Bike Thief at Large!

Arianna and Nils. Two German exchange students at our school.

Our waiban (Peggy) wanted to give hamburger grilling a shot!

Hey everyone. Here's what's been going on in Wuhan lately.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, most of us teachers bought bikes a month and a half ago. Traffic in Wuhan is TERRIBLE (I can't emphasize that enough), so I was glad to get one this year. Less time spent waiting at bus stops, cramming into standing room only buses, then being stuck in traffic jams for ridiculously long periods of time.

Two Saturdays ago started out as a great day. I was already planned for the next week's lessons and had some time to kill. The weather was nice, so I decided to ride my bike to Lu Xiang (our downtown). It was a little ways away, but I had the time. I locked it up next to a bus stop hoping that having a lot of people around would deter any bike thieves. I had a great day at Lu Xiang. I studied Chinese at a coffee shop for a few hours before meeting up with friends at Papa John's for pizza. Everyone else took a bus or taxi home, but I was excited to ride home. It's quite the adrenaline rush to ride around thousands of people and swerving cars! A few weeks ago, I had Rebecca on the back of my bike and clipped a taxi's mirror.

As I was walking back, I had a bad feeling that my bike wouldn't be there. It had been parked for a few hours. Wuhan is a huge city, and I know I'm prone to be a target as a foreigner. My gut feeling was right. I walked around the area a little just to make sure the police hadn't moved my bike in case I had parked it illegally. I never found it. I'm guessing someone on the other side of the city is enjoying my wheels now. I've heard plenty of stories about people getting their bike stolen. So instead of being too angry, I just felt like it was my time to have it happen. Oh well.

Last weekend the six Zhong teachers at our school decided to have an American cook-out and invite some of the new foreign teachers at our school as well as some of our Chinese friends. Organizing something like that in China is quite the process! We had to go across town to buy the burgers and other foreign food. All in all, we had pretty big, multi-cultural barbecue with almost 30 people. Besides the Americans and Chinese, we also invited a few German exchange students who are here for the year. It was a lot of work, but I think everyone had a great time eating burgers, playing wiffle-ball, and hanging out.

As expected, it wasn't too long before I got my first sinus infection of the year. I've been trying to run fairly regularly, but the air is awful this year due to more construction close to our school. So many times, I'll be glancing at the landscape and think, "if that was fog, it would be beautiful." Unfortunately, it's smog. This infection has stuck around for about two weeks, but thankfully the worst is past. It was difficult to teach some of my classes with a bunch of crap in my throat and a faucet for a nose.

Other than that, not a lot has happened. You can be thinking of some opportunities I might have in the future to talk with some students. I am planning to give some Books to students who were asking about it at the beginning of the year. Also, one of my classes is doing an English project. Some of the students have decided to do theirs' on appreciating the New Testament. Their teacher has asked me to talk with them about it in a few weeks. I'm definitely not an expert on theology, but I'm looking forward to the opportunity.

I finally have wireless internet in my room which means I can use my iTouch to communicate more easily with all of you. Through a free app, you can text/call me just like a phone in America at 517-798-4420.

Also, I have another app called Instagram. Think of it as twitter for pictures. I'll try to post the occasional interesting China picture. You can follow me at rmathews10 if you'd like to.

Grade 2 students will be on a field trip next week, so I'm going to enjoy some time off! I hope all of you are doing great!

Matthew 6:19-21

Foreigners 2, Chinese 0

Foreigners win!

Kirk driving in for a lay-up

Hello again everyone. I hope you're all doing well. Here's what I've been up to recently.

This year, we've had a lot more opportunities to play sports with the Chinese students and teachers. Our school has 4 German exchange students studying at our school. We take Kung Fu and Chinese classes with them, so we've gotten to know them fairly well. Recently, they told us that a school team (I think it's like an intramural team) wanted to challenge us and the Germans to a soccer game. We have quite the mix of foreigners. Some of us had played soccer growing up, but most had not. However, we had to represent our countries! It was a lot of fun. We played for about an hour with no subs while the other team had a few. We were dead tired, but pulled out a 3-1 win.

A few days later, I received a call from an Chinese English teacher. He said that some of the Chinese teachers wanted to challenge us to a basketball game. My first year, I showed my students a copy of my hometown newspaper's sports section when I was on the front after a homecoming game. Ever since then, the rumors have spread around campus that I'm an amazing basketball player. Some have even asked me if I played at Duke!

I was excited for the chance to play an organized game. We played with the same group of foreigners. I think Kirk and I are the only ones who played organized basketball growing up, but some of the other foreigners are pretty athletic. I knew it would be a pretty tough game because I've played with many of the Chinese teachers, and they aren't too bad. We had our work cut out for us!

We took an early lead, but the Chinese teachers rallied back. They led by 6-12 points for most of the game. Kirk and I were the two primary scorers, and our shots just weren't falling. Finally, in the 4th quarter, I started to hit a few three's and Kirk was getting in the paint for some lay-ups. I hit a 3 to put us up 65-62, and we managed to hang on for a 1-point victory. It was a fun game, especially with quite a few teachers and students watching and cheering.

We just finished a short two day vacation to celebrate National Day. Basically, it's China's 4th of July. It was nice to have the break, but I'm ready to finally get on a regular schedule. While I've been teaching for over a month, I think I've only taught one normal week. There's been lots of short holidays and schedule changes.

Our chrch has 50-100 people from all over Wuhan, which is a very spread-out city. We don't get to see each other too much, so one person usually shares at the end of each service to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about how He has been working in their lives. I talked this past Sunday. I was a little nervous, but it seemed to go well as I talked about how I've been encouraged during my time in China by seeing some of my students become brothers and sisters.

That's pretty much all from here. Please be "thinking" of some of my teammates from other schools. Jacqueline is a teacher at a middle school on the other side of Wuhan. Her father unexpectedly passed away back in the states. Jacqueline, her husband Paul, and Jacq's younger brother are now in America for the funeral. They will coming back to China this weekend.

Also, be thinking of Melodie and her family. She is a teacher at a university here in Wuhan. Her mother has been having some health problems and had some tests run. Melodie was here yesterday, but I forgot to ask for more info! Hopefully, there has been some improvement.

Lastly, I just wanted to let you know that I added a couple of tabs to my blog. The second tab is my contact information. The third one will be a bunch of funny and/or interesting articles I've found on the internet about China.

I hope all of you are doing well! Philippians 4:6-7