, that it isn't fair or right for me to ask supporters to pay for my school loans, because that was something that I incurred really separate from the ministry. It was a choice that I made prior to going into ministry, it was a choice that may have some bearing on what I'm actually doing, but at the same time, that's just extra money that really I should be responsible for since I incurred that loan, and those debts.

I had to make some sacrifices to be able to pay off those loans quickly, I could have taken the minimum payment route, and that would have put me 20 years down the road and paying thousands of dollars of interest, but I chose to live simply, to live frugally, to be able to take care of those loans as quickly as possible so that I would be free to go serve full-time in missions.



Credits:
Produced by Mission Data International
Video Editor: Paul Nielsen
Cameraman: Peter Armstrong

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2009 Mission Data International
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2009 MIssion Data International

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[florinated]

Though I am not going to mission I decided to get out of student loan debt too. I took me two good years and lots, no tons, of sacrifice. I am now free but a piece of my soul is gone.

[oneworldoneway]

I'm in the same boat.