Looking to move to a dry county, low unemployment, Christian community Sug.?

[St.TomasAquinasEinstein]

Good evening! My husband and I are looking to move to a dry county, with low unemployment and a strong Christian homeschooling community.  So far Most of Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas fit the bill.  Does anyone live or have lived in these states and could fill us in a little on their experience?  I read the post about Texas. Very helpful!  Thanks!

[MissusLeata]

I live in E. Texas. Texas counties/cities are rapidly moving from dry to wet or at least “moist”. I think most of the reasoning is money, but I’m kind of glad for the sake of safety. County lines between a wet and dry county here are usually out in the boonies and filled with taverns, liquor stores and strip clubs. So, I think this may be safer.

Anywhoooo….I’m from the Pacific NW which is anything but conservative and I’m never quite sure what people mean when they say conservative.

There are churches EVERYWHERE. I was looking in the local newspaper today and our little town of about 1000 people has 8 Baptist churches, one Assembly of God and 2 Methodist churches listed. There’s a Church of Christ not listed. In the NW, my hometown was a bit bigger than this and had 1 Baptist church, 2 Pentecostal churches, a Lutheran church and  Methodist church. It’s amazingly different, here.

But, if you aren’t Baptist, Methodist, C of C or Assemblies of God, you may be out of luck. 🙂

There are lots of homeschoolers. But that doesn’t always mean a support group. I’m in a small community and there is a homeschool gym day and a small co-op.  I don’t really get opposition for homeschooling.

Texas is “conservative” in that almost everyone goes to church and almost everyone is a republican. 🙂 I think there are 6 democrats who vote in our precinct. But if you mean, “take the Bible seriously, love your neighbors and your enemies, and live for the glory of God,” I don’t know of any Texas communities that are like that. There are people and churches but not whole communities.

Hope that helps!

[2Corin57]

Yup… so at first when you said “dry”, I thought you were referring to the weather, lol.

You could come to Canada 🙂

Now, the area that we live in, the towns have a couple bars, but they’re minor and the outlying areas are very calm. Also, many, many churches. We have a wonderful, faith-filled homeschool community, that hosts monthly support meetings with guest speakers, monthly (or more frequently) field trips, a project fair in the fall, a Christmas potluck, a Valentine’s Day party, bi-weekly gym days, a hockey group in the winter, normally another project fair in the spring, participates in art and music classes, ski days in the winter etc… The provincial support group hosts a wonderful faith-based homeschool conference each year.

And our province is very homeschooling friendly, all you have to do is fill out an exemption form, that’s it. No requirements of any kind – hours, days, subject material etc…

Not only that, we’re a small province with huge biodiversity. Within a few hours radius drive you have mountains, hills, valleys, forests, marshes, lakes, rivers, streams, ocean. Some beautiful National and Provincial parks, great historical settlement/reenactment villages, in the cities there are great aquarium, science center, museum, art galleries, theatres etc…

Weather wise, no earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes. No poisonous snakes or insects. No major predator-type animals to worry about on your nature walks.

Oh yeah, and free healthcare 😉 And a full year of paid maternity leave,  2 weeks mandatory paid vacation pay (which eventually increase to 3 weeks), plus all statutory holidays paid, excellent monthly child tax credit (for example, a family making $60K in income, that has say 3 children, will receive tax-free, anywhere from $900-$1100 a month.  Needless to say that is a huge help financially for single-income, homeschooling families.

[MissusLeata]

(I thought weather at first, too!)

[St.TomasAquinasEinstein]

Hi! Thanks so much for all the lovely information about Canada.  I have a friend from Canada.  She’s been trying to talk me into moving there for years. =)  We met at Curling camp in Thunder Bay years ago.

So about’s where do you live?  It sounds beautiful!  The scenery, the people, the churches, etc. I’m guessing West Coast?

Where I come from it is the number one drinking county per capita in All of the U.S.A.  It is a super cliquey community.  My husband and I were both born and raised here…..  We are truly ready to spread our wings.  Over the past three years we both have grown so much, we’ve come to realize how much we’ve out grown our current stances.

[St.TomasAquinasEinstein]

LOL, I never thought of that! =)

[St.TomasAquinasEinstein]

Hi, Thank you for sharing about East Texas.  I am really finding this forum to be the most helpful tool in getting to find out what other areas in the U.S. or world are like.  I appreciate your view of things in reality and not with rose colored glasses.  I have gathered from your post now and one older post that possibly N.W. Texas would be an area that would suit our morals, values and goals? Have you ever lived there?

To even find a church that is not clique would be a giant leap for us in a positive direction.

 

Co-ops are also an important part of our new growth, so I respect the heads up that just because there are a lot of homeschoolers doesn’t mean there are communities of homeschoolers doing activities together.

