Gan En Jie

 Mandi and I celebrating the one-year anniversary of our first date

 A Chinese magazine that obviously has some in-depth analysis of the presidential election

Mandi with some of her students at a hot pot restaurant

Hello everyone!  Hope you are all doing well during this holiday season!  Here's a quick update on our past few weeks in Jingzhou.

- We celebrated Thanksgiving (感恩节 pronounced Gan En Jie) with some foreigners who are teachers at a nearby college.  We've gotten to know Adam, Jamie, Walker, and Elizebeth all a little bit, and it's been good to hang out with some other Americans once in awhile to talk sports and life in China....but especially sports!

- Mandi and I also had a small Thanksgiving party for our boss (Linda), her assistant (Sara), and their families.  They've been really helpful this year, so we wanted to have them over for some American food.  Mandi did a really good job cooking as much Thanksgiving food as she could here in our city. We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie, and rolls.  There's no turkey arond Jingzhou though, so we settled for duck.  They seemed to really like the food, and we all had a great time that night.  We're really happy to be working with such great people.

- We've been continuing to build relationships with students, co-workers, and other locals around the city.  Mandi has even been meeting with a few of her students who are interested in learning about the Book!

- For the past week or so, we've been working on a dance with some of the younger Chinese teachers.  We're going to be performing it in front of the school a few days before Christmas!  I'll try to record and post it on here next update.  It should be very interesting....

- We're getting ready to start our Christmas lessons for students.  You can be "thinking" of them as they hear about the birth of JC and how important He is to us.

That's all for now.  Have a great Christmas!

Romans 12:2

The last month

The street outside of our school's front gate.  This is where we eat a lot. 

Same street.  Other way. 

My apartment from the outside.  It's on the bottom right. 

The croquet court/field outside my apartment.  Older Chinese people love their "Gate Ball."

My study room. 

My kitchen/bathroom.  Pic 1 

My kitchen.  Pic 2 

Bedroom 

Mandi and I at a dinner with our school. 

This is the building where most of our classes are.

Mandi in her apartment.

Hello again everyone!  Sorry for the long break between posts (as usual).  Above are some pics around our school and apartments so you can see a little of what I do every day!

A few highlights of the last month:

School Breaks!!! - Mandi and I had a few surprise breaks off from school, which is always nice.  Our students had a "sports meeting" which is basically a school track and field week where classes compete against each other.  Some students love it, while others hate it, but I think they all enjoy the break from classes!  We also had a few days off later while our students had exams.  It was a great time to relax and get caught up on a lot of things.

Time with Friends - We've been able to visit with a lot of friends in Jingzhou as well as our old city of Wuhan.  My best Chinese friend Patrick (who lives in Wuhan) came to visit for a few days.  We had a lot of fun hanging out and riding a 3-person bike around the Jingzhou city wall.  It was more difficult than I thought!  Mandi and I also made a trip into Wuhan during a break to visit some of our American friends.  We even had a very early Thanksgiving party/feast with our Wuhan fellowship.  We've also been meeting and hanging out with some new Chinese friends in Jingzhou which has been great.

Wedding Date - Mandi and I finally have a wedding date set!  We will get married on July 27, 2013 in her hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  While we would love to have a big wedding, because of all the planning we'll be doing in China and the cost (We haven't exactly been making a fortune over here!), we're going to have a small wedding there, and we're planning to have some kind of a reception in Spring Arbor later that summer or fall.

That's all for now.  I will try to do a better job from here on out with my blog updates......but no promises!

Hebrews 11:8

Finally in a rhythm!

Mandi and I about halfway up Hua Shan 

Some parts of the Hua Shan hike were pretty steep

Spider climbing and jumping off of the Xi'an Wall

The past month and a half in Jingzhou have been great.  However, just like anywhere in the world, switching cities, jobs, and homes means a lot of little things to work out before you really start to feel settled.  Mandi and I are both finally beginning to feel like that thankfully!  We're into a rhythm with our new schedules, our apartments are starting to feel more like home, and we have found some good places to eat!  I will hopefully be able to update my blog more regularly now.  Here's what I've been up to the past month or so.

- The Chinese teachers at the school found out that I like to play basketball, so they have been inviting me to play in their competition.  Different grades are competing against each other.  I think they take the games very seriously, but not the competition as a whole because they've had me play on just about every different team!  It's been a lot of fun to play, and a crowd eventually always shows up to watch because it's not every day they see a white guy playing basketball in the middle of China!

