Page 4 - Moravian Messenger August 2021
P. 4

100 hours of exercise in one week
Joy, Roberta, Claire, Zoe, Katie and I (Lol) have been part of an online Moravian Women's Association (MWA) fellowship group for around four years. We meet as often as we can, online, for fellowship, worship and prayer time. This has really shaped each of our ministries and has caused friendships to deepen further as we journey through life together. It works well for us as we are spread throughout the country and some of us, due to where we live, are not near to a Moravian Church. Being part of this online group has helped us feel connected to our Moravian roots as well as providing sisterhood and moments of light in dark times.
Every year the MWA raises money for a specific charity. This year's charity has been for the Masai School Girls where the MWA supports contextual work to prevent early marriage and enable access to education. This charity struck a chord with our group as we each have a heart for children and young people, with a desire to see young people flourishing wherever they are in life. This motivated us to come up with the plan of doing 100 hours of exercise between us in one week to try and raise some funds for this fantastic work.
We are all busy bees with various busy jobs and lives so fitting in the exercise was sometimes very challenging around children who preferred life at 4am, meetings that were back-to-back, a hen do, packing and finishing work assignments ahead of holidays, as well
© Sr Laura Wood
comfort zones as we tried new activities, encouraging one another, keeping our minds and hearts focused on the Masai
girls whose opportunities in life might be widened by the donations people gave towards our 100 hours of exercise. It was a time where we each felt connected with one another but also with the wider MWA and Masai girls. It felt as though female empowerment ran throughout this challenge, uplifted by your kind donations, encouragement and support. Currently we have raised £1,140 for Masai School Girls. This was more than we could have imagined - thank you. If you haven't had the chance yet and would like to support our 100 hours of exercise with a donation please email gillian.taylor@moravian.org.uk for more information. Cheques will need to be payable to MWA. Please contact Gillian beforehand to ensure that everything is correct before you send it in. Thank you for all your support. Keep your eyes peeled ...wehopeto
take on a new challenge next year too!
Sr Laura Wood
as balancing various unexpected turns that life can throw at us. Yet, we were all committed to make this work even if it meant we exercised at odd times, embraced toddler football time, tackled a garden in an act of 'extreme gardening', got up at silly o'clock to do a 30min High Intensity Training Workout, fitted in a pram walk or promenade, roller- skated on our lunch break, grabbed that 15 minutes spare time for a walk, encouraged our child to the playpark in a downpour, nipped in for a wild swim, ran around the streets of Manchester, added Yoga into our wake up or end of day routine or simply decided to take this week as a time to explore new forms of exercise amidst the busyness. On average we each had to do two hours 30 minutes each a day (give or take a little) to make this work. On busy days others in our group did a few more minutes for us and vice versa. By the end of the week we all ached everywhere but were thrilled to have completed this challenge. Many of us had embraced new forms of exercise, continued with old passions or had been reacquainted with long lost hobbies.
Each of us really enjoyed this challenge. We all pushed ourselves out of our
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