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