The title of this blog is the story of my life. Well only since age 18 so not even half. The amazing thing is I was brought home from the hospital to the same house my parents lived in for the first 20 years of my life so unexpected plans and not knowing where I was going... not really a part of my growing up years. Then we hit senior year of high school. I had my heart set on attending Hutch CC, my brother and sis in law lived there it was still close to home and I didn't really know what I wanted to do so I wanted to figure that out cheaply. Well mom and I took a visit there and I HATED IT. I don't remember if I visited the criminal justice guy or the music guy but I was led down like three flights of stairs to the very back corner to this cluttered dark scary office and "talked" to that guy. I never wanted to look back I knew I was in the wrong place. So now the question was WHERE DO I GO? In late April our band director invited a friend of hers to come direct us for a day. He was from Seward County Community College he was quirky and funny and I liked his style I happened to go to the office after band and he was sitting in there and he asked me to come play for him. He'd give me a scholarship (french horn players are few and far between) I figured well I might as well do this for a year because I want to get out of Meade and I like band and it's free money so I went. I ended up staying two years and not only playing my french horn for this guy but also after first semester joined his tennis team he was the tennis coach as well. I got very involved in those activities as well as choir and show choir and my sophomore year I was an RA loved that and got out of two years of college an associates degree, and NO DEBT. But that still left where do I go next?
Somehow (I have no idea how this happened had to be a God thing) I got selected from my Jr. College's youth group to attend a leadership conference in Topeka KS. There were probably 300 kids there but God placed me in the one group I needed to be in. All these groups of ten got to spend a day visiting a different organization in Topeka. My group, we went to the women's penitentiary and I was in heaven. (I know sounds weird huh) but I knew what I wanted to go "into" and I knew Washburn had a great CJ program. The leaders of my group were great friends with a guy who happened to be the head of the whole criminal justice program. He then wrote me a letter urging me to come to his school and he would try to get me as many scholarship as possible. I figured anyone who was willing to type (with a type writer) a three page letter to me, I should take him up on his offer so I did. And I ended up not owing anything for my 3rd year of college.
The summer before my senior year I went on a "missions trip" and worked at an inner city youth camp near San Jose CA. I found this amazing organization... doing an Internet search. It was the best three months of my life and the closest I have ever felt to my Heavenly Savior. This is where I also learned about a group called Young Life (but I'm getting ahead of myself) I had planned to live with a girl and another guy in a house my senior year (yeah mom was thrilled with the whole living with a guy idea) anyways about a week before school (these two both lived in Topeka) started she called me to tell me she couldn't afford to move out her parents house so I needed to find someone else to live with. The dorms were full (or else I had to pay double since I hadn't signed up on time it was something totally crazy) so dad and I loaded all my belongs in my car and his and headed up to Topeka to move me in....... we didn't know somewhere. We looked at three places all too expensive for me to afford on my own and we drove to one place and dad refused to stop because it was in a VERY SCARY neighborhood. So here we were all my bags and stuff packed with no where to put them. I put a call into my youth leader and asked if she could think of anyone. That night I ended up moving in to a two bedroom apartment with two girls from youth group and I stayed the whole year.
Then came the next step what was I going to do with my life. Here I have a diploma but no where to go? So I called the lady who's young life kids I had fallen in love with and asked if she had any openings in CA for me to come work for her. She didn't but she had a friend in Kansas City and she called him. Long story short the region decided to hire me even though there wasn't much money in urban ministry but they liked me :) so I got a job. One of the ways young life works with their interns is to give them a "small amount of pay" and try to find a family who will allow them to live with them. This began the worst two months of my life. I moved in with a very wealthy family and a wife who was a total control freak (it's ok I'm not bad mouthing her some people just shouldn't open their houses up to people.) I survived for two months on chocolate because I didn't feel I was allowed in their kitchen to eat food. And she HATED Kjell. I really do believe it was the duct tape sandals. Well it all came to a head when I had gone out of town and they knew I would be gone and they were supposed to leave me a key. Only they just didn't. I had no where to go. So I called my trainer and told her I needed a place to stay so I stayed the night at her house and it ended up being a couple months worth of staying. (At least I was eating again) They were awesome and fun to live with a younger couple and they even bought my favorite cereal. I loved living with them, but I had to move out because they had already promised another girl she could live with them before my whole situation came up... whew I'm tired of writing wonder if anyone is even reading this still. I'll stop here and later tell about the 6 months before Kjell and I got married and all of the "fun" questionable places we ended up!
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