Dacotah Territory. Aberdeen, South Dakota to be specific. We have left sleepy eastern Montana and headed for colder weather. Aberdeen's heritage is very much Norwegian, Scottish, and Irish descendents. Once I learned that the accent made total sense. It is an Americanized version of that Northern region. It is about 25,000 people and hosts 2 university's as well as a technical school. It has a Wal-mart, Target, Shopko AND K-mart, two huge hospital systems and a conservative overtone that is very much spawned from the heavy Catholic tradition that was established back when the town was. L. Frank Baum was from Aberdeen. Oh come on! Everyone knows who L. Frank Baum is. Right? Um, no. Sorry, who is L. Frank Baum? Try this, "The Wizard of Oz". Oh, whoa! Thats kind of cool. The town has a great park that honors him with a life size land with all of the details so you can make the journey with the characters from the book. Way fun for the kids. Why are we in South Dakota you might ask? And how long are you going to be there? The easy answer? Following the yellow brick road. As for a timeline, we learned many things on this journey, one of which is we cannot plan anything. As for today, we are in Aberdeen and as far as I can see, we will be here tomorrow.
We are just following the yellow brick road. Like Dorothy, we never know who we are going to meet, what section of life we are entering (forest or corn field) and I know for sure that we are chasing after a paradise that we have heard about but can only imagine what it actually looks like and I am determined to get there because the great ruler who dwells there is the only one who can save me. I decided it was a good visual to describe what it is like to live by faith. Oh yeah, and God did use a "tornado" to get us on the path. It looked more like a failed business and a conviction of lifestyle but it was still a "tornado". And we had no idea where we were going to land. The traveling joke was "wonder which state will be old Myra's last (our old dog)"...she landed in Arizona. We landed in South Dakota? Yep, Aberdeen, South Dakota.
When we first learned that South Dakota was a potential landing zone I had to think that one out for a bit. Is South Dakota actually a real state? I learned about it in, like, the 4th grade or something and never gave it another thought. It was not on our list of must stop places during our travels. There is a north and a south, right? As my sister-in-law asked "which one is that, the good one or the bad one"? I have no idea. I have never been there, it has never been on my radar. My biggest educational resource was "Little house on the prairie" sprinkled with a little bit of the movie "Fargo".
All summer, while still in Montana, there had been rumors on the rail about Jeramie's class being forced to transfer to other depots. One of which was Aberdeen. Jeramie had drawn a high seniority number which meant that we were probably not going to have to leave. They would pull from the bottom of the seniority list and work up. Besides, there were rumors about many things so filtering out which ones might gain some traction and which ones wouldn't wasted unnecessary energy. Knowing that if we were to be transferred was actually beyond our knowing, we made decisions for where we were at "today" in that moment.
We rented a house, started buying furniture and getting settled. The rental market was limited and moved fast. We had people praying for a house to come along. We ended up with a big house. We learned very fast after living in a small space that what looked ideal was in fact not. It was too much house. Space that went unused. Space that still needed cleaned and space that looked sad because it was empty with out furnishings. But it was the house we were suppose to be in because if we hadn't we wouldn't have met Katie. I was suppose to know Katie. I will not share stories about Katie on the world wide web but I know that God had that house planned out for us long before we got there. Just know that Katie has a special spot in my heart.
It didn't take me long to find a church to get involved in. I started praying for that long before we left for Montana. "Lord, I ask that we will know intuitively where we are suppose to be, where you would have us" was my prayer. We tried a couple churches. We walked into a third one and I knew, I knew the minute we walked in that I was suppose to be there. I didn't know why, and I didn't know if it was suppose to be our home church but I knew I was suppose to know someone there. I met lots of "someone's" there. I got to really know these "someone's" and I miss them terribly. They were the one reason I struggled with boldly moving forward toward Aberdeen. I would have to leave them behind.
But since I am following the yellow brick road I knew better then to let that hold me back because what I really was saying was "I don't want to God, I am really starting to dig Montana and Aberdeen doesn't make any sense". Then I remembered, when Jeramie had been offered a chance to test for his job we were given the choice of Forsyth or Aberdeen and we chose Montana because it was closer to the family. I couldn't help but toss around the idea that maybe it had been Aberdeen the whole time and God allowed us Montana as a stepping stone.
Then it happened. I got a text. "Minot or Aberdeen?" Wow! This wasn't just a rumor after all. His class was all gathered together for a final week of studying when their instructor told them "decide amongst yourselves or we will decide for you". It turned out that the guys at the top of the seniority list were all from out of state. The guys at the bottom were mostly all from Montana. The guys at the bottom were the ones who would be forced to leave. Instead, the guys at the top, including Jeramie, decided to transfer out. I don't know the details of reasoning for anyone else other then ourselves but we didn't have any ties there. It was hard to know that someone who did have roots there would have to leave when they didn't want to. A week later we were loaded up in the RV once again and excited for what waited for us in Aberdeen. This time we had a new challenge. BNSF was putting us up in a hotel for 60 days allowing us time to find housing. Wintering out in the RV wasn't an option. Like I said, I read Laura Ingells Wilder's book "The Long Winter" and I knew good and well this wasn't our beloved Arizona. Jeramie wanted to embrace the free housing for as long as possible. Its official, we have lived in big houses, little houses, an RV, in Walmarts parking lot, in a rest stop, in a truck stop, in RV parks, in my parents drive-way and now a hotel room. Since we have found housing, we can add someones basement to the list as well.
Someone asked me last night why we were in Aberdeen. "God" I said. That is the only thing I know. Jeramie's job was the tool that got us here but it was God who moved us. It has been a blessed move. Aberdeen is a bit bigger than Miles City, seems a little more family friendly with a more vibrant and youthful atmosphere. It offers an abundance of children's activities that were not available in our area of Montana so our schedule is busier buts thats OK because it is filled with things that are helping my kids learn about themselves. However, all that aside, we are still waiting for God to reveal his use for us in Aberdeen. Like I said before, we are just following the yellow brick road. The thing we have learned is that it is when we are following the yellow brick road that we are most empowered to experience Gods plan. And there is nothing more amazing or exciting then experiencing God's plan.
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