there's a piece of my heart in Nebraska

I'm a strange girl. Growing up, I loved every place we ever left and every new place we ever moved to. I'm lucky enough to say that I have friends all over the country. Sure, it's tough to leave, but making new friends while keeping in touch with old ones was always one of my favorite parts of growing up.

When I was eight, we moved from Lexington, KY to Arnold, NE. I became fast friends with Renae Watson, who was the little sister of our (soon to be) babysitter, Shelly.

I think it's the next Christmas that Mom made Heather and I our Cabbage Patch Dolls. Heather named hers Renae and mine is named Shelly. Yep.

When I was almost fourteen, we moved three and a half hours East to Columbus, NE. Rebecca Baker became my Renae. Rebecca lived about three blocks from our church and of course, our town was small enough that we went to school together and spent a lot of time together, especially summers.

Her brother Christopher locked us in the shed once. That was a terrifying five minutes. We put pink hairspray in our hair quite often. I think it's the same brand that's in my department today at Walgreens.

I have an email address and a cell number for Rebecca that I should check for accuracy; they're more than a few years old. Once again, we moved on and I got a new best friend. But I've always loved Nebraska.

Our pastoral family has taken a call to McCook Church of the Nazarene in McCook, NE. This coming Sunday is going to be the last that they are with us after almost eight years.

When I received Pastor's resignation via email, I immediately looked up the location of McCook, and was ecstatic (cuz I'm strange, remember?) to discover that McCook is located just a little over an hour straight south of North Platte where the closest Pizza Hut was located when we lived in Arnold.

Pepperoni pan pizza and pop at Pizza Hut. Not often, mind you, but I remember.

That discovery immediately helped me feel connected to where Pastor and Bettina are going for their new church. And I'm gonna miss them "like the dickens", but part of my heart has been in Nebraska since 1983.

It's just a bigger piece starting next week.