Gata.

Gata is one of the first Romanian words that I learned. It is also one of my favorite. It means finished or done. Gata is what one of the little girls here will tell me when she is dizzy from me spinning her around and she wants me to stop. But gata is also what I would say to her as I grab her hands when she comes running back wanting me to spin her around again..."Gata? - Are you ready?"

I am ready and I am finished. These seem like two opposite meanings for the same word, but as I thought about it I realized that it makes sense and helps me as I think about my time here coming to an end.

In just a few days I will be flying back to America. And it feels like the end has come too fast. I will miss this place and these people and the sense of being a part of something that is bigger than myself. It is hard to think next week I won't have a small child reach up and take my hand and I won't fumble through my Romanian asking the kids what they did at school that day. Yet I am coming to realize that these things have to end, and I need to embrace this ending, if I am going to welcome what God has next for me. And I know what He has next for me is in America. I am standing in this threshold of what has past and what is to come and it is scary, but I am ready to see what lies beyond it.

Gata.