Page 19 - eBook Living Water 2

that Joni had been killed instantly. It was a traumatic situation for me
and hard to believe that I had been standing right next to her only an
hour before. Yet, I was still here and she had been killed. How could
that be? I felt a lot of guilt being the one still alive and sitting there
next to her devastated mother.

I hadn’t been sure about God and still wasn’t. I called myself
an agnostic. So, it was interesting that shortly after this tragedy, I
began to sense that maybe I was still alive because God had a plan for
me. The childhood church spiritual experience was still tucked away
somewhere in my memory. However, I continued calling myself an
agnostic because I wasn’t sure about “all of that religious stuff”.
Besides, I was much more interested in continuing on with my life-
conquering quest of having fun.

God’s Providence: While writing this memoir, I received a
phone call from Donnie. It has been fifty five years since I last heard
from him. He called to apologize for what had occurred in our
marriage! Being eighty years old and in poor health, he said that he
felt a need to resolve some “loose ends” in his life.

4 Life Conquering Quest International

I met a girl in the ski club and her name was Jan, too. She had
a dream to one day travel extensively through Europe. I was intrigued
by the possibility of expanding my life conquering adventures to
foreign lands. So, we joined forces, and picked a departure date,
saving our money toward our goal of taking an extended trip abroad.

We booked passage on a Yugoslavian passenger/freighter
leaving New York City in late October 1965 and arriving seven days
later in Casablanca, Morocco. The trouble was that two weeks prior
to our departure I found out that I was pregnant. It was a shock. I
told no one but Jan, assuring her that I still planned to go on the trip
and that I’d figure out what to do about it later.