Thin Places

Once upon a mini course Brother Brandon graced us with some beautiful words and some interesting things to think about. Particularly striking was his description of “thin places.” He explained that these could be places or people, landscapes or moments where the veil between Heaven and Earth is thin, where the spiritual realm touches the mortal, where the presence of God can be felt resonating from the ground to the air to the infinite sky and all things are connected. In these places the past and the future are irrelevant, the to-do lists are nonexistent, and the opinions of others are, to a great extent, powerless. There is simply peace. And understanding. And the knowledge that right here in this place or at this moment or with these people is exactly the right place to be. It’s an affirmation that you, me, we, belong. Here. Now.

A lot of us Stews experience these thin places within the program. Maybe some of us felt it at the paddle before school started when the sun was warm but the water was cool and we learned how to move as a unit. Or maybe at the campfire when the air was crisp but the fire was glowing and music filled the spaces between the stars. Maybe even just at mini course every Friday when we reunite with the people that share our common passion and adventurous spirit. I think we all recognize these “thin places” or “thin moments.” We run into them unexpectedly and we let them gently remind us to breathe. We let them lull us into awareness; nudge us into the world with a new perspective.

I think a big part of our goal as Stews is to make these places and moments more accessible to the entirety of the community. We want people on the river and at the parks and together in hope that they can feel it too—that they can feel connected and present and alive. We want them to see the beauty of nature and humanity and the remarkable way they are one. That incredible duality is why we’re all here. It’s what makes us love being stewards.

Keep the river love flowin’, y’all,

Anna Adami 

2016 Cohort 

Water, Water, Water!!

I know that many people have no idea where their water comes from, or have any idea how they get clean water. I know this because I used to be one of them. I used to have absolutely no idea how we got clean water in our showers, or how the River stayed so clean…until a few weeks ago.

During one of our mini courses, we were able to visit the Drinking Water Treatment Plant. During my two years of a resident in Dayton, I’ve come to learn how clean and valuable our drinking water is. I’ve also learned how much work goes into making sure this is possible.  All seven days of the week (regardless of the weather), people are working to make sure that Dayton has clean and high quality water pumping into every Dayton home/business/ or facility. With frequent pH checks and filtration/treatment areas, the employee’s at the Drinking Water Treatment Plant have much to do. They hold the responsibility of providing water to every citizen of Dayton everyday, without any room for mistakes.

Visiting the Drinking Water Treatment plant made me realize how much I used to take these employees and our clean water for granted. We are so lucky to live in a city that is capable of providing us with water that we can drink straight from the tap. We are so lucky to have people who are devoted to making sure that our water is of the highest quality. Above all, we are lucky to live in a city that has a treatment plant that is prepared! They have backup machines to their backups. They have a system that only reaches half of its capacity on a normal day, which means that if something were to happen, we have space to expand the water treatment and storage.

The fact that we have an abundant supply of clean water is incredible! I am so thankful for this and have learned a great deal about how we obtain clean water everyday. If you get the chance, you should tour the facility! It’s truly an eye opening experience.

So take a sip, water you waiting for J

Alicia

Junior Cohort Visits YSI

The Junior cohort recently visited YSI, Inc. to learn about their local and global impact on water quality monitoring and testing.  The group enjoyed a tour of the facility, seeing how the products are made, distributed, and how relationships are built within their "water community". 

My first time at MOX

After a long week of classes and work, I love to finally de-stress on the weekends by getting off campus either by doing service or going on adventures with my dear UD friends. The Midwestern Outdoor Experience, MOX, was the greatest event I was a part of this semester; one which let me both volunteer and get outdoors. It was an event sponsored by the Five Rivers Metroparks which promoted outdoor recreation. Involved was everything from snowboarding, to yoga, dog competitions, camping and of course kayaking. I attended the event to help teach people to kayaks and to speak at our beloved river mobile.

 I loved the event because I appreciated seeing so many people enjoying the great outdoors and participating in a healthy, active lifestyle. The River Steward Institute focuses on creating awareness about the rivers and the environment to the Dayton area, but this event was so much more than that. 20,000 people attended this event from all the major cities ranging from Cincinnati to Indianapolis and Louisville The fact that so many people with shared interests came together for one event put into perspective how grand our efforts could be and how many people we can reach.

