No Dull Moments

Time has been moving at warp speed for Jackie and me. After placing third in the community vote, we had a long weekend of waiting and worrying about whether or not we would advance to the next round of tThe New Challenge. Finally, around 3pm on March 3rd, we found out that we had been voted through to the semi-finals!

Imagine Jackie and I both trying to celebrate demurely at our respective places of work. Lots of exclamation points were exchanged between us using text messages and Facebook. We feel incredibly blessed to have received so much support from our friends in the US and Colombia and so we were quick to let everyone know just how much their clicks and shares meant to us. But our moment to rejoice was brief because advancing to the next round also meant that we had to prepare very quickly for our panel interview that was going to be held later that same week.

Our nights were a bit sleepless and I had a permanent stomach ache the entire week but our interview ended up being one of the real high points of this entire process. Everything really gelled for us and we even shocked ourselves slightly with our own passion and dedication to the project. Our judges must have been moved as well because on Monday, March 17th, Jackie called me to tell me she had just received an email from the organizers and we were officially finalists in the New Challenge! This time, I couldn't contain my excitement and had to do a happy dance right there in my office. 

Over a year of research and project design paid off and we tried to really sit still and appreciate what we had achieved with the support of our communities and partners in Colombia. But sitting still isn’t really in either of our natures and so we were right back to work. We filmed our pitch video and Jackie left for Colombia the next day for a research trip.

There have been no dull moments in this journey and I don’t see any on the horizon.