It is Saturday night, and we have one more day to prepare for the Mur/Drau swim. One more day to physically, mentally and emotionally prepare. Dry bags are straggled around my room with odds and ends that don't yet fit into our limited space. We are in a continual state of brainstorming ways to reduce and reuse our supplies. Hopefully lessons learned on the Danube River will hold true for the Drau. I will keep you posted. Do I need the water filtering kit?
It seems that a bazillion activites are being planned to monopolize on our jaunt down the river. So many environmental groups and random groups of people are helping and orgnaizing activities. LARA Bar (Humm Foods) sent us 180 healthful bars to take with us. It is a relief to know we will have a quick vegan food to eat on the river. Quintana Roo finally received their shipment of wetsuits and gave them to me on my fiftieth birthday. ProMotion wetsuits out of California graciously sent me a wetsuit in case Quintano Roo's shipment was delayed. ProMotion Wetsuit's compassion for my need was honorable, and I am thankful. Triathlons participants must be on the rise because wetsuits are increasingly more difficult to pull of the shelf. Quintana Roo gave me the birthday present I needed for the extreme temperatures Kelsey and I have to contend with on the Drau.
So, here I am trying to program coordinates into our GPS...do I sound technologically savvey? Ha! My coordinates keep sending me to Africa, not cool. I haven't a clue where we are staying our first night in Lienz, or who is meeting me with instructions for the first day's swim. Go in Faith. We do not have a lifevest for emergencies or a means to get fuel for our campstove; neither items can be taken of the plane. I am leaving for a month and have a pair of pants, a pair of shorts, two shirts and pairs of underwear, two sports bras and four swimming suits for a month long trip. If not for the camping gear, we would have less than twenty pounds of luggage between us. Now there's a fact for Ripley's.
School is over and I want to say goodbye to my students. It was an incredible year,and I am really proud of all of you. Your determination and perseverance in the midst of a language weakness is admirable. Don't give up; I draw my strength from your ability to keep coming back to school when traditional teaching techniqes are not in your interest. Remeber, it is these frustrations and detriments that will make you successful later, just don't give up.
My eyes are weighing heavy and this blog has yet to get to the point I meant to cover. Ah, there is not denying my needs for the comfort of my bed. I wll do what I can to blog tomorrow. mimi
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Dear Mimi,
365 Meditations for Women By Women with Nell H. Mohney from Tennessee has written:
The Power of Hope
But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently (Romans 8:25NIV)
We all need hope, for when we lose hope, we stop trying.
In 1950, Florence Chadwick set a new women’s speed record for swimming the English Channel. She learned determination in an earlier race from Catalina Island to Los Angeles, which she lost. In that race, the weather was cold, the smog was thick, and her fear about a killer whale depleted her supply of hope.
In the rescue boat that traveled alongside her, Chadwick’s mother and trainer offered words of encouragement and a warm drink when she grew discouraged. Even this didn’t persuade her to continue. She gave up less than one-fourth of a mile from the Los Angeles shoreline!
The following year, Chadwick completed the race in record time. As she commented to reporters, she kept her hope by seeing the shoreline in her mind.
Marriages, jobs, and friendships can be saved if we don’t quit but keep our focus “on the shoreline.” The apostle Paul says, “For in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8: 24 NIV).
God of faith, hope, and love, may I claim the power of hope by remembering my resources available in Jesus Christ. Amen.
GO IN HOPE, MIMI.
YOUR FRIEND, NANCIE
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