I've been in Redmond for over two months now, and it is quite obvious that I cannot stay here forever. There is virtually no youth group, no other Mennonites in the city except those who come visit me, and no opportunity for me to serve. But where am I to go?

Mom and Dad tossed around the idea of me going to live in Colorado with our good friends the Knepps, but that idea kind of fizzled when we were informed that their house is too small as it is, and there would be no room for me. Chuck that idea, I guess.

But wait! If my parents are renting an apartment for me here in Redmond, wouldn't it be just as easy to rent me an apartment in Colorado?

So we began calling around. It turned out that Loren Miller, the head guy of New Horizons (which is the mission in Colorado the Knepps work at) had been in a car accident years ago, and spent so much time in recovery that he was very sympathetic to people in recovery, and very open to the idea of me coming. We scheduled a weekend to fly to Canon City, Colorado, and check things out.

We hung out with the Knepps, which was fun. We attended the Church there on Sunday, and learned all about the mission, and met people. We went to the thrift store that is run by the mission, where I could do sitting-down work when I felt up to it. I had thought that we would look for housing for me, but my Dad said, no, not now. Now we're just deciding if we want to even move you here.

However, Loren, or maybe Kay Knepp, I'm not sure which, mentioned this house that the pastor owned and was trying to rent out. It's located between the Church and the thrift store. So we drove by it, just to see what it was like.

Now let me backtrack and say that one thing I really dislike about Redmond is my apartment. I mean it's great for living in for two months or so. It's clean, and safe, and practical. But it's so boring and tan.

So I secretly wanted an interesting place to live, but there was no way I wanted to talk to Dad about this, and make it a criteria for moving to Colorado. It's a pretty selfish thing, after all. But I prayed to God and said, "God, I really, really, want to have an interesting place to live. Please, if you don't mind, can you show me an interesting place to live if I'm supposed to move there?"

Well. I knew the minute I set eyes on it, it was the house for me.

I'm not even kidding. That was the house.

So now I'm planning to move to Colorado! Of course I'll have to wait until Amy gets home from Bible School so that she can teach school while Dad helps me move. So it will be a little while yet.

Still I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.

Oh, and since you're probably thinking "isn't that house a little big for her to live in by herself?" the answer is, well, yeah a little. I would like to end up having someone live with me there all the time, but that's still in the future and all. I love the idea of getting another girl with health issues to come stay with me, because the whole thing, adventure, dry healthy air, a job that you can come and go at depending on how you feel, and living in an interesting house to boot, with lots of interesting youth age people around doing VS work and such, it's just perfect. I'd love to share it with someone else in a similar predicament as mine.