"Every day it keeps on getting closer!"

   In one day, the VCA Senior Class will be leaving in two weeks to join up with their brothers and sisters in Christ in Romania.  The Sunday before (February 17, 2013) will be "commission Sunday."  Village Baptist Church will pray over the students and adults during one of the church services.
 Many of the students are excited; for some, this will be their first time out of the country, for others, this will be their first time on a plane.  
 Some students have a countdown in their planner, others have a countdown on their phones; some can tell you how many day, hours, minutes, and seconds are left in our waiting period.

When I look to my fellow classmates, I see them as seniors, twelfth graders; in AP classes, meant for only seniors to take; parking in senior parking spots, where only seniors are allowed to park; leaving early for lunch, early release a privilege for seniors to get their lunch early.  It is 2013, and we have 'Class of 2013' written on our shirts.  I realize that yes, we are all seniors, but it does not feel like it; it feels like it was just yesterday, we were taking naps in our kindergarten classrooms; it feels like just yesterday, we were throwing toddler tantrums over having to "move our stick";  it feels like just yesterday, we would get excited over book fairs and chorus recitals; it feels like just yesterday, I was that kid, freshman kid, who thought high school would last forever and graduation was still far away.  I am that same kid, now, just older, more mature, more wise; I am now a kid trying to find my purpose in this world; a kid getting ready to make huge decisions in my life that only I can make; an adult. I look again at my fellow classmates; they look like seniors, but it does not feel like we are seniors. This mission trip has always been a senior thing; it was equated with the seniors, hence "Senior Mission Trip."  This countdown, this two weeks left until my senior mission trip makes me feel like I am losing a part of someone I have always been.  For years, I have listened to and watched each senior mission trip chapel and heard about what they went through; and now, it is finally my turn to take this opportunity, and then later, share with those how our trip went.  After these two weeks are over, I will feel different, in a sense, I have lost a part of me: that part of me that has been waiting, and now the time has come.