A Message From Kasey

Hey everyone! Kasey here with some life updates. It’s been some time since I’ve talked about what I’m doing, so I’m writing to inform and maybe clear up some unanswered questions.

Many of you may have heard that I have graduated and am now attending the University of Idaho. For those of you who haven’t heard…I graduated high school and now attend the University of Idaho. Now there may be some questions on how that occurred because I had been planning to go to Cairn University for almost 4 years. I have some answers to those questions. 

Since I was a freshman in high school, after the Tribal DMX we had years ago, it had been my plan to go to Cairn University, study Worship and Music as my major with theater as a minor. With that I wanted to (hopefully) work at Living Hope while I studied and during summers strive to perform for Sight and Sound in Lancaster, PA. I was set with this plan up until this past March, 2024 when it all unexpectedly changed. 

Spring break for U of I ended when mine was just beginning, so the crew coming back from a mission trip in Utah decided to pick me up to bring me to Moscow for the week. I figured I had nothing going on for break, so why not spend it up North and get familiar with the campus life. I knew that by going up my perspective could change and that there would be a lot of people trying to convince me to go there, so I told Dakota and Kadin before I went and before I stayed at one of the girls ministry houses that I didn’t want people to try and convince me but to allow for me to figure it out, just between God and I. I did love the opinions from others, however I had already dealt with a lot of people telling me why I should go there and not Cairn and it felt like my reasons for going back East were just being tossed to the side, which is why I made the boundary. Thankfully people did follow this which made it easier to focus on what I felt God was telling me. Now the week was fun and eventful, but it wasn’t those things that ultimately brought me to the university. 

I want to add, before the week I took this trip, I was already in a spot of trying to decide between the two schools. They both have really good things I was looking forward to and if I could attend both at the same time, I would, but unfortunately they are across the country from each other, and it just doesn’t work like that. So, I already had a lot of things in mind for each school. What did I want from U of I that Cairn didn’t have and what did I want from Cairn that U of I didn’t have? Well we can get into those things later.

Going back to the story, there was one afternoon where I really had to force myself to get out of my comfort zone of being attached to one of my brothers because Dakota had a meeting which happened to perfectly overlap with Kadin’s class. So they pretty much just dumped me at this table with a bunch of Resonators and said bye (of course it didn’t happen like that but it’s kinda funny). But during this time it was fun just chatting and getting to know people, but as Dakota was about to come back, a couple of their friends invited me to play tennis with them. I of course said yes and we were on our way. Now we can skip through and afterwards I had a really good conversation with one of them who made things a little bit clearer. We talked about how Cairn was probably just an old dream, since it was years ago I had felt that’s where I was called to be, we talked about what each school held that the other didn’t, he explained that maybe God had taken Cairn and put it in my sight to get me on the right path that would eventually take me to somewhere else God wants me, and lastly, he said that I didn’t need to go to school for worship to be a worship leader. Most people, that I know of at least, don’t necessarily do that. And it all made sense. I walked away from that conversation with some things to think about and I later talked to Dakota about it all. Now when traveling back to Boise, Dak told me to make a list for both schools and write what’s good, challenging, and missing for both schools. I finished in about 30 mins and we talked about it. The University of Idaho had more in the good category and the items in challenging were more of a good challenge. Cairn seemed to have more in the missing and difficult challenges. A difficult challenge is good, but they were more things that may not have been easy to overcome, such as being far from home or being stuck in a bubble. I got to sit on these things for a bit, and looking at it all logistically, I made my decision.

I will say I am sad I don’t attend Cairn University, and I know there are others who would want me there, but here are some of the reasons why it’s not the plan for now. 

My biggest reason for U of I over Cairn is Resonate Church. After being involved for a long time and not having the college experience with Resonate, I would’ve been sad to not experience that. I have learned a lot about Resonate and I’ve become so interested and excited about the work that they do, I wanted to be a part of it all. I felt that, for me, it was important that I go somewhere to build on and strengthen my faith, but not only that, share it. Coming from the past 4 years in high school, I didn’t have much community in church and felt I was doing most by myself. The closest community I felt was in California or in Moscow/Pullman, so the idea of going somewhere where all I’d have would be a spiritual community sounded so good to me. But when I took a step back and reviewed, I realized that those were two extremes and I should find something in the middle. A balance. An analogy I’ve been using lately when describing this situation is a water fountain. I’m coming from a dry fountain. No water being poured in, no water being poured out. At Cairn I felt I would be an over filled fountain. Too much water being poured in, nowhere to pour out. (This is because I felt there would be no place for me to really share my faith to those who don’t know). But with Resonate, it’s a “perfect” flowing fountain. Equal parts water in, to equal parts water out. While I am being poured into, I get to pour into other people. 

The next reason is because of family. Not only am I closer to home than I would be out east, but I also get to rebuild the lost years of Dakota and Kadin being gone. With them still on campus, I get to experience some of my college years with them and just make up the time we’ve been separated. Though we may all be in different places in life, it’s sweet that for just a moment in time we get to all be in the same spot again. This may however create a bit of chaos for those around us, some of you know how us Coddingkids can get :). 

Now lastly, at least that I can think of at the moment, is my major. For as long as I could remember, I don’t know what I would be doing if it wasn’t theater. Yes, there was a moment of being a music major, but in reality, I am not a music student. I don’t play instruments or understand a lot of music things, but I know theater. And some other time we can go over how I feel God could use me in this area, but for the moment I’ll say that in the last 2 weeks of school I already see God working. So if it’s not clear by now, I am in fact majoring in theater arts. 

I know this was a lot of information, and hopefully it clears up a lot of questions and confusion, but that was just a little update on how I got to where I am now.