Ending The Search Beginning the Quest

The moment I’ve been waiting for months on end happened yesterday, at 13:15…

“Marquita, its Evan. There’s a big chance that the printing press will deliver the book printed, ready to be dished out, today.”

It was simply exuberating news that made me rush to the nearest phone booth to break the good news to Tutzi…

“Tu, there’s a big possibility that the first boxes with the book will be delivered right at your door step at around 17hrs…”

Until I met Nazju (one of Evan’s employees) with the books at 16:50pm, there was a whole ecosystem of butterflies in my stomach. I was excited, but also very sick with worry. I was afraid of any possible misprints that would make me want to rewind back a few weeks. I was afraid the cover would turn out to be all pixilated and crappy…

Still, what was done was done. I muttered a prayer to God, thanking Him for everything and asked Him to bless our work. In the meantime, I wondered whether the white Fiat Uno right in front of Mireva book shop was Nazju’s car. At the sight of loads and loads of white boxes in the boot of the car, my heart went into tachycardia. Yep! It was definitely Nazju’s car! And the books were in there!

I opened one of the boxes on our way to Tutzi’s house. The result was amazing. Eventually, I got to discover a few booboos here and there. But, the joy of finally seeing the book ready after 18 months of sweat, tears and teeth-clenching effort totally outweighed any possible negative feeling precipitated by inevitable human errors.

But what is this book that I'm talking about?

For those who didn’t read my previous posts…

It was September 2006 when I went to Y4J’s Youth Team weekend in Gozo to plan the work and activities of the year ahead. It was on the 9th of September that Tutzi coined this great idea of dishing out information about Jesus in the form of printed matter whist outreaching in schools. It’s a date I recall well because I remember having to miss my friend Joelle’s graduation party because of this weekend. Anyhow, my mind instantly went on publishing a booklet like the one I was given at the MV Doulos once. And so, Tutzi honoured me with the responsibility of seeing that the project gets done.

Technically, all she wanted was a simple, easy to produce pamphlet. But I’m famous for my gross misunderstandings. So, instead of making a pamphlet, I wrote a book entitled: Ending the Search Beginning the Quest (Mit-Tfittxija għall-Għarfien). I wrote the text in English which we planned to translate into Maltese, in order to make one bilingual publication that could reach a wider readership. And I made all the arrangements with the owners of Mireva bookshop, who were great people to work with from the first till the very last day.

When Tutzi realised this, she was having second thoughts about this big project, whilst remaining flabbergasted at how I managed to blow things out of proportion. But I showed her that I was willing to put my heart and soul into this; that I had people helping me and that God was by my side. On Chris’s wedding (25th November 2006), we discussed all these issues and Tutzi gave me the official go ahead.

From that point on, there was no turning back. Tempting as it was at times to just give up on the whole thing, we just persisted on till we got to a very gratifying end result yesterday.

All glory to God for helping us all complete this book.

And thanks to all those people who helped out in some way or another.