- Mandi and I headed back to Wuhan for a weekend pretty early after leaving for Jingzhou.  Zhong Relations had a team get-together with (just about) everyone this year.  Our group has grown a lot over the past few years.  We now have about 30 different teachers in three different cities.  That doesn't include former teachers who are still in China studying Chinese (Kirk and Rebecca), working at an orphanage (Melodie), or opening an ice cream shop (Taylor)!  It was good to catch up with some of our friends doing new things as well as learning about the new teachers' experiences.

- We recently had a week off of teaching due to two holidays (National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival).  Mandi and I traveled to Xi'an with Paul and Jacqueline Johnson and her younger brother Beau.  I had already been to Xi'an, but it was still a great time.  We hiked to the top Hua Shan Mountain, and the two girls even went out on a plank walk with a couple thousand feet of nothing below them!  I was considering it, but there were A TON of Chinese people traveling due to the holiday (the national government decides the days off for holidays, so everyone in the country has the exact same amount of time off), and there was no way I was going to be up that high with me and a hundred other nervous people crawling around!  Besides that, we just walked and parkoured our way around the city.  Beau is really into parkour (basically running, jumping, and climbing anything and everything), so we all decided to join in.  It was a lot of fun.

- Besides that, we've been teaching, starting the school's first English Corner, and celebrating our 9-month anniversary by watching Taken 2 at a theater that is about a 5 minute walk from our apartment.  I love living in the city center!

Unfortunately, my camera was stolen in Xi'an, but I will still try to use Mandi's camera to take pictures for the blog.  Next update I hope to show you some pics of my apartment and school.

Hope you are all doing well!

Romans 8:31-32

The saddest day in women's history....except for one of them.

 

Hanging out with friends after the proposal!

Hello again everyone!  It's been a long time since my last post, but it's time to give the people what they want: more of me!  :)

A TON has happened over the past month since I've been in China.  If I had time, I could have written an update every day.  However, besides my busy schedule, I've only had consistent internet at home for about a week and a half now.  So I'll try to fill you in as much as I can without writing a book.

- The biggest news first.  Mandi and I are engaged as of August 21st!  I got the ring and planned everything over the summer with the help of a lot of our friends in China.  The short story of the proposal is that Mandi was out at a Girls' Night with friends and they "just happened" to end up eating at the restaurant where we went on our first date.  I was hiding in another room and then came out and popped the question.  She said yes...this time.

- The same night of the proposal, we (and the friends at the dinner with us) decided to plan a fake proposal in front of all of the new teachers for a few days later.  So Mandi had to hide her ring for the first few days of our engagement.  It's hard to keep that big a secret for so long, especially with facebook around!  For the fake proposal, I stood up in front of all 30 of the Zhong Relations' teachers and asked Mandi to marry me.  She said no and walked out of the room.  Everyone was dead silent.  It was one of the most funny and awkward things I've ever experienced.  Then Mandi came back in and told them that she had already said yes.  Let me know if you want to see the fake (or real proposal videos), and I can try to get them to you.  It will take too long to load it onto my blog.

- Zhong Relations had their training in China this year.  I was able to help lead some of the "classes" and meet a lot of the new teachers.  It's our biggest group ever, and as usual, it's a great group.

- You may or may not remember, but Mandi and I moved to a new city this year.  We are now teaching at Jingzhou High School (Jingzhou Zhong Xue) in Jingzhou.  It's a city of about 5 million people that is about 2 hours from Wuhan.  It took some getting used to the new classes and apartments, but I feel like I'm finally starting to get into somewhat of a rhythm.  While we still don't have everything figured out (like our office at the school), it's starting to feel like home.  We also had a really fun time tonight playing volleyball and then having dinner with some teachers who are about our age.

- I'll leave you with this poem from one of my students.  A few days ago was Teacher's Day in China.  Even though we've only had these students for just a few lessons, many of them will still give us cards or gifts.  This was written from one of my favorite students named Iverson in Grade 2 Class 4.

Birds fly in the sky.
They look so high.
Lilacs sleep at night.
Fragrance through the side.
A man gives us love - offers us friendship and touches our hearts.
He's brave,
He's caring,
He's great,
He pressed us to study hard.
He taught us a spirit of persistence.
With full of love he says:
"Study is not to earn your bread, but to make every mouthful sweet!"
No one would think he was a Demon.
He was just a angel - without wings.

