Alaska Missions 2014

 Journaling while traveling is a challenge. Preparation for the journey was a bigger challenge.
 This winter in southeast Texas was also a challenge. We experienced several periods of freezes and warm ups. I discovered a leak from a skylight over the bathroom in the RV. My local, favorite and friendly RV repair man showed me where I had numerous leaks. And the bed support in the cab over was filled with old water and rotten Styrofoam.

 

Tom tore off the front nose of the RV, removed the window, supported the sides and began to rebuild the whole cab over section. We waited weeks for new sky lights, and vents. Most of the replacement pieces had to be hand formed.

 

Tom rebuilt the floor of the cab over with new insulation, new flooring and repaneled the walls.

 

This is the new interior with the cab over filled with bags of donated coats, sweats and caps for Alaska missions. Donations have been made by several churches.

 

 

This is a view of the basement storage area. The boxes are filled will donated books for the mission. I should have taken a photo of the two spare tires I ended up with stored for a short time under here.

 

I left home on Sunday, April 13, and took my mom to Kilgore. On Monday I visited with my friend Judy, then before I left Tyler I was hit by a freak hail storm. Suffered a crack in the wind shield.

Over night in Lubbock, the temp dropped to 25 degrees.

Traveling through New Mexico, I stopped for gas and noticed a low tire. Something had gouged between the treads. My spare was put on. I bought a spare.

In Arizona another tire began to split. I was blessed to pull off on the service road. I waited a couple of hours for road service. The night was spent in the parking lot of a tire store. In the morning, 4 tires later, I was on my way. I arrived at Diane's in Prunedale, CA. on Thursday.

Diane had major surgery on Friday. She did well. Was released on Monday. Today we are resting.

 

Thank you for you for your prayers for Diane and for my travels.

"J" Journaling

          Is blogging the same as journaling? Could be if you blog regularly. We think of journaling as a day-by-day accounting similar to the old-timey diary with a lock and key that you hid from your little brother. Today journaling, like blogging, may be for the public.
         Personal journals maybe as informal or formal as you are. Unless you allow someone to read your journal, no one will criticize your grammar or spelling. A personal journal is a place to reflect your heart.
         My great grandfather's journal, kept during the Civil War from 1858-1895 was a personal journal that is a priceless record of history. We inherited the original manuscript and were fortunate to be able to decipher his looping cursive hand writing and have the journal published.

Your journal of experiences is an excellent reference for later publishable manuscripts. Your journals may turn into memoirs, or be the basis of fiction.

My novels are spiced up with some of my journals!

 

 

I don't like to write in those fancy store-bought journals. I make my own. I learned the art of book binding from library books and delight in creating distinctive covers. The large book is a drawing journal with a cover of birch bark and moss with a coating of sealer. The yellow banded book has a cover of hand made paper with marigolds. The smaller cover is a fern mounted on a strip of paneling. Each book contains pages and is bound.

 I went wild with the cover for this travel journal. The book consists of a three-ring notebook covered with fabric printed with license plates. The star is pieced, like a quilt block, and the thunderbird is beaded. The interior of the book is a collection of sheet protector pages for a travel brochures, drawings and notes.

I will be blogging a travel journal within the next few weeks. My summer plans are to travel to California to visit my youngest son and my cousins. Later I'll meet up with other missionaries to travel to Alaska where we will again volunteer at camp and churches.

The internet is often unavailable, so my blog posts may be irregular. I will also keep a computerized daily journal and of course take photos.

Join me on my mission trip!