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jen72123
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Name: jenni
Birthday: 7/26/1985
Interests: glorifying God, my incredible family and friends, hope, reading, my Bible study women, people, feeling a little healthier every day, nature!!! - oh man, i love it all! but i think my first love is the sky! - especially sunsets (i'm sure i'd love sunrises just the same if i were ever up that early.) oh! and stars. i love stargazing..., walking barefoot in sand, music, pepsi, riding bikes (but i don't have one. sadly.), road trips, and last but not least: running (sometimes)
Expertise: scratch the expertise... :)
things i want to learn more about:
the Bible, abundant life, who God has made me to be, you, how i can help people, the family, why nalgenes aren't insulated, liking vegetables and other things of that icky nature...
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/12/2005
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| This semester I'm taking South American Indians, an upper level anthropology class taught by a very interesting professor that I had for Intro to Anthropology. He was my sister's advisor when she was here. As a result, he automatically thinks I'm cool. Sweet deal! ;) Anywho, I really enjoy listening to this man talk. He has so much experience working with people groups all around the world. He has an amazing passion for cultures and indigenous people. He travels around and fights for the rights of people groups all around the globe. I really wanted to take the class because I wanted to learn about some
of the indigenous people that missionaries are currently trying to
reach. I also really enjoy learning about the wide array of people that
God has created around the world. Ironically, this professor is pretty openly not a Believer. It amazes me that he can find such love and passion for the people of the world without believing that they are all made in God's image and are precious in His sight. He is so selfless in his work with the preservation of distant cultures without even believing in the ultimate act of selflessness that Jesus took upon Himself in dying for our sins. Hmmmm...
Today this professor was talking about how anthropological work in South America began. He started by describing colonization and the explorers that went down to gather information in order to exploit resources. They gathered some of the first information about the inhabitants of the continent. Next, he talked about missionaries that have gone down to South America. They have gathered lots of information - specifically linguistics. What was so interesting to me was how he interpreted the motives and work of these missionaries. First of all, my professor was stating that they go down there with the sole intent of converting these people. To him, this is destroying the indigenous cultures. As mentioned before, this man is very knowledgable. He knows a lot about the Bible. He proceeded to explain the fact that the Second Coming won't occur until certain events happen. He described these events, including the spreading of the Gospel to all people groups. He then explained to the class that current missionaries that go to indigenous people groups go for the sole purpose of learning the language just enough to translate the Gospel and leave so they can check another group off of the list. They do not work to help preserve these native languages or cultures. In fact, they often times encourage modernization, and in turn, destroy the indigenous cultures. Wow... I know that there's more to missions than that. But is this how it comes across to the rest of the world? People on a selfish agenda manipulating people groups just enough to check them off of the list and move on.... Where is the Love in that?... Hmmm... I can see how people would get that idea from the outside. Sad...
I was going to write something about Plato that I'm reading for my Philosophy of Religions class, but this entry is plenty long. I'll save that for another day.
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| I've spent the past week and a half hanging out at home-home. The first week was long. Mom and Dad were working all day. Then, when they came home from work, they were busy with Christmas and church stuff most evenings. I did have a lot of quality time for reading and quiet-time and stuff, but not much socializing. It got a lot better on Saturday when Mom wasn't working (Dad was still working his second job) and Jess and Matthew came home. It has been a lot of fun hanging out with the fam. Christmas was great. Our celebrations were spread out over three days. It was very fun to sit around and talk with everyone. I think that my favorite part was when we all sat and listened to Grandpa read the Christmas story from Luke 2 before we opened gifts at the Hoelscher side Christmas. Jess left this morning, but Matthew's around till the beginning of the week. I wish that Dad didn't have to work his second job over his break from school, but the down time for one is the busy time for the other. He's such a hard worker.
I'm hanging around Bushton till the 30th, when I'll head to Manhattan to do nursery at my church. Then, I'm heading on up to Lincoln on the 31st after church to hang out with Liam for New Year's. I'm really excited to see him. I've been missing him lots. We'll be heading out to Denver on the 2nd to go to Denver Christmas Conference (through Crusade). All of my work friends from my summer in Alaska will be coming down for the conference. I'm really excited to see them!! Liam and Zach (my boyfriend and another K-State guy that went on Summer Project to Juneau) worked with them too. We all hung out in the evenings a lot this summer. It will be great to hang out again.