I hope you are all doing well!
Luke 1:1-4

30 months

 Rebecca and Melodie bought us couples' shirts!  They're popular in China.  Our Chinese friends don't understand why we think they're so funny.  When you put our shirts together it's a heart and says LOVE.

 

 Signing contracts with our new waiban, Linda.

Hanging out with some of my best friends!  From L-R: Joe, Kirk R, Patrick, Kirk L, Daniel, Coral

I'm closing in on my 30th month living here in Wuhan, China.  It always has and will probably continue to be surreal that I live in China.  If you include next year, I will have lived in China as long as I went to college!  It's been a great 3 years here, but I'm excited to be heading back to the states in 10 days!  I'll be in America from June 27-August 19.  I'd love to see as many of you as possible while I'm home.  I've had lots of stretches where I've been really busy here, but the last month and a half has probably been the busiest so far.  Here's a quick update on what I've been up to.

- Mandi and I have visited Jingzhou three times over the last few weeks to go through all the steps to be ready to move there next year.  It's been great to visit so much with our new waiban Linda who is going to be awesome to work with, but it's been incredibly frustrating getting everything done in time with the police station so we could make our flight to America!  Fortunately, someone from Jingzhou is bringing our passports to Wuhan tomorrow with our completed visas and residence permits!

- I was able to visit all of my old classes which I had taught the previous two years.  All of those students just finished up the the biggest exams of their lives, the GaoKao.  I've mentioned it before, but this exam will determine their future in many ways.  Pretty much nothing else matters in their high school careers besides this exam.  I've been able to hang out with a few students who took it last week.  Most of them are relieved, bored, and still anxious while they wait for the results to be released on June 25th.

- I've played in a few basketball more basketball games with the teachers.  My most recent game was against teachers from another local high school.  I was just planning on going to the school gym to shoot around with some friends, but found out it was half-time of a teacher's game.  The teachers from my school yelled over at me to join them.  We were down 4 at half-time but managed to pull out a two-point win.  It was a lot of fun to play a full-court and semi-organized game (which is rare here).

- If you've been reading my blog for the whole time, you might remember Daniel who was on our team for two years.  Last year he returned to California to attend seminary.  He flew in for a visit.  It was a lot of fun to catch up with him.  My high school friend Joe also flew in a little later.  The four of us trained to Beijing last weekend to hang out and see some of our other foreign and Chinese friends who live there.  It was a great weekend catching up with some of my closest friends!

- Over the past week, the air in Wuhan has been AWFUL.  It was so bad that there was even an article about on the Drudge Report website!  There have been rumors of factory explosions and nearby cities burning crops, but I still haven't heard a definite cause.  I'm ready for some clean air so I can get back to running!

As usual, there's so much else I could write about, but I'll keep it brief.  Please be thinking of me and my teammates as we finish up our time at Wuhan No. 1 Middle School (almost all of us will stay in China, but do something else next year).  Most of us have been working together for 2-3 years.  It's going to be strange to be away from them in a different city.  And as of now, it'll still be just Mandi and I in Jingzhou.

Since I'm leaving soon, this will probably be my last post until the fall.  I hope you all are doing great, and I look forward to seeing you soon!

1 John 4:18

The Never Ending Question

It seems that almost every spring since my senior year of college in 2006, one of the most important questions I've faced practically every year is "What are you going to do next year?"  I've only had one job since college that wasn't a one-year contract, and this year has been no different.  Well, I've finally reached my answer for next year!  I'm going to be in China yet again!  Only this time, I'll be in a different city and school.

Zhong Relations has been growing quite a bit the last few years, so we've decided to spread to a new city (in the same province) called Jingzhou.  It's around half the size of Wuhan and is a 3-hour bus ride away from where I live now.  Mandi and I will be teaching at the Jing Zhou High School (Jing Zhou Zhong Xue).  I'm excited for the new challenge and opportunity, but also a little bit nervous.  It'll definitely be strange to leave Wuhan which has most of our teachers (about 15) to go where there is no one but us two.  We are currently searching for some other schools to send some new teachers to, but as of now there are none.  Please be "thinking" with us on that!  We would both love to have some other Zhongers with us in the new city!

Besides making this decision, I was able to go to visit my second Chinese wedding.  A few of us took a train to a different province to attend Joy's wedding.  She is an English teacher at our school who we've been able to get to know pretty well over the years.  It's always fun to experience a truly Chinese event.  A Chinese wedding is basically an American wedding reception.  It's usually at a restaurant with the food being served while the bride walks down the middle to her groom.  Instead of a pastor, there is a "host" who basically announces the couple and then leads the crowd in a few games.  Then it's simply eating while the bride and groom go around to the different tables and toast their family and friends.

