What's the Hebrew Word for "Bump in the Road"?

Seminarians preparing to attend the LCMS-sponsored seminaries have to pass five "entry-level competency exams" (referred to by the acronym "ELCE") in Old Testament, New Testament, Christian Doctrine, Greek and Hebrew before being admitted into the M.Div program. Over the past year, I have self-studied my way through the first three and have completed a year of Greek at Wesley Theological Seminary to prepare for the fourth. My plan has been to take Summer Hebrew at Concordia to wrap up my pre-seminary preparations.

As I was driving home on Tuesday afternoon this past week, I received a call from Rev. Joel Fritsche. Rev. Fritsche is an admissions counselor in the office of ministerial recruitment at Concordia and slated to teach the Summer Hebrew class I had registered for. Unfortunately, his call was to warn me that only two seminarians had pre-registered for the Hebrew class and they would likely cancel it unless three more pre-registrations came in before the end of week. (We will find out the registrars' decision tomorrow, Monday, May 12.) ACK!!!

Rev. Fritsche was very kind to talk through options with me and offered to make himself available if I should opt to self-study my way through Hebrew over the summer. (Concordia Seminary was one of the earliest participants in iTunesU and has posted their Hebrew curriculum there! There's a lot of other great stuff there, too! Check it out!)

Heather and I have talked about our options at length; we haven't come to any conclusions yet. There are a number of seminaries in the St. Louis area that may offer Summer Hebrew. The LCMS seminary in Fort Wayne may also be an option. I may opt to self-study from the Concordia Seminary campus in St. Louis and take advantage of access to the faculty there. Or we may simply throw up our hands and start the M.Div program during the Winter quarter after taking Hebrew during the Fall. (Seminarians who do this end up taking a full load during summer school; I had been hoping to avoid this.)

Until we make a decision, we certainly appreciate your prayers on our behalf for wisdom! We trust that the Lord will work in and through our choices.