Short-term mission trip

"We're on a short-term mission trip."

Our Sunday School teacher made this statement yesterday at church. It stuck with me and I've been pondering it since then. His point was that in the grand scheme of eternity (which is how we, as Christians, should think about things), our lives are pretty short. Some might say meaningless. I wouldn't go that far personally.

We're on a short-term mission trip here on Earth. I've been on several short-term mission trips, so I relate to this. When you're on a short-term mission trip, you make decisions differently. Everything about what you're doing is focused on why you're there, whether it's to build a church or house, or to form relationships to share Christ. So I've been thinking. Is my life totally focused on why I'm here? Most of the time it probably isn't.

I guess first you have to answer the question, "Why am I here?" I think for me, right now, one of the main reasons I'm here is to raise Cade. Obviously, there are the church-y answers like, "to love Jesus" and "to tell others about Jesus." And those are true, too. But as a parent, I've been told to train my child in the way he should go, so that when he is old, he will not turn from it (Proverbs 22:6). So that's what I'm trying to do. Not always successful. Trying.

But it helps me to think about life like this:
We're on a short-term mission trip. It won't last very long, so we better make the most of the time we have.

Black Friday

I'm sitting here typing this on my new laptop. My $197 laptop. That's right, folks. $197. It's not an off-brand, tiny computer, either. It's an HP, with a 15.6" screen, with the new Windows 7 on it (which so far, I highly recommend!). And this is why Black Friday exists. And why Ryan and I got no sleep on Thanksgiving night.

We went to get in line about 9:00 pm on Thanksgiving. I went to WalMart (and got to stay inside in the heat all night) and he went to Best Buy (bless him, he was outside in the cold until 4 am). We were actually both in line for laptops, but I was in my line just as a backup. The one I was in line for (and I was the first person in line, by the way) was $298. Still a great deal, but not as good as $197. We didn't have a lot of hope for him getting the $197 laptop as he was at least the 20th person in line. But there was something else he was in line for also, which I can't talk about yet because it's a Christmas present for someone else ;) After meeting lots of new people and making new friends (hey, when you're in line for that long, you're bound to hear other people's life stories), I got a call from Ryan. At a little after 4 am. He had gotten a ticket for the LAST $197 laptop, so I could get out of my line and start shopping for other things. That was hard to do. But I did. I got out of line, shopped for several other things, and got out of WalMart before the real craziness started. I mean, it was crazy when I left, but it only got crazier after 5 am when the sales actually started.

I headed over to Best Buy to pick up Ryan with the new laptop and the aforementioned Christmas present and we hit Target. Got in and out of there in under 10 minutes (you have to have a plan and I, of course, had mapped out our whole plan the day before). Headed over to JCPenney. Which was actually pretty calm compared to everywhere else. In and out of there in under 10 minutes. On to Big Lots. Took less than 5 minutes there. Home Depot...about 5 minutes (like I said, you have to have a plan). Then to Chick-Fil-A (we actually hadn't eaten dinner the night before since we were still full from lunch, but by 6 am, we were pretty hungry), and on to our last stop. The one I dreaded the most. Kohl's. Ryan got in line when we got there while I went and picked up everything we needed, so by the time I joined him in line, it only took about 10 more minutes, which was not too bad. Especially for Kohl's.

And now we're done with our Christmas shopping. With almost a month before Christmas. And under what we had budgeted. And with a new laptop. Hooray for Black Friday!

A blog

I've been lurking on several of my friends' blogs for awhile now and finally (after some encouragement) am starting my own. Not that I necessarily have anything earth-shattering to share with anyone, but since I love to keep up with other people on their blogs, it's probably a safe bet that SOMEONE out there would be interested in keeping up with mine :)

So here it is. My first post. Pretty exciting so far. Hopefully this will help me to document moments that I don't want to forget, but that I undoubtedly will forget unless they are actually documented somewhere. Also, if you know me, you know that I have a few opinions. It may or may not be a good idea for me to have my own personal soapbox from which to preach. I guess we'll see.

My first soapbox: internet safety. Being a former teacher and school librarian, this is something that I've preached to my students for several years. I will attempt to practice the rules that I tried to teach them. Doing good so far on the first rule: Never reveal your real name.
Clearly, my name is Jen. But I haven't put my last name anywhere on here, so I am one of about 5 million Jens out there. I really think there might be that many. Because I personally know about 5000.

Second rule: Never tell where you live.
Check. Although it's a safe bet that you can tell where I went to college from the title of my blog...

Third rule: Never tell when you are home alone.
It would be an utter miracle for me to actually be home completely alone at this point, but for the bad guys out there...my husband comes home at unpredictable times. Every day. :)

Well, I think that's all for today. Tune in next time for...well, I don't know.