A few weeks ago, Mandi and I had an interesting experience while walking around our mall area.  A younger girl approached us and said (in Chinese) they would like some foreigners to be on their TV show.  We didn't have anything to do, so we decided to check it out.  We followed her into a small studio with a bunch of modeling pictures on the wall.  We were immediately handed a form to fill out without any explanation.  The form asked for our name, height, weight, whether we wanted make-up, and cup size (I wrote 没有 which means I don't have any)!  I had no idea if I was about to be escorted onto a TV show at any moment.  It turned out it was a modeling agency that was hoping to get some foreigners for their company.  We met one of the bosses who tried to convince us to pay them to take pictures of us to send out to different companies who would want foreign models.  Once we realized we had to pay up front, we decided it had been a fun experience, but it was over!

Just a quick update on what I've been up to lately.  I hope all of you are doing well.  I would appreciate your pryrs for our group to finish out this year strong and also for Mandi, myself, and hopefully some new teachers as we prepare for Jingzhou!

Psalm 35:3

Twice the Mathews!

Hey everyone!  I hope you're all doing well!  I've had a great last few weeks.  My sister Becca came to visit me for a week and a half!  Mandi's good friend Ginnie also came to visit her at the same time.  We had a lot of fun showing them around Beijing and Wuhan while they were here.  It would take too long to write everything we did, so here's a few pictures of what we were up to.

 We visited Monkey Park in Wuhan!  A place with a ton of monkeys running around (some in cages, some not).  We brought some snacks to feed them.

 Because of a holiday, I am teaching my students about Easter this week.

 Becca and I at Tiananmen Square in Beijing

 Becca, Rebecca, and Melodie getting into it at KTV!

Me, Becca, Ginnie, and Mandi right before they headed back to the states.

 

We celebrated Jolie's 28th and Mandi's 25th birthdays.  We even found a Cajun food restaurant for Mandi in Beijing!

Ginnie, Patrick, and I ate scorpion at Beijing's Snack Street.  It didn't taste as bad as I thought it would!

Philippians 4:8

Golden

My new roommate. Zhu pai in chinese. Porkchop in English.

Mandi and I at my birthday party. She made mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was awesome!

Hey everyone. Here's a quick update. This week, some high school students from Taylor's chrch are visiting our school for their spring break trip. They prepared a lesson and have been teaching it to some of our classes. It's been fun to see them teaching as well as my students reacting to American students who are their age. They're pretty excited!

Last Wednesday, March 28th was my golden birthday. I'm 28 years old! I still can't believe it. Our school schedule has been pretty crazy the last few weeks. We're working this weekend to make up for the holiday we'll have on Wednesday. Because of that, I didn't really expect any kind of a party on my actual birthday. Rebecca and Mandi usually have a girls' group on Wednesday nights, so the guys just said we would go get pizza together that night. However, Mandi had left her book at the apartment, and Nathan said he had left a book of his at the Carpenter's (where they have girls' group), so we needed to stop by on the way to pizza. I was piecing together that this might actually be a trick, but they had a few other good small lies so I was never too positive. When we got to the Carpenter's there was a group of Chinese and foreign friends waiting to surprise me! We had a great time playing games, eating pizza, and watching some American TV shows. They gave me a bike (since my last one was stolen) and a hamster!

However, I was the one who pulled the biggest surprise of the night. I didn't know that they were going to throw me a party, but I decided the timing would be perfect. So towards the end of the party when things were dying down, I told Mandi I needed to see her in the kitchen. There, I got down on a knee and asked her to marry me! She was initially shocked (as was everyone else), but once she calmed down she said yes! Needless to say, it was a great birthday! Once we figure stuff with the wedding, we'll be letting everyone know. We're both extremely happy and excited!

On Tuesday, the two of us are headed to Beijing. My sister (Becca) and her best friend (Ginny) are coming to visit us. It'll be a lot of fun to have Becca here to let her see what my life in China has been like the past few years.

That's all for now! Happy April Fool's Day!

March Madness

Hey everyone. Just wanted to give you a quick update on everything I mentioned in my last post.

The weather has finally improved, thank goodness! There's still been plenty of rain and cooler days, but I think we're finally going to start seeing some sun and warmer weather. It probably doesn't sound like too big of a deal, but the bad weather was really starting to wear on me!

