Its been just over a month since I got back to Idaho after being in Moldova for nine months. I can hardly believe that I am already back and that my time in Moldova is over. At times it felt like I had been there for such a long time and that I still had a lot to go before I could come home. Now when I look back, I can't believe how fast it really all went. My last month there was one crazy blur. I had a lot of work still left to do and a lot of things that I wanted to see. Its funny how I was there for nine months and there were so many thingsthere at the end that I still hadn't seen just because I kept putting them off. One awesome trip that I was able to take before I left was a visit to a small Gypsy town in Northern Moldova with my friends Shauna and Tanya. There was this amazing fortress in the town that was locked up when we got there. I had looked up the fortress online before we went and their website had said that they were open everyday and I was so disappointed because I really wanted to go inside. We had driven three hours to get there so I was definitely bummed out that we couldn't go in. We saw a sign that said to call during the winter to set up an appointment to see it. I thought that with the way things work in Moldova, there would be no way that we would be able to get ahold of anyone and set up a tour. Luckily, we called the number and within ten minutes a man came down to open the fortress for us. This guy spoke ten different languages, including English, and told us all about the history of the area and fortress along with a bunch of his political opinions about Moldova and America. When this guy got talking, he just went off. He had a lot of character and it was really funny to hear him. This fortress was just beautiful and from the top gave a great view of the town, certainly worth the 50 cents it cost toget in! As soon as the man came to open it up for us, all these kids just appeared from nowhere and started running around and playing in the fortress. I starting thinking about it and realized just how lucky these kids were to be able to play in a real castle! I can't think of how many times growing up I pretended to be playing in a castle. We also took a drive up this hill where all of these beautiful Gypsy houses were. Some of these houses were more like palaces and were decorated so elaborately. A lot of Gypsies that lived in this area made their money through the Russian Mafia or through other illegal means. There were a lot of houses that were half way completed and we found out that later it was because the Gypsies involved in the mafia either got in trouble or just ran out of money in the middle of construction. We also learned that many of them were very concerned with building the biggest house to beat their neighbors and many would end up with these giant mansions with empty rooms inside. The king of the Moldovan Gypsies also lived on this hill so it was pretty cool to see his "palace".

Within the last month that I was in Moldova, I was able to get another video done for Invest-Credit. When I look back on it now, I have no idea how I was able to get so much done in just a month. God definitely gave me a lot of strength! I still have one more video to make and will hopefully be able to get this done with the next month or so. I feel so fortunate that I was able to learn this new skill when I was in Moldova. I don't think that I ever would have learned how to put videos together on my own.I didn't realize how hard it would be to leave Moldova. The last few weeks that I was there all I could think about was how excited I was to be going home. The last week when I was saying my goodbyes to everyone was when it really started to hit me that I wasn't going to see these people again and that it was possible that I would never be back in Moldova. God really blessed me with some of the best friends,both Moldovan and American, while I was there. I will always look back on my time in Moldova with so much love for the people and the country. When I got on my first plane in Moldova to come home, I just started crying and would start up again whenever I heard someone speaking Romanian or when something on the flight reminded me of Moldova. I don't know if I was just tired or what but I have never cried in public like that before. All the other people around probably thought that someone I knew had died or that I was crazy but I just couldn't believe that I would be going back to America where no one had any idea of all the things that I had just gone through or knew what it was like to live in Moldova. I think it is still hard for me to really explain just what Moldova is like. Even for those of you that have read through this whole blog, I feel like there are still so many details and stories that I have left out. My friend Tanya, who has been amissionary in Moldova for the past five years, really put it a great way. She said that its so hard to leave Moldova knowing that there is no one at home in America to talk to about Moldova with. I have definitely found this to be the hardest thing about being back. I feel like the past nine months of my life are just too complicated to explain when someone asks me how my time in Moldova was. I'm sure that it is the same way for everyone that spends time in another country. It's just too hard to explain things and there is no way to get the full picture until you actually go there. So the question that everyone keeps asking me is if I plan on going back to Moldova. For now, I don't think that I will be back in Moldova for anything long term again but I do definitely want to go back to see how things change. I think that Moldova has so much potential for growth and I would love to see how Invest-Credit continues to help entrepreneurs.

Another question that everyone has been asking is what I plan to do next. I still feel that God has called me into missions but I have noidea where I would want to go or just what I would do. I have a lot of student loans that I need to get paid off so I have decided to move to Boise and to work there until my debt is gone. Hopefully by this time I will have some direction and know where to go! I am starting a new job soon at Mission Aviation Fellowship. This is a missions organization that uses aviation to reach the many remote areas of the world with the message of the Gospel and also things like food and medical supplies. Before I graduated last year, I did my internship there and have since felt like I would love to work there again. The job that I will be doing will be in the Development department working to get graphic design projects done. I won't be designing or doing the graphic design myself, but will be working with the artist to make sure that projects are finished on time. I am so excited to not only be working for an amazing organization and getting to still beinvolved in missions but I am also so happy to be able to be gaining new experience in the area of marketing. God has definitely blessed me with the perfect job!!! I will be moving to Boise within the next week and will start work soon. Please keep me in your prayers as I make this move and start a whole new chapter of my life. Even though I am thrilled to be working in missions still, I think that it will be hard for me to constantly see missionaries leaving and to realize that it may be a while before I will be able to leave America myself. It has been so great to be home and I really have had a great time being back in Grangeville for this past month but I still feel this itch to get out of America and see more of the world. I feel like there is just so much more out there to see!

