All over again

Tara & I interviewed three students today for the Ukraine trip in June.

I can't believe this is all happening again. I'm truly excited, and yet I'm looking ahead at all the work that's ahead of me: all the fundraising and letter-writing and team meetings and language lessons and working with travel agents and sending for passports for 20+ the thought of 40 hours between airports and in the air and about 38 hours on a train and even before all of that having to choose which students can go and having to tell others they can't--and I wonder where I'll get all the energy for all of that.

And then I think about:

• this is the first plane ride some of the students will take
• how this trip will change students' lives, as it changed mine
• that this trip will deeply expand students' worlds in a big way: some of them have never even been out of Ohio. It'll also expand their views of God and worship and politics and globalization and economics and poverty and wealth and themselves.
• that we will get to share love and lavish attention on attention-starved orphans who love us with reckless joy
• who knows? I may meet my future child (adopted, of course)
• bonding with 19 other people, many of who I already care about.
• getting to hang out with Tonia and Sasha and Oleg again.

Yup. Service-learning trips are definitely worth it.