All of the opportunities we had to talk about the Father went pretty well over the last few weeks. Peggy was reading some from the book of Romans, so we talked about that. She continues to seem very interested in the Book.

I was also able to meet with two of my former students who became sisters last year. They're seniors, so they're REALLY busy getting ready for the University Entrance Exam. I've mentioned it before, but there's a ton of pressure on students for this exam. It is basically the ONLY thing that colleges consider when accepting students. The best student in a school could bomb it, and his previous three years of success wouldn't matter.

The extra class that I mentioned in my last post has been going well. We finished the Book lessons last week. Last week we talked a lot about the life of JC. I talked about his birth, Nathan his life, and Kirk his death and resurrection. We also taught them a few famous chrch songs. It was cool to see all the students closely watching Nathan and Kirk while they were sharing. There's a lot of misconceptions about C-ianity here, and I hope we cleared up some things with these students.

Lastly, I hope everyone's rooting on IU in the NCAA Tourney! Have a good weekend!

Philippians 4:6-7

Back to the grind

Hey everyone! Once again, sorry for the long time between updates!

Our second semester started about three and a half weeks ago, and it'll probably be my busiest semester ever here, but mostly for good reasons. Besides my normal set of 13 classes, our group is teaching two selective classes. Once a week from 4-5pm, our students can take an elective class (basically, a more relaxing class that doesn't stress them out like most of their classes!). Our boss Peggy asked the foreign teachers to turn in some proposals of classes we'd be interested in teaching. We turned in an American cooking class and a "Book" class. The cooking class was accepted, and now there's about 70 Senior One students learning how to make western dishes. Mandi and Rebecca are heading that up. I have zero cooking ability, but I try to help them every week with crowd control. It's crazy, but a lot of fun.

Our "Book" class was sort of accepted. They said we needed to change the name of the class to American Culture. Also, we could teach some on that subject, but we needed to talk about other areas as well. It was a little annoying because teaching about American culture is a big part of our regular classes anyways! However, it will still be fun to go into more depth with students who really want to be there. Last week, we had students act out famous Old Testament stories and this week we'll talk about JC and teach them some famous C songs. You can be thinking of students in this class as well as what we say to them.

Besides that, I am also going to try to meet with Peggy on a weekly basis to talk about the Book. Many of our teachers over the years have given her books to read and talked with her. She's very interested in this subject, and she said she'd like to meet with us to discuss it more. I'm excited about it!

My first week returning to teach was pretty fun as well. This year, I am teaching many of Mandi's old students. We knew that our relationship would get out sooner or later around the school, so we just decided to tell them right off the bat. Most of my students (especially those that know Mandi) went crazy when I told them. Quite a few yells and claps!

This semester, I've also joined a small group with Kirk, Mandi, and some other people from our fellowship. I'm looking forward to getting to know them better over the next few months.

Lastly, the weather has been pretty crappy since I've returned from my Spring Festival trips. I think we've only had about 4 or 5 sunny days over the past month. This winter hasn't been too cold, but extremely long. I'm ready for the 40-50 degree (inside and out) days to end! I hate being cold all the time!

Sorry for such a short update with no pictures, but I'll try to do better next time!

Ephesians 6:18

Confession

Mandi, Michelle, Melodie, Nathan T, and me enjoying the spiciest food in China: Sichuan hot pot!

Finally able to relax in our beds for the 23 hour train ride home!

The baby pandas were hilarious to watch roll around on this platform.

Hanging out in Rachel's hometown. Rachel is on the left.

A ping-pong area at a park in Guangzhou.

Joe, me, Kirk, Nathan T, and Nathan M at a historic chrch wall in Macau.

Mandi and I at the panda reserve in Chengdu.

I tend to end my blogs with something along the lines of "That's pretty much all that's been going on with me." I have to confess, for the last few updates I was lying a little.

For the past two months or so, one of my teammates (Mandi) and I have been "seeing" each other. If you're a Facebook friend you probably already know this, but we're now official. So that probably answers your question as to why so many single women around the world have been a little extra depressed these past few weeks!

There's a lot more I could write about her, but I'll just say that Mandi is incredible, and I'm really happy we're together! If you want to know more, just ask me!

Because of my month-long break for Spring Festival, I've been doing A LOT of traveling. Here's a few of the highlights from my break:

- Me, Kirk, and Nathan M (from my school) met up with Nathan T (he is with Zhong and teaches at another school in Wuhan) and Joe (my friend from high school) in Hong Kong. We had a great time. Toured the city, met up with some of our other foreign friends, and watched NFL playoff games in a western sports bar. We also went to Macau to see what that was like. We even turned $1.50 into $15.00!! That will probably be the end of gambling in my life. I like to go out on top.

