Hello, everyone!
Wardrobe is finally over, and the aftermath is settling down. Everything is more or less put away, and I am less stressed than I have been in quite a while. Thank you all for praying for the show; I think it really did help. I could definitely see the hand of God in all of the things that almost went wrong but didn't.
For one thing, half of the costumes did not arrive from the tailor until TEN MINUTES before the show started on Friday, due to some miscommunications. We did have backup costumes ready (and we ended up using some of them, since a few costumes never came at all), but the last-minute flurry of trying to get all the costumes sorted and handed to everyone did not help to calm my nerves.
(The original version of this post had statements based on information I was given that turned out to be untrue. Even if it were true, I should not have phrased it so thoughtlessly. I have apologized to the person in question, and I apologize to anyone else I have hurt or angered.)
The rehearsals did not go anywhere near as well as I would have liked, so I was very worried for the shows themselves. But they went really well. There were some issues, and some confusion as to who was going where when, but other than that, it was quite good.
I was much less stressed for the Saturday show, partly because the costumes had been figured out, and partly because I had seen how well Friday had gone. I was nervous, but not as stressed. Thursday and Friday I had been occasionally wondering if I was about to throw up, or if I was just stressed. Saturday that feeling was mostly gone.
I had asked the pastor of the church I attend here to do a quick gospel presentation after the show. His daughters are in the show, so he was a good choice. I wish I had gotten a recording of his talk, but I didn't. He talked about how it was easy to identify with Lucy's faith, but that if we were being honest, we probably all identify more with Edmund. It was a wonderful gospel presentation.
A few days after the show, I was listening to a song while in the car. It was saying something to the effect of “by His death, he set us free,” and all I could think about was the Stone Table scene, and I realized it affected me more than I thought. I thought that because I already knew the story so well, I wouldn't be affected by it as much. But if I was affected by it, then I hope others were too.
Since the show ended, a lot of things have gone back to normal. I'm a lot less stressed, for one thing. I've also noticed that I've been feeling a lot more creative lately. Before the end of the show, I was ready to be done being creative for a bit. I had been pushing so hard to be creative for that that I had no creativity to spare for other things. But since the show has ended, I've felt more able to be creative again, since it's for myself, not because I have to do it.
The past few weeks have been busy ones at home, and I've missed quite a bit. I missed one sister's graduation from high school and one sister's graduation from college. (Both sisters said that was perfectly fine before I agreed to come. My sister graduating from college didn't even go to her graduation. But it was still disappointing to miss them.) And I missed my cousin's wedding, which was even more disappointing. I'm only gone for two more weeks, so I don't think I'll miss anything else important, but to have to miss all three of those within the past two weeks was hard.
I only have two weeks left in Malawi. When I came, I had eleven months to look forward to. Now I have 14 days until I'm back in the US. I still have some helping with school to do, including subbing Monday and Thursday for a teacher. Since Friday is the last day of school, I won't have too much in the way of teaching to do, but I will have to keep them occupied somehow.
I'm also babysitting for a family who just moved here and are doing language lessons. There are five children, mostly very sweet. I've had a few power struggles with the one little boy, but it's mostly been a lot of fun.
And I've been doing a lot of sorting and packing things to move back. I've already thrown out quite a number of papers that I don't need anymore, and put aside quite a few things to give to other people, rather than lugging them back to the States with me.
Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I'll put together an email about the expectations of being in Malawi versus the reality of being in Malawi. But this email is already a full page in my word processor, so it's too long to put here.
Please be praying for me to get done everything that I need to do in the next two weeks, and for me to have safe travels when I fly home. I'm excited to get home and see everyone again, I just have to get there first.