This tornado passed less than a mile from where I was then living, taking out the major power lines to our area. The associated storm ripped a part most of the trees in my neighborhood and scattered debris everywhere. That evening as I was trying to make my way home for the first time in a week (before I knew that was futile), I drove through some of the worst hit areas. I later walked through my friend’s neighborhood where one street was obliterated while the streets around it were left intact. A couple weeks after the storm, I had the opportunity through my job to visit the mobile home park where several children died, in order to provide some housing counseling to families who lost their homes.

Growing up in Tornado Alley, I’ve always found tornadoes fascinating. One of my favorite memories is of my dad showing my brother and I the beginnings of a funnel cloud (while my mom was yelling at us to get back into the house). I even was a meteorology major for about 3 semesters.

Still, being so close personally to a tornado shook me, in a way no other storm ever has. I now have seen firsthand, if only in small ways, the devastation and lost. Having a greater appreciation of the power of the world God has created has helped me to see just how much larger God is…and how devastating our sin is.

While I would not want to go back to that week and half of being away from home and having pneumonia, I’m glad that I went through it. I have grown closer to my Rock because of it.

When I moved to North Carolina, I had only planned on staying here for school. I’m not a southern girl at heart, so this would not be my first choice of places to settle. But I have settled, almost entirely because of my church.

My church certainly has it’s flaws (it’s made up of sinners!), but I believe the trend is that we’re growing closer to Christ in word and deed. The elders and staff are great models and encouragers. They don’t allow us to get away with being superficial in our faith any more than they would settle to do so themselves.

In my church is where I started to learn what real ministry entails. It’s where I’ve learned to say, “I don’t know.” It’s where I’ve learned to love God and others more (though I have a long way to go).

I feel for those Christians who try to go it alone. What gifts and opportunities for sharpening their missing!

Sir Walter Raleigh, our city's namesake

For the last few weeks now, I’ve enjoyed travelling all over the blogosphere with the BlogTrotters. It’s like a really cool virtual tour group.

Today I’m happy to be hosting you Blog Trotters in Raleigh, North Carolina! I’ve been a resident of the Raleigh area for almost 5 years now. What I meant to be a temporary move (for school) has happily become permanent.

As far as places go, Raleigh is definitely underrated.  When people think of North Carolina, they often think of the mountains, the Outer Banks, or Charlotte (all great places).  But Raleigh holds it’s own in North Carolina, not only because it’s the state capitol and centrally located, but also because it has it’s own unique features.

It's hard to get a good view of downtown with all the hills

Raleigh itself only has about 400K people, but it’s only one corner of the Triangle (which also includes Durham and Chapel Hill).   The Triangle got its name from the trio of top-notch research schools located within 30 minutes of each other: UNC, Duke, and NC State.

These schools in turn have drawn techie computer and pharmaceutical companies, which not only makes Raleigh one of the fastest growing places in the US, but brings in a lot of Yankees.  I love not being the odd-one-out…you’re more likely to meet a recent Raleigh transplant than a lifelong resident.

This also makes Raleigh quite diverse and educated.  Love that, too.

The acorn statue downtown

As far as climate, Raleigh is definitely in the South, muggy and warm.  It can get cold too (especially this past winter!).  Neither the heat or the cold is as extreme here as what I was used to growing up in Kansas, though.

The big differences from Kansas, though are the hills and the trees.  Especially the trees…which are everywhere.  Gotta love the neon-green pollen in the spring and the brilliant foliage in the fall.  Raleigh is actually called “The City of Oaks”…and we drop an acorn instead of a ball on New Year’s Eve.  Classy, right?

While visitors to Raleigh are much more likely to be here for business than pleasure, there are cultural things to do here.  So I’m told.  But you just might have to ask someone else about that…I just know that it’s a great place to live.

Photos by bobistraveling, pamocampo, and jamieca

This’ll be a short week as tomorrow night I’ll be flying out of here (barring snow!…though it’s not in the forecast).  The last two times I’ve tried to leave the state, the weather has changed my plans.  On top of that, it thundered here on Sunday, and people here in North Carolina say that means that it’ll snow in 7 days.  Have you heard that saying?  I haven’t, and neither had my friend who’s from Pennsylvania.  Is it just a North Carolina thing or have you heard of it, too?

I’m looking forward to this trip as almost all my extended family will be there.  While obviously my brother Riley and Amanda will be in focus as the groom and bride (I know that we don’t say it that way usually, but if I say it the other way, it’ll look like I’m calling my brother the bride!), we’ll also get some good family time in, too.  I took good notes on how to be a good Maid of Honor at my last wedding, so I hope I’m up to snuff!

Note to stalkers - I no longer have a KS tag

For the life of me, I can’t exactly remember what day I moved here, or the timeline of that move.  My parents and brother helped drive me and my belongings out here: my dad and mom in the Budget truck, Riley in my parents’ Explorer, and I in my week-old Toyota Camry.  We took 3 days to get here, stopping by Mammoth Cave and generally enjoying the miles and miles of construction zones…without a single construction worker.  We never quite figured out why there was no one working in any of these places, when it was not a normal weekday during normal hours.

Unlike my first blind move (to go to school in Oklahoma), I knew this time that I had hard times ahead of me.  I had an apartment (with roommates I had never met) and a school that I would be attending in the fall, but that was all I knew about my future life.  Sure, I had already applied for the job that would soon be mind, but I had no idea at the time that that would be the case.