I haven't decided yet how I feel about school starting back up for my last semester. We shall see.
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| Sorry it's been a long while once again. I was experiencing the end of the semester crunch. I was officially done with my seventh semester this afternoon. All of the papers and finals turned out alright. It's so nice to be done, but it's so weird that the semester's already over. It went by so quickly that I can hardly even remember what has happened in the last four months.
You would think that I would be so excited to have nothing to do. But, it's only my first night of freedom, and I'm already finding myself to be restless. For some reason, I find comfort in busyness. The moment I don't have something to do or somewhere to be, I get antsy. I'm going to have to get a little more comfortable with rest and relaxation, seeing as how I am about to spend a week at home while my parents are still working all day. Hopefully I can get some good reading and reflection time in. Hopefully I can embrace boredom. :)
I'm really excited to go home and spend some time with my family. I can't wait to see my parents. I am so blessed. And my sister and brother are so fun to have around. I don't see them enough these days.
I recently got a new car. Dad gets so excited about looking for/purchasing new cars. It's fun. It's a '98 silver GrandPrix. I love it. Mom and Dad found it this past Saturday, and Dad had Liam and I meet them Sunday afternoon in Salina to get it from them. Dad was so excited for me to have it that he just couldn't wait for me to come home for break. :)
Liam and I have been dating for four months now. My how time flies! I like him more and more each day. He's an amazing guy. :)
Turns out I only have one class left that I have to take next semester. I could just take that class and work next semester, but that just seems weird. I've decided to avoid the real world as much as possible. :) I'm going to go ahead and stay a full-time student to keep my scholarships and grants. I chose a few random classes that seemed somewhat interesting to fill up my schedule. Should be interesting.
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| Liam and I spent last weekend in Lincoln (where he's from). It was very relaxing. When we got there on Friday evening, we sat down to dinner. While we were eating, his dad surprised us with some tickets to the Nebraska game for the next day. The game was a lot of fun. Husker stadium is crazy. Most of the rest of our time we spent hanging out at his house - playing a card game and watching football. It was a great weekend! The only problem is that when I'm gone for a weekend, even if it's really fun, it often times doesn't feel like a weekend. When I get home, I'm not ready for a week of school. I want another weekend. So getting back into the swing of things this week was a little rough.
I've really been enjoy the Bible study that I help lead. The women are incredible. Their willingness to open up and their desire to grow is encouraging. There's just something incredible about watching people live out their faith. We recently finished up studying I Thessalonians and started in on James.
It's crazy how close we are to the end of the semester. After Thanksgiving Break, we'll only have a few weeks left. My how time flies!!
Welp, I can't think of any big news at this point in time. Until next time.... Take care!
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| hmmmm... It's pretty much been same old, same old this past week - except for this weekend. On Friday afternoon, I met my parents and my brother in Hays for substate/state volleyball. My high school's team made it, and they actually ended up getting second in state. They were pretty impressive. It was a lot of fun to watch volleyball with my fam. My brother loves to play it, and my dad loves to line judge for it. :) We also pseudo celebrated Matthew's birthday which was on Sunday. It was a really enjoyable time.
Recently, I had to enroll for next semester. It kinda weirds me out to think that it will be my last. I technically only need to take 2 classes, but I think that I'm going to go ahead and take 4 so I can keep my scholarships and such. This is about the time that everyone starts asking me, "Are you excited about graduating?". My answer is always no. I don't wanna. I'm enjoying college too much. Mainly though, it's just because it's a scary thought. I've had no clue what I want to do when I graduate. When I've thought about possibilities, I would either get fearful or dissatisfied. But not too long ago, God brought a possibility to mind. It was the first option that didn't make me cringe when I thought about it. I'm not sure that it's what I'm actually going to end up doing. But it's at the very least a huge relief to know that there are tolerable possibilities out there. God has given me more peace about moving on with life. I'm very thankful. Sometimes it's hard to balance the fact that I know that God will lead me... and the fact that there's ultimately still a decision that I have to make. But, I know that He has led me and given me wisdom in the past... so I know that He will be faithful and give me the wisdom I need to make the decision. We always want to know the next step RIGHT NOW. But honestly, I'm sure there are times when if God told us now what the next step would be, our hearts wouldn't be prepared for it and we'd say no to the best thing for us. Sometimes rather than simply asking God for wisdom, we need to ask Him for faith to believe that He will actually answer.
"But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind." - James 1:5-6
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