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What To Do First to Make a Profit

The PF Women Team at our Annual Team Retreat  ~ 2018 Today on Seth Godin's blog, he said: It's tempting to decide to make a profit first, then invest in training, people, facilities, promotion, customer service and most of all, doing important work. In general, though, it goes the other way. Yes, it does. If you are waiting to make a profit before you do these things, in my experience you're  not going to make a profit. So many organizations, ministries and churches are struggling with financial issues. I know your pain. As anyone who follows our story knows, our ministry was in a ton of debt four years ago when I came on as director.  Since that time, we've gotten out of debt and turned a profit every year.  God has done amazing things through out team, for which we give Him the glory! I find that what Seth is saying here is absolutely true, with one disclaimer. For Christian leaders, spiritual disciplines must always be first. Before we started i...
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Where's Madea when you need her?

Jordan's party last night got a little insane.  The police showed up (after being called by some neighbors who had their panties in a wad) and literally told Larry that they can put a homeowner in jail for the night if they don't comply with what they ask them to do regarding breaking up a party.  [sigh]  So what happened?

Well I knew we had over 100 people on the premises when we ran out of 100 cups in a blink of an eye!  I had to quickly have Irene help me wash some cups.  Cars were lined all the way around down both sides of the street, even the corners.  The entire front yard was filled with kids, the adults took up the back yard, and more people filled the house and even on the side of the house all down the sidewalk.  (We are the corner house.)  


So the police came and talked to Larry and then both of us together and first they addressed the car issue.  They were upset at the amount of cars lined up on the sides of the street.    I said, "no problem, we'll go park all the cars at the clubhouse (golf clubhouse in our development) and shuttle the people back in vans to the house."   I don't think they were prepared for us to suggest that.  We started implementing this plan immediately but not satisfied with that, they went on to say, "you also have to get the kids out of the front yard."  What?!   I was so ticked.  I mean, does a person own their property or what?  I can't have kids on my lawn?  How crazy.  It's my lawn.  It would be different if they were doing something illegal on our front lawn but they weren't.  There were just so many of them, that was supposedly the issue.  So I guess it's legal to have two people in your front yard but if you have 50 it's a problem?   I seriously wanted to get that whole big pack of kids together and sing, "This Land is Your Land" to the top of our lungs.  :)   But WWJD?  Well, I actually don't know that He wouldn't do something dramatic being that He turned water to wine and attended parties and all that stuff.  I really wish Jesus was there in the flesh at our party.  Perhaps he could have turned the police to a piece of bacon.  Forget a pillar of salt...just turn the po-po to a piece of bacon.and let us continue our festivities unhindered.


 Then it went to another level when the police said we had to "get rid of all the alcohol with all the kids that were on the premises."   There wasn't one drop of alcohol on the property but they couldn't imagine it.  How could we have all this frivolity without it?    Some people just can't understand how a group of people can get crazy and have this much of a good time without something putting them on a high except  joy.  You should have seen these officers faces when Larry and I were trying to convince them that there was no alcohol.  They looked at us like we were martians.  We asked them to come in, do a search...check the house, the cars, look around all they wanted.  They never took us up on it but I sure wish they would have.  They would have seen we were high on nothing but happiness!

We told the police we were sad.  We said, "you know, this makes us very sad because we're just trying to have something for our son who is going in the military this week.  And it's only 10 pm, it's not like this is some crazy hour...it's 10 pm on a Friday night.."  We then took the cars to the clubhouse, and shuttled people back to the house after dropping off their cars and continued the party with those that chose to stay.  Some were kinda spooked by the police since they were threatening as well to give out tickets.  How absurd. 



Larry was discouraged  because it did cut the party shorter than we would have liked, but I think at least during the time we did have before they showed up  it was a lot of fun.    I have to be honest, I wouldn't have cared if the did arrest me, as long as I was out in time to see Jordan off to the airport on Tuesday, and and go to Africa next week.  Bring it on.


 You get one call when you get arrested.  It would have been my privilege to call Fox News from my cell and let them know the police had arrested a suburban Mom for having a party sans alcohol for her son who was going into the military and neighbors were upset about parked cars.  Sounds like a great assignment for Sean Hannity...  "Let me get this straight Mrs. Shrodes...they locked you up because a bunch of kids were on your front lawn and you didn't make them leave?  All you were doing was having a farewell party for your son who was getting ready to serve our country?  This group was mostly church people and kids from a Christian youth group?   You were playing music and drinking Dr. Pepper and the next thing you know you are in handcuffs?  You didn't move all of the cars off the street so they moved you to the slammer?  What is America coming to, friends?  Glenn Beck is right!  The Republic is under attack when an American family can't even throw a farewell for a soldier anymore.   What are they doing to our nation when you can't even utilize your front yard? More about this Florida fiasco tonight on the O'Reilly Factor!"  



I always wanted to meet the Fox News Team and this could have been my chance...drats!!!

Oh well, great things about last night's party:

  • Outpouring of love and support for Jordan - tons of people here to express their love! 
  • Loads of fun during the party time we did have.
  • We had enough food and it was all amazing!  Special thanks to all the friends who brought desserts!  Cookies and cakes and pies, oh my!  We may not have had any booze but I'll tell you what we DID have...all our Shrodes party favorites...the best chicken salad sandwiches in the world, world famous crab puffs, artichoke dip, crab dip,  cocktail meatballs, taco salad, cherry and pumpkin pies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter and Hershey kiss cookies and molasses cookies, brownies, cupcakes, chocolate pie, and tons of soda pop, iced tea and lemonade.  Enough of this yummy food and you might just run around the yard or jump off the sofa too...lol.
  • Jordan seems very happy!  What more could we ask for, except maybe Madea at our next party? 
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