To begin the day I watched happy families fill up kayaks and play-around on the river, as I helped people get in and off the docks and taught first timers the proper kayaking techniques. Sharing a passion of mine with these eager folks was a great start to such a beautiful Saturday.

Then I walked over to our brightly colored River Mobile. Talking at MOX was different than giving tours at schools because I got to talk to adults as well as children. I loved talking to everyone, no matter their age, but while doing so I realized what a difference in knowledge there is. I liked meeting people who really knew a lot about conservation and the dams because we would have deeper conversations. But just as much as I liked those, I also found it rewarding to talk to people who weren’t as informed. I felt like through talking to those who came through the mobile I was giving a voice to the river and water we so heavily rely on.

MOX was a wonderful, fun, and educational event; and to anyone who finds themselves still reading this, I would highly recommend you go out and explore it next year.

See you there

Léa

SunWatch Tour and Service

It was none other than a sunny day at the SunWatch Village. My fellow Stews and I, fresh out of orientation to the program, met and traveled to a unique place right here in the city of Dayton. Still learning what kind of people everyone was this trip really opened up each and everyone’s desire to learn and serve. The beginning portion of our trip consisted of a learning portion. We talked about the rich history at SunWatch consisting of the creation of the small village to its decline. Some unique facts about this village are the uncovering of rocks only native to the Gulf of Mexico and an ancient burial site right on the premise. We than transferred our focus to the serving side. Some picnic tables needed housed for the fast approaching winter months and we were just the right people to do it. We set a record time and built a little muscle doing it! It was such a special experience and definitely something I would like to experience again.

One fellow Stew...

- John Weniger
 

Canoeing at Camp Whip Poor Will

Last weekend, myself and three other Stewards spent our Saturday at Camp Whip Poor Will helping teach Girl Scouts how to canoe. It has been one of my favorite weekends this school year.

We started out in the campus ministry van, talking about our weeks, singing along to only the best cheesy radio pop and navigating our way there with absolutely no guidance from our smart phones (it was a proud moment). When we got there, a few of us realized we had been there as Girl Scouts and the nostalgia ensued. We realized what a great day it was going to be when we walked up to this: 

Cue the instagramming and the “ohmygosh this is so pretty”-s.

We met John, an energetic Girl Scout leader who is kind enough to spend EVERY weekend teaching Girl Scouts to canoe and, admittedly the most exciting part of the whole shebang, to tip their canoes. Additionally, he had two “program assistants”, girls in 8^th grade who also spend their weekends working with younger Girl Scouts, to help him.

We knew we would work with two groups of girls that day, but besides that we had little idea about how the day would go. So when John introduced us to them and sent us off in groups to teach them how to paddle, we jumped right in. Our first group was adventurous and almost all of them were happy to jump right into the canoes and spread out on the water. When it came time to tip the canoes, we got our workouts swimming out to and dragging back canoes that had been tipped over but never tipped upright. The second session went much the same, however when it came time to go out on the water I nabbed a “Fun-Yak” for myself instead of sharing a canoe with one of the girls.

This is a Fun Yak. And yes, they are fun.

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Sitting out on the lake/giant pond with the chaos of 20 Girl Scouts canoeing around me, I realized how good this day had been for me. I felt refreshed and light hearted and happy. I felt peaceful and like I could finally take a deep breath again. I had been stressing out over midterms, school, work, relationships, bills, cleaning my house and general life stressors all month and sitting there, I realized I completely forgot about all of it that day. When we got in the van to leave at the end of the day we all shared a similar sentiment.

On Friday, Leslie shared with me that she had run into one of the moms of the Girl Scouts who told her how much fun her daughter had. It made my heart happy to hear that the girls had also gotten a lot out of what was such a rewarding experience for us Stewards.

And now for some pretty pictures:

I can't even..can I just live here please?

Four happy Stews!

 As always, River Love!

Maddi

The RiverMobile and YSI work together to serve Mills Lawn Elementary School in Yellow Springs.

In case you were wondering where the RiverMobile was yesterday!