the beginning!

Welp, here I am in Kansas City, MO!

Arriving!
After semi-tearfilled goodbyes to Michelle and my parents, I left from the Portland airport to Dallas, TX, then to the KC airport. I got to sit by some beautiful families with kids who were all into each other and were so cute! It made it easier to leave my family being able to play with a baby and talk to little kids again. As soon as I arrived, two of my housemates Levi and Tina were there to greet me, yelling down the empty halls of the airport "are you monica?!" We hugged and were excited to have met up without any contact info or pictures!

Our whole house had arrived in KC within two hours! We got a preliminary tour of downtown, and after all the not-impressive things I heard about it, I was shocked with how truly cool it is! It had big city things like neighborhoods with all different feels, lots of coffee shops, cool restraunts, and a big beautiful library, but not too much traffic or crowded streets that are common in large cities!
Emily and I were exploding when we made the turn down our street to see our house because we had been imagining what it would be like for so long! I was expecting something pretty old, small and run down in the middle of a lower-end neighborhood, but the place is beautiful! I'll post pictures. It's a classic KC neighborhood with long, skinny houses- ours is a white colonial style house on the corner that was once the parish for our church on the opposite side of the block. It's a small stone and stained galss yet fairly liberal, post-modern Menonite church called Rainbow Mennonite.
That first night, our roommates already had dinner made, so we ate some delicious sweet potato fries and curry chicken with homemade bread made by our area director Tonia. We all get along well and are all very different people, but share a desire to serve, change some aches in the world, and live simply and joyfully! We have some good plans from house parties to camping adventures. This weekend, we're hiking around Lexington until we find a river to camp around. It's incredible to not have anything to hold me back from going out and having a new adventure!

We also had a week of Orientation I'll fill you in on next posting!