I moved to North Carolina in order to attend seminary.  My thought at the time was to get a seminary education, and then head up a women’s or children’s ministry somewhere in the West (my top choices were Phoenix, Salt Lake, and Portland). Instead, I’m happily staying in North Carolina, working with the children at church as a layman, and working a secular, non-profit job in a field I had no prior experience in.

Little did I know that day 4 years ago that God was bringing me home.  Sure, my real home is in heaven, but that heaven-on-earth, my church family, was right here.

Trying to choose a blog post from my first two months blogging has been difficult…they’re all so bad!  It makes me very thankful that I’ve grown as a blogger in the last 3 years, but it’s still a bit painful to look back.

I decided to choose “Two Homes Away from My Home Away from Home” because it’s fairly representative of where I started out as a blogger, basically using the blog as an online journal.  It was originally published June 2, 2006.  I couldn’t help but include some commentary as well.  Enjoy…if you can!

It’s been 11 months since I moved out here. I know that’s not a big marker, but it feels like it to me. [For whatever reason, 11 months was a really big deal, but 1 year wasn't as much.] So much has changed in these 11 months; it seems like yesterday when I was crying over leaving behind dorms, friends, BSU, car, church. [Oh yeah, this was the summer that I studied rhetorical devices.  This one, omission of a conjuction, is called asyndeton.]

Lately I’ve been blessed with deeper friendships with a few different people here in NC. It’s a total answer to prayer! Just last week I was praying for more gospel-centered relationships. I don’t want to merely exchange pleasantries with the believers around me…

This week I’ll be housesitting for two different houses. At the one I simply will be caring for the cats, but at the other I will be caring for a dog, 2 finches, and some plants while I stay there. It’ll be nice to have a little mini-vacation right in Wake Forest. [It was nice to get "away"...but that dog was a bit of a pill!]

What did I tell you…fairly boring!  As a cherry on top of the ice cream, here’s a picture from that time:

See, I was embracing the Tarheels early in my North Carolina life.

Go Tarheels!

As I approach my 4 year mark of living among Tarheels, I’ve become one of them. Sure, I’ll still be a Kansas girl at heart, but my love for the state of North Carolina has grown and grown. I finally broke down and bought a Tarheel t-shirt.

I suppose I still could have been North Carolinian if I had bought a Duke, NC State, or Wake Forest shirt, but I always have gravitated towards UNC. When I was in high school, I remember seeing Carolina Blue and thinking it was the best color for a school. Then, I found out that UNC had a basketball tradition, and that was certainly something I could respect. After Roy Williams moved back there, I was basically a goner. Once I moved to North Carolina, I was sold.  I still root for my Sooners and my Jayhawks first, but I was pretty pleased to see UNC win the Final Four.

Purse

For those of you who aren’t sports fanatics, I bought a cute new purse the same time I bought the shirt.  It’s functional, allowing me to hide the book that I always carry with me, as I’ve gotten some negative feedback lately.  I think it just might be the title of the book I was carrying around, Special Topics in Calamity Physics.  Don’t worry, it’s a novel.

Now, onto your further questions:

Julie asked, “How do you like NC?”

Oh, this is a loaded question.  I had NO idea when I came here for school that I’d stick.  I didn’t really like the place: the cloudier summer weather gave me a bit of seasonal depression, it’s full of Southerners (many of whom have accents), half the roads aren’t labeled (and most of them also change names several times), there’s trees and hills everywhere, and there’s the East Coast Supremacy Disorder.

But then I found a church, a church that I can be a part of, a church that loves me, a church that I can serve in.  Really, the only reason I’m still here is because of this church.  I don’t want to leave unless/until I’m sent out from the church.

Since my early days, parts of NC have grown on me.  I love the beach, so I like having handy access (about a 2 1/2 hour drive).  I like basketball, and as you know, NC has some good basketball.  Raleigh has some definite perks: good swimming pools, good libraries, and a highly-educated population.  And as Southern as North Carolina is (while I recognize that it’s not the Deep South, my previous exposure to Southerners were just Oklahomans and Texans), there are many fellow transplants as well, so I don’t feel as excluded.

So, I guess the end answer is I like it here, and have decided to make it my home, until I’m called elsewhere.

Along the same vein, Liz asked, “I know you like where you’re living now, but is there another state that you would like to live in someday?”

Before moving to North Carolina, I thought I’d come here for school and then move out west.  I wanted to live and minister in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, or Portland.  Now, I realize that Portland is not for me weatherwise–if I couldn’t handle the additional cloudiness of NC, how could I handle the Northwest?–though I still think I could minister to those people.  On the other hand, I LOVE Phoenix’s weather, and that would be my number one choice if I had to move somewhere else.  So I guess the answer to your question is Arizona.

I also would love to live in a big city, somewhere I wouldn’t have to drive.  Though I like driving, I love getting to take covenient public transportation and getting to read on the commute rather than stress.  Still, I’ve been longing for a garden, so those things are a bit incompatible.

Thanks for your questions…more answers tomorrow.  If you still haven’t asked, feel free to jump in and ask away!

As always, I’m rooting for the Kansas Jayhawks (remember, I’m from there) and some for the Oklahoma Sooners (as they’re my alma mater).  I also root a little for North Carolina, but if they completely fall apart in their game today, I’ll laugh.  Though I picked them to win the tournament, so I might not laugh that hard.  But I’m in good company…Obama picked them to win, too.

I definitely picked fewer upsets than I have in years past, mainly because I didn’t have the time to research the teams like I have previously.  My Final 4 consists of KU, Pitt, UNC, and UConn.  If you did a bracket, who did you pick?