I’m looking at the clock on my screen as I type this, taking way too much time thinking about when we should try to actually go to sleep tonight given that we need to wake up at 3am in the morning for our 26-hour-long journey. Let me know if you have suggestions. Any way I look at it, it isn’t looking too pretty.

We are going again to a university a few hours from Beijing for what is known as English Week. The going again is significant. We’ve had teachers at this school for nearly 9 years now, starting back in 2008 when two young guys took a big risk and said yes to moving to the other side of the world to do big things. Those who led this whole thing before us trusted that the one who cracked those doors open the doors to work there to begin with would sustain and grow it too. Here we are. Going again. Packing our bags to lead a team of 18 to go serve up a camp-like week to hundreds and hundreds of students, coming alongside the 5 full-time teachers there now.

The school administrators are excited. The students are buzzing. And, the teachers are ready for some reinforcements to work alongside them and encourage them in what they do everyday.

It’s all good, especially for me because my hubs is leading the team and leading me. I’m a little anxious…of course, I am. I always get nervous before these trips. Every. single. time. (okay, so I may be entirely predictable.) I don’t know what shakes me up more–the fact that I’m leaving three of my babies here at home or the fact that I’m taking my 11-year-old baby with us for his first trip to China. Oh, it’s going to be a wild trip experiencing it with him this time. Maybe more than that, we are very aware that we are on the cusp of significant work this coming week and, therefore, very likely a battle.

Here we go…again.

Does it ever start to feel “old hat” or is it fresh still to you?

It’s a good question to ask of people whose passports are well stamped. We gave a neat, short answer on Sunday evening when we were asked. It was honest, but it was short and sweet. But, I’ve been thinking of it and off since then.

My to-do list is a file in Word, saved and reused over and over again. Clean off phone. Write notes for kids. Notify schools. Charge headphones. I have varied versions of a packing list for different seasons with cute little boxes for my checkmarks. We have a bit of a routine to this now. I know which sized packing cube to use for each category of clothing. The 13 1/2 hour plane ride no longer causes heart palpitations. It’s all much easier now than it used to be. We know what to do, when to do it, how to compensate when we don’t do it when we should have done it (which happens), and what to expect on the other side. We know where to go when we touch down in Beijing without reading any overhead signs. We look like foreigners and stand in the lines for foreigners but don’t feel all that foreign now. Maybe there’s a little bit of old hat in that.

We’ll be greeted by a few students at the airport and get on a charter bus for another few hours. When we finally arrive, there will be lots of students clapping and cheering for our arrival. It happens every time. But, the only old hat in that is the comfort of knowing it will be there, all those people will be there welcoming us.

Every trip is new. Even with a number of team members who go nearly every time, the team is new. At no other time was this particular team together going to this place to do this work. Never before were these 15 people teaching this curriculum and giving these messages and taking these students on trips to a park and to the Great Wall. While the schedule looks the same on a two-dimensional sheet of paper, it’s actually entirely new, a fact which makes our job as leaders anything but routine and comfortable. We’re leading the charge in unchartered territory which is both incredibly energizing and incredibly exhausting.

We leave home again in about 16 hours. Empty boxes are being checked, and Super Grammy is on her way now. We know how to do all this. But, it’s all new to us at the same time. Every time.

Here we go.