The Last Month, Part 10: Back in the capital

I remember waking up that last morning in Max's village and getting on the road right after breakfast.  Abby and I schemed all the way home about what all needed to happen next.  Every few minutes we'd try to get a hold of Nick to set up a time to record that last handful of Stories.  By the time we got home (obviously after a stop for gas (and bread) in Bread Town (okay, and a Coke)), we had a meeting set up with Nick and had figured out what our next steps were, how they needed to happen, when they needed to happen, when we needed to return to Tea Village to test the rest of our Stories and re-test any Stories that needed re-testing...and when we might be able to record the final drafts OF ALL 32 STORIES.  I would like to point out that at this point in time we had 12 days left until we got on a plane.  I want you to know that because that's how big our God is.

We got home, unloaded the truck, refilled 20 or so of our liter and a half water bottles, and took the first real showers we'd had in about 8 days.  We knew we were meeting up with our teammates later on in the evening for dinner so we sat and really rested for a little while.  It was the best feeling in the world.  We were both completely and totally spent.  Poured out.  And for the first time it really started to look like we'd get to finish this project.  Again, we knew, we KNEW that God had never promised us that we would get to be the ones to finish it, but we also knew that He wanted us to try with everything we had.  We met our teammates at one of the restaurants in town and I wasn't even prepared for the awesomeness that followed.  I was already on top of the world, but at dinner all of our teammates were so excited for us, so encouraging to us, and so supportive.  And they genuinely wanted to hear any detail that we wanted to tell because they were preparing to do the same thing!  I have often thought that if I could choose one day to re-live over and over and over again, it would be that one.  Here's a pic of Abby and me from that night.  We even put on makeup and fixed our hair! :)

The next few days were a whirlwind of updating documentation in each Story's Excel sheet, meeting with Nick, sending the documents off to Nafi for approval, and packing.  Well, Abby was packing.  And singlehandedly organizing all of our stuff that was being left behind so that our co-workers could have it.  And greeting our friends and purchasing goodbye gifts.  It was actually a pretty fantastic picture of teamwork.  It never gets old to me...reflecting on the way God put Abby, Sarah, and I together.  We are completely different and brought totally opposite things to the table, but when we were all able to work in our element, exciting things happened.  I love how God made us each to serve Him in different ways and I love seeing those pieces working together.  That's why I love my current job so much! ;)

We recorded the last 4 Stories, and Nafi approved the other 28 for final recordings except for a couple of parts of a couple of Stories (which was awesome because that meant we didn't have to re-test all of them).  Our house was pretty much all packed up so we loaded up the truck and we headed back to Tea Village for one last round of testing!