[Morgan Conner]

I am from a dry county in Arkansas. I love living in a dry county although that may be bc it’s all I have ever known! It’s shocking to me to go into a grocery store in a wet county & see beer displays & ads! We are currently in a fight right now with those who want to make our county wet-it’s all about the $$! Many dry counties allow a certain number of liquor licenses to restaurants so our county is ‘moist’-half the restaurants here serve alcohol.

Arkansas is absolutely beautiful! Well the Ozarks region. The delta area & southern Arkansas are pretty if you like flat farmland. I live on the edge of the Ozarks where they meet the farmland. I much prefer the Ozarks!

As far as cliques-they can be an issue even in rural towns. There is sometimes a big division between the haves & have nots. It’s not anything I worry myself with-we have never been very social & that’s ok with us. We have family & a few friends to hang out with.

Most everyone in my community would consider themselves a Christian & a conservative. Would I judge them to be so based on their life choices? No (and I don’t mean that in a judgmental way-just trying to give my personal assessment).

I am blessed to be a part of a truly conservative, bible believing, old fashioned (we only hymns & use KJV) church that is on fire for Christ. There are no cliques in our church. No one is given ‘priority’ for being wealthy or holding some sort of position in the community. We are all equal & we love & support our pastor.

We have a supportive homeschool co-op here as well and a fairly large amount of homeschoolers.

I would say the downside to living here is job availability. There just isn’t a bustling job market in this area. Cost of living is low though.

Cities around me that you could look up (that are in dry counties)-Searcy, Batesville, Jonesboro, Conway, Mountain View. Northwest Arkansas (Fayetteville/Bentonville) is growing rapidly & is gorgeous but it is a wet county I think. I don’t spend much time in that part of state so I can’t help much there.

Hope this helps!

[MissusLeata]

I’ve never lived in any other part of Texas, so I can’t answer for any other area. My BIL was from Amarillo and I think there was more “dry-ness” over there, but that may be changing now.

I find  Texas to be very cliquish. It drives me nuts. I’ve lived here for 10 years and still hardly have any friends. But, we live in the country and love the country. If we were in the city, it would likely be less cliquish.

I was recently told by a friend in a different part of TX that E. Texas has it’s own culture that is different than the rest of the state, so maybe another part of the state would fit you perfectly.

But, I’m all for inviting loving, Bible-believing people to my area. We need more of that in E. Texas! 🙂 And, it is gorgeous here!!!!

[ServingwithJoy]

We live in Stillwater, Oklahoma and have lived in a suburb of Dallas, Texas in the past. I absolutely love the area we are in now. As far as climate goes, it is much drier than even North Texas, and quite a bit cooler – which is a refreshing change from Texas summers.  You get a long growing season (from April to about October if we are lucky) and you get to see Fall colors here – something I missed in Texas.  I’m not sure about unemployment since we are self-employed, but there is a state college here that provides most of the employment for the community. The homeschooling laws in Oklahoma are very similar to Texas, except that Oklahoma is the only state with a constitutional amendment protecting the right to homeschool. We have a strong homeschooling community here and several groups offering classes/coops as well as college resources like choir and orchestra, art museums and STEM programs. We do have state taxes here, whereas in Texas there is no state income tax. We have gorgeous lakes, farmland, rolling hills, and the best sunsets in America. The best part of living here is, by far, the people. People are far less status-conscious and more community minded here than they were in the Dallas area (yes, even homeschoolers). We have over 50 churches here – it is a very conservative and mostly Christian community. Even though we are not a ‘dry’ county, Oklahoma has a lower alcohol ratio in beer and liquor and wine is not sold in stores (you have to go to a liquor store). That helps with the college drinking, and it is definitely not a party school – it’s mostly agriculture majors. It’s a slower pace and people are more down to earth and willing to stop and talk, get involved if there is a problem, etc. I don’t know if you remember this but we had a tragic car crash at the OSU Homecoming parade last Fall, and the way the people came together to support the victims in prayer and fundraising was just incredible and a testimony to the strength exhibited by Oklahoma communities. Not one of the victims paid a single hospital bill – it was all provided for by the community. Anyway, that is my little treatise on my hometown – I love it here! Hope you get a chance to visit!

[2Corin57]

No we are actually on the east coast 🙂 So, granted our mountains aren’t quite as grand as the west coast, but they’re still pretty. We have the Appalachian mountain range going through New Brunswick.

[Rebecca]

We live in Northwest Arkansas (XNA airport code!) and absolutely love it. Bentonville, Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers are the major cities, they all kind of run together, but it isn’t crazy big.  My husband has had several opportunities to transfer out of state, but we just can’t beat the cost of living here (we live on 40 acres, but are 20 minutes, easy, away from lots of world class things, like Crystal Bridges Art Museum, the Amazeum Children’s Museum, etc.)  We love being pretty centrally located when we do travel too.  I will say that we are not a dry county, but there are lots of homeschoolers & activities for them, churches, etc.  Feel free to send me a message with any specific questions.  I should note that the central/southern part Arkansas is vastly different, in my opinion, and not somewhere we would consider living.