- Because of so many people traveling during Spring Festival, we went to Hong Kong without knowing if/when we'd be able to get return tickets. Fortunately, Kirk was randomly talking to one of our old Chinese friends online who now lives in Guangzhou (a nearby city). He helped us buy return bus tickets so we could make it back in time to visit another friend's home for the Chinese New Year.

- A big group of us visited one of our Chinese friend's (Rachel) home for the actual day of Chinese New Year. She lives in a small city by China's standards. It was fun to get to know her family and see what an average family does for this holiday.

- After a few days at home, my last trip was to Chengdu. A large city in the west of China that is famous for its' spicy food and being the home of pandas. Chengdu is easily one of my favorite cities in China. Besides the pandas (which were entertaining to watch wrestle with each other), it has a great mix of Chinese and western culture. The people there are all very friendly as well.

- It would be impossibly long for me to completely explain our trip back from Chengdu, so I'll try to give you the main events. Due to more traffic than we expected on the way to the station, we missed our train home. That is, all of us except for Nathan T who got on the train to try to stall it for everyone else. He tried, but the train started moving and then they wouldn't let him off to come back and join the rest of us! The four of us remaining then went to a ticket exchange booth. The best option they had was for standing-room only tickets for a 23-hour ride! We knew it would be terrible, but we just wanted to get home, so we got those tickets. As we got on the train, one of the workers told us that there might be some open beds in another car on the train. However, we first had to jam ourselves and our bags into a car with almost no room for an hour. After that, the worker told us there were in fact some beds up front. We paid her the price difference for the standing tickets, and then she led us up to our beds. There's much more to the story, but hopefully that gives you at least a little bit of the craziness we experienced that day!

- A big group of friends, mostly from our Zhong team, came to my apartment to watch the Super Bowl. I wish I had remembered to get a picture of all 16 people crammed into my small living room to watch through my slingbox program. We had a blast cheering on our teams and eating the pancakes and cinnamon rolls that Rebecca and Taylor made. And as a Colts fan, I'm always happy to see the Patriots lose in Indy!

That's pretty much what I've been up to lately. This time I mean it!

Hope you're all doing well!

Psalm 91:3

Busy American Holidays...Relaxing Chinese Holiday!

Hey everyone,

Just like I'm sure you were, I have been extremely busy over the past few weeks. Here's a few pictures and videos that I thought you might enjoy with a very short summary of some of the other things I did over the holidays:


First, here's a video of the other teachers and I singing a Chinese pop song, Gai Bian Zi Ji, in Chinese!

Taylor getting ready to play Dance Dance Revolution at an arcade with all his fans!

My Christmas gift from our group. Since I'm the organizer of our group, they got me a bright green sweatshirt that says Valiant Organizer.

Skyping with family my Christmas evening and their morning.

Melodie (in this picture on the right) is from Texas. She loves riding horses. For her birthday party, we found a place (with a whopping 3 horses!!!) where we could ride.

The Wuchang part of our team on Christmas morning.

Kirk and I were baby-sitting Sophia and Elise (Adam and Becca Carpenter's daughters) for the night when Taylor and Nathan decided to drop by.



You saw one of them above, but much of our time was spent preparing and performing for different Christmas/New Year's parties. The Chinese are very interested in learning about our culture and holidays. It was a lot of fun, but also quite stressful teaching, getting ready to perform, and also trying to get our own plans for Christmas figured out. They all went well though.

A big thanks to the Carpenter's (the leaders of Zhong) and the Whincop's (an Australian couple who we go to fellowship with). They let us stay at their homes for Christmas and New Year's weekends. It was a blast eating, playing games, and watching movies with my team there.

For Christmas morning, a few of us were able to go to Chinese chrch with some of our friends who are not C's yet. It was really encouraging for us to get to go with them. You can be thinking of them as we will hopefully have more opportunities to share with them in the future.

I am done teaching for over a month! China's big holiday, Spring Festival, is on January 23rd. Our students have final exams soon. Since our classes do not have exams, the other teachers take our classes to prepare for them. I'm planning on going to Hong Kong, Chengdu, and a friend's hometown to celebrate.

I'll try to post a quick update and pictures at some point later this month. Happy New Year!

Psalm 119:37