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