Finishing Strong

Our final days here have been fast, but great. We decided to give you a snapshot of what they were like. At the grand opening celebration of REI, we received some free passes to a nearby climbing gym. So, we invited our quadmates to come along with us on this outing. Each of us got three climbs. After the first climb, we all realized how out of shape our upper bodies are. Everything hurt, from the fingers to the forearm to our backs. Somehow, we each made it through all three climbs and felt quite accomplished. L even made it to the top without backing down to her fear of heights. I'm so proud of her!

In honor of our wonderful leaders, we had a group chili supper to thank them for all they have done during our time here. We gleamed so much wisdom from them and are very grateful for their servant hearts.

We had our final physical fitness test. It was quite the show down. L and I along with 2 others had a race off after everyone else had completed the test. L was the only girl, but she did great to keep up. The guys ran their first lap in 11 seconds!! I tied for second with 37 laps and L got 34, coming in first for the girls, and tieing with another guy for 5th overall.

We officially "graduated" yesterday. Our final day on the farm was fun, but sad. We had a full day of ceremonies. Our friend Taryn, who was in the car accident, was able to attend all the festivies. She is doing amazingly well after several surgeries. We are so proud of her! Continue to lift her up as she still has some healing ahead of her. After a yummy reception, we said the dreaded goodbyes. It was hard to leave. We had an amazing time while living on the farm. We grew closer together and to our Father. We made wonderful lasting friendships and had some unforgetable moments. What a joy it was to live there over the last two months.

The rest of the pictures represent a few other activities that we experienced while we lived there. We ate some authentic Thai food (chicken on a stick), enjoyed a movie campout, and a trip to our leader's home. Now that we have arrived back in Missouri and look back at our time there, we know it will be a period in our life that we will always remember and cherish!