Wanting to relocate somewhere in the Wichita Catholic diocese (Derby: houses, employment)

[rm4mrfrus]

Hi,
We have been told that the Wichita diocese is a good conservative Catholic diocese. We are wanting to relocate to a better diocese than the one we are in. Dh is self employed so employment is not a problem. We have 7 children and homeschool so the school system is also not a problem. Our biggest criteria are 1) Good solid Catholic diocese and parish 2) somewhere with decent winters complete with snow 3) small town (we are not into shopping or restaurants really) 4) rural area where we could buy a decent sized house with some acreage for the children to play outside 5) somewhat low cost of living (we are in a fairly high cost of living area now and would appreciate one which is lower) 6) and it would be terrific if we could find a place with other homeschooling large families (we are very much the oddity here). We are an outdoorsy type of family and currently live in a college town (which is ok, but not something we are looking to do again_) We would like some rolling hills, flat is definitely not our first choice. We are in the mountains now and will miss them but can live with at least a bit of rolling hills!

Are there any areas in Kansas that would be a good fit for us? Or for that matter any other areas of the country? It seems I find a good diocese and it is in a hot area with no noticeable winters. Or I find a beautiful area of Alaska and it has lukewarm dioceses......

Are there many Catholics in Kansas?
thanks for helping me out,
rm4mrfrus

[athfo]

Here's some information on the Catholic Diocese of Wichita:

General Information
Coverage Area
Wichita Parish Map (broken link)


Now, for a city suggestion. Well, if you want a good mix of the things you listed, I would suggest anything to the east of Wichita in the Flint Hills. The entire area is beautiful! Here's a map of the general Flint Hills area and some of the cities included in it: map. You'll probably find nearly all of those things you're looking for in the Flint Hills... you'll just have to find a more specific county/city.

[leighland]

Wichita is a hub for NFP education. Great diocese. Please check your PM for better info. God Bless!


Also, the Midwest Catholic Family Conference will be held in Wichita August 2-3 and will feature Tim Staples as a speaker. Call 316-618-9787 for more info on that.

[rm4mrfrus]

That is great info, thank you both so much! I had no idea that NFP had a hub anywhere! They are so disinterested in it here that the teachers are no longer interested in teaching the classes!!

The area is beatiful! Now to start doing more research! Thanks again!
rm4mrfrus

[xixarexmeggiex]

Just outside of Wichita in Colwich, Andale, St. Marks. They are all very catholic communities. With very beautiful, old churches. Since your children are home schooled, I doubt this would matter to you, but I always thought it a wonderful and interesting thing, before school starts on game days, every member of the football, basketball, track, cheerleading, etc. teams go to church to pray together as a team. And they are very very small towns, 20 minutes top from Andale to Wichita, Colwich is probably 15 minutes and St. Marks is 10 minutes. St. Marks has a church, carlot, a few houses and an elementary school. Colwich and Andale both have a few businesses and each have a grocery store. Colwich does have an ethanol plant, so when the wind drifts right it does have a slight smell to it. But I find those towns a great place to live and raise a family.

[misslovelyeagle9]

This might not make a difference, but it would be helpful to know that the Diocese of Wichita offers a great Catholic education. I can certainly vouch for this as I have been going to their Catholic schools for over eleven years. The religious education program, a program that you may be interested in, teaches public and home-schooled children Catechism classes at their home parishes. The program, which is usually on Wednesday nights, runs through the traditional school year. It is a very informative and enriching program that is taught by trained Catechists.
I agree with a poster above: Colwich, St. Marks, and Andale are fantastic places to live. The majority of people living in these places are Catholic. It has country surrounding it, but with the convenience of a 10-15 minute commute to Wichita. If you are an active family and enjoy boating, fishing, and swimming, Cheney Reservoir is about 15 minutes away from the general area of these three towns. Other great towns are Garden Plain, Andover, and Derby.
I hope you make the move to the Diocese of Wichita. We have a great system here called stewardship in which all parishioners use their talents or finances to support the parish and the education of Catholics. We also have a high number of quality priests and seminarians.
Unfortunately, we don't have many hills here in Kansas. I'll have to double check, but I'm pretty sure that the Flint Hills, a chain of hills in Kansas, are not in the Wichita Diocese. However, as I mentioned above, we have good lakes and we also have snowy winters that usually last from late November to early March. However, some years through a curve ball at you, such as snow in April and May. Despite the rumors that we constantly have tornadoes, we have only one season of highly dangerous tornadoes and that is during the late spring and early summer. We have not had a tornado directly hit the heart of Wichita in recent years, but it is usually around the surrounding areas of Wichita. Currently, we are in this dangerous season which also includes various sizes of hail (yesterday we had penny sized hail).
Despite the strange weather, this diocese is truly the most unique and most fruitful diocese in the U.S. I hope you come!

[athfo]

Originally Posted by misslovelyeagle9

I'll have to double check, but I'm pretty sure that the Flint Hills, a chain of hills in Kansas, are not in the Wichita Diocese.

Take a look again at the Wichita Diocese coverage map and Flint Hills coverage map.

[rm4mrfrus]

Thanks everyone so much! You are making it sound so wonderful! But unfortunately our aging parents have thrown some curve balls at us recently with failing health and so we are looking a little closer to VA now since that is where they live....right now Steubenville Ohio and the surrounding areas are high on our list...but if circumstances change, we will keep exploring the possibility of Kansas!! I LOVE the idea of living in a really really small town!

[misslovelyeagle9]

Thanks for the help to the above poster!

I'm sorry you can't move to Kansas at this point, but who knows? Maybe someday the time will be right for you. Good luck!

[depressed in the midwest]

This is just so distressing. Why would anyone consider a vocation when faith is becoming just one more consumer shopping trip.What are the "bad dioceses" because I would definitely like to avoid them?What is the criteria for a good diocese? Do I go to Raymond Arroyo to find out? Are the clergy measured by how well they match the consumer liberal or conservative constituency of the day?It's not enough to do liturgy and sacraments. We have to bury them in excessive devotions, and we expand Exposition from a solemn rite of prayer related to the Eucharistic liturgy into an all-night search to find warm bodies so we can preserve a perpetual exercise that is more about keeping company than prayer for the Church (with many exceptions to this, yes).If you try to catechize people on these issues--they want to reduce it to attitudes illuminated by FOX News, MSNBC, or some other Neanderthal simplistic forum devoid of intelligence and honest dialogue.It's just tiring. Does anybody out there get it????? I give up. ...Or maybe I'll move to Wichita. What have I got to lose?