It started for us way back in 2016. That was the year that the 3 of us started to become friends. Granted I had been friends with Ally for a while before then but 2016 was when I became acquainted with Meena through Ally. We seemed to click and over time became somewhat of a tight-knit crew. We had lots of things in common, one of which being the desire to one day, move to the country. We were all living in the city at that time and really, really wanting to get out.
We realized after several comments and some discussion, that we were on the same page with this desire. So, we began discussing possibly making the move together. After much prayer and research, we decided to go for it. We combined our resources and started laying serious plans. We did not make our intentions public at first. I think this was a good thing. Others may have discouraged us and we really didn't need or want that. The plan was to move ourselves and our mothers to live with us as they also wanted to be more in the country.
So, we agreed on a place to relocate to, which was out of state from where we were at the time. The year was 2020. A lot was happening then as I'm sure everyone is aware. Restrictions in the city were rather suffocating and the thought of having to endure harsher ones, was unwelcome. We were excited and maybe a little, or quite scared, but forward we went.
Because we were not sure where or what to purchase, we initially rented in the area that we relocated to. It was 5 of us, Ally and her mom, Meena and her mom, and myself ... crammed together in a 3 bedroom / 2 bathroom house that we rented for 3 years. Let me say, this experience was not for the faint of heart. Living with 4 other women, with all of our stuff and one kitchen required much prayer. It was very much a character developing experience. One of the good things that came out of it though was that we were able to pay down debt and / or increase savings while living there and sharing expenses. This enabled us to be able to pay for our property outright instead of needing to finance, when we got to that point. This was a considerable blessing seeing that interest rates have risen tremendously in the past few years.
The plan was for my mother to join as well but very sadly, she passed away before that could happen. I look forward to seeing her again when our precious Lord returns in the clouds to take His children home.
We'll each introduce ourselves below. You won't find actual pictures of us here on the site, but I will tell you that we are a diverse group. I, Yolan, am African-American, Meena is from India, and Ally is Caucasian. We are grateful that we can maintain a friendship, being from such diverse backgrounds, especially in this day and age when racial tensions are at such a high pitch. We believe that the culture of Christ supercedes all others making it possible to love and cherish everyone, not just those who look like us.
Yolan
I'm Yolan and I'm a website programmer by trade. I'm the geek who maintains this site. :-)
Meena
Ahem, what race I am is debated among my friends here so to better describe myself ... Asian Indian, remote worker during peak hours, homesteader during off hours, and a pilgrim who is a work in progress until Jesus returns.
Ally
I work in Human Resources remotely and love the outdoors. While I work online, once I'm off I'd much prefer to be building something outside. I would love a perfect 70 degrees year round ;).
We are all committed Christians who believe in and look forward to the soon return of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Through God's leading we have acquired property that we are now homesteading on together. We're grateful to have our own individual RVs on this property and pretty much all of the projects that we will be highlighting in this blog are ones that we are doing on our property. We're grateful for the many informative articles and videos that have helped us to learn a lot of the things that we're implementing now. Hopefully the things that we post, will be helpful to you in some way.