Thank you so much for sticking with me these past nine months! First off, I never would have made it to Moldova without all of the financial support of so many different people. So thank you so much for your support in this way. More importantly, I wouldn't have had nearly as productive an experience if there hadn't been so many people praying for me through all of my issues and just encouraging me to keep up my work. Even though there were plenty of times that I felt alone in Moldova, I was always comforted knowing that there were a lot of people who cared about me back home. Thank you for your prayers! This is my last blog entry so don't worry about checking back here anymore! If you want to contact me, my email is kelgates@gmail.com. Just because I'm home doesn't mean that I don't want to continue to hear from you! Thanks for reading and may God bless you wherever you are!! La revedere!

La Multi Ani!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that your new year is blessed! I have certainly had an interesting year and continue to be so grateful for the opportunities that I have had. The chance to come here to Moldova and live in a new culture for these past seven (almost eight!) months has been such an experience.

Spending Christmas and New Year's here was definitely different than what I’m used to but I really enjoyed being somewhere new for Christmas. It was really nice not being bombarded with Christmas commercials and tinsel every two feet. One thing that I mentioned in one of my past posts was that Christmas here is mostly celebrated on the 7^th of January because the majority of the population here is Orthodox and therefore follow an older calendar for holidays. Only some Christians that are Protestant celebrate on the 25^th so for the most part it was just a regular work day for everyone else. I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with my roommate Shauna and the American family that she teaches for. It was so nice to have a family to be with and I really appreciated their hospitality and amazing food! New Year’s Eve is more of a holiday here than Christmas…I spent this night with some missionary families and then went downtown to see what it would be like. It was one big crazy party going on there with kids running all over the place and fireworks going off left and right.

At 12 there was a big firework show so that was fun to see. I don’t think there are any sorts of fireworks regulations here because there were fireworks going off everywhere and little kids shooting Roman candles in the middle of the crowds…. definitely not my safest New Year’s Eve! My favorite part was coming home to see these huge fireworks right next to my apartment and all the car alarms in the parking lot going off because of the noise and commotion. One Christmas/New Year’s Eve tradition that Moldovans have is caroling for money or other goodies. On the major holidays here, some of the children go around knocking on doors to carol for the people there. The only catch is that you have to pay them money or something else if you open up your door to listen to them. There are also a lot of Christians that go around too but don’t expect money in return...here are some that came on Christmas to share some Moldovan Christian carols.

(here I was “vacuuming too hard” in the words of Shauna and completely knocked over our Christmas tree…at least it was a good time to take it down anyway) One of the interesting things about the holiday season here was that the government declared a ten day break in which no one had to work if they didn’t want to. There were some places open still because the workers get paid double if they decided to work but still most people didn’t work at all. On the 6^th of January which is Christmas Eve here, a lot of people go to church and I read somewhere that mass at the Orthodox churches can go until two and three in the morning. Many also go to church on the 7^th and generally celebrate as we do by getting together with family and eating large meals. I went to mass a little Orthodox Church on Christmas here and it was definitely interesting to see the dedication of some of these people. These masses are generally three hours long and everyone stands the whole time...I came way late so I didn’t end up standing for three hours but I was definitely dying to move around after a while. The choir at this church was amazing and even though I didn’t understand anything that was going on, it was very beautiful to just be there and pray on my own.

The organization that I work for, Invest-Credit, recently had an employee get-together to celebrate both Christmas and the fact that we now have 300 active clients. This means that there are now 300 entrepreneurs/business owners who are currently repaying the business loans that they have taken out from Invest-Credit. The organization has grown very rapidly in the past few years and it is very exciting to reach this number of clients. For the celebration the entire staff along with their families went bowling which was certainly an interesting thing for me to see since some had never been b

owling before. Some of them would just pick up any ball no matter how much it weighed and throw it down the lane! Some of the techniques for getting the ball down there were very unique and it made for a much more interesting time bowling than I would ever have in America. When I got up there for my first turn, they all starting chanting my name for some reason and I ended up knocking down seven or eight pins or something like that and they just went wild. I’ve never felt so encouraged in my bowling skills in my whole life! I started giving little bowling lessons in between turns and I think that I could definitely be a professional bowler here or at least a bowling instructor!

Shauna and I recently went to a traveling wax figures museum that they have set
up here in the city and overall it was pretty fascinating. It was actually creepier than I thought it would be because so many of the figures looked so real and they kept the lights a little to low, I kept expecting them to move or something. A large amount of the figures were popular Russian rulers and military people that I had never heard of before but some of the others were more well-known around the world. Definitely worth the $1.25 we paid to get in!

I finally posted the video that I made for Invest-Credit on youtube. Here it is in case you are interested in seeing it.

I’m now working on two shorter videos for Invest-Credit that will focus on the microloans and the spiritual impact of the organization and am definitely a little stressed about the whole thing. I will be coming home at the end of February and I really don’t know if I’ll be able to get two more videos finished. I never realized just how much work goes into producing videos…just watching the news I’m just amazed at how good some of the camera angles are and just how much research must go into everything that they say…these projects have definitely given me a new appreciation for communications and media, I can’t even watch anything anymore without trying to figure out how everything is done. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as my time here is coming to a close and as I am struggling to get things going for these projects. Also I am trying to figure out what’s going on job-wise when I get home so please pray that I will be guided in the right direction! Thanks for your emails over the past few months, I hope you all are doing great! Let me know if you have anything that I can pray about.