It's the end of (this side of) the world as we know it

 Maddie was loving her dinner!

 Ya Mei and Yao Ling love taking pictures!

 Benjamin is the Chinese Superman

 Kinda normal

 A horse?  That's a little weird...

 What is this?  But I guess it's China so...

 What is this!!??  China is messed up!

Never mind.  China is awesome!

Hey everyone!  I know I have been really inconsistent with blog posts this year.  Sorry about that!  But a big reason is because I've lived here for four years now.  A lot of the things that seemed crazy at the beginning (old ladies hawking loogies, going to karaoke, getting my picture taken, etc.) just seem normal now.

Like a new job or place for anyone, you just get used to it.  Plus, you've probably already read similar blog posts from me about my time in Wuhan.  Just so you know, my year in Jingzhou has been amazing.  I love it here, and I want to thank all of you for keeping tabs on me and prying for me!  Here's a few things that have been going on recently.

- One of my friends from America (Joe) came to visit me.  He's already been to Jingzhou, so we took a long train ride to visit one of my friends Melodie.  Melodie used to teach with me in Wuhan, but this year she started helping (and now basically running) an orphanage for special needs children in Guiyang, Guizhou, China.  We went down to help/visit with her for a few days.  It was an amazing experience.  It helped me to appreciate parents, as well as people like Melodie who have sacrificed so much to help raise these amazing kids.  You can see a few of them in the pictures above.  You can support and learn more about what Melodie is doing at this website if you're interested.  www.journeyofajoyfullife.org

- One of the hardest parts about being out of the country, is that I can't run the Indianapolis Mini Marathon with my family.  We've been doing it together for the past 20 years.  I've told Mandi about how much I miss it, and she is excited to do it in the future as well.  This year, we decided to actually do it here!  We trained for a few months, and then ran the "first ever" Jingzhou Mini Marathon around the city wall.  It was ridiculously hot!  It was Mandi's first time to run a half-marathon, and she did amazing, especially considering the heat!  We did it in about 2 hours and 20 minutes.

- We visited our old school (Wuhan No. 1 High School) to say goodbye to our students.  Last year, we had them write letters to themselves and told them we would come back and return them.  A few students later told me they didn't expect us to actually come back.  But we did, and they were really excited to see us and read their letters!  It was really cool getting to see them one last time and wishing them luck before their VERY important college entrance exam.

- We've been crazy busy this semester.  One of the big reasons is because we've been planning a wedding in Baton Rouge, Lousiana while being in Jingzhou, China!  Our family and friends have been HUGE with helping us out!

- We took Chinese wedding pictures.  I don't think I really need to explain.  You can just enjoy a few!

- We've both been looking for jobs mostly around the Midwest.  We have applied for a few different positions.  Not a lot of responses yet, but we're both hoping and prying that something works out.  Feel free to let us know if you have any good ideas!  :)

And with that, Tales of a Skinny White Kid has come to a close, at least on this side of the world.  I might occasionally post on here to let you know where we are and how we are doing, but I'm sure that won't be all too often.

I hope you've enjoyed learning a little about China and my experiences over here.  The plan back in 2009 was to go to China for a year and then return home.  Four years later, I am finally coming back....as an engaged man!  I'm incredibly happy that I decided to come here.

Part of me feels like I'm leaving home as much as coming home.  I've met so many incredible people, been able to pour into other people's lives, and (even more) had people pour into me.  He has used my time over here to help me in so many ways, and I am incredibly thankful.

Who knows?  Maybe I'll be returning to China or heading to another country in the future.  But as for now, I'm ready to get back to the good ole' USA.  (USA!...USA!...USA!)  See you soon!

John 14:23

66 days and counting...

Well, the last month has been pretty busy.  Mandi and I have been planning on heading back to the states for awhile, but we officially told our school that we are going back to America after this school year.  We will be home in 66 days, on June 26!

Where we'll be and what we'll  be doing in America is still TBD though.  We'd both eventually like to go back to school, but not right away.  After moving back and paying for a wedding, we want to save a little money first.  So far, we've applied or interviewed with places in Washington, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  So yeah, we're kind of all over the place!  The one I'm most excited about is in Indianapolis, and I'm really hoping that works out.  Indy has been our first choice all along, and I think this job would be a great fit for me.  Whatever happens, we both want to continue to trust in Him through it all.

Lately, it seems like most of our time has been spent on job-searching, wedding planning, and lesson planning (somehow my job load has gotten busier every year even with getting to re-use some of the same lessons!).  However, we have had time for quite a few other things:

- We both celebrated our birthdays.  I'm one year away from 30!

- We went to KTV (Chinese karaoke) with some of the Chinese teachers that we've gotten to know.

- Those same teachers recently invited us over for a dinner they cooked.  Charlie, Phillip, Halley, and the rest of them are such an amazing group.  They can all speak English pretty well, and they understand our Chinese.  They will be some of the people I miss the most after we leave Jingzhou.

- We helped find a new teacher for our school next year.  Welcome, Briana!

- We took Chinese engagement pictures.  It's difficult to explain them.  I'm hoping to post some pictures on here as soon as we get them back.  Think overly-dramatic strange pictures with even weirder clothing on.

I hope you all are doing well.  We're looking forward to being back home soon!

Mark 7:7-8

Spring Festival

 Kirk, Joe, and I at Dunkin' Donuts in Bangkok!

 At a Muy Thai boxing match

 We got to pet tigers!

 We went to an elephant show and watched them paint, dance, and play soccer!

 A finished elephant painting

 Joe and I on an elephant

 Kirk L, Kirk R, me, and Joe on our last day in Thailand

 Two cute girls taking a nap on the side of the road

Joe with a baby tiger

Hello again everyone!  Sorry for the long break between posts.  For Spring Festival, I went to a few different cities in Thailand with a few of my friends.  It was a lot of fun.  I rode an elephant, pet some tigers, rode a motor bike through crowded streets, and got just a little sunburnt on the beach.  Basically, it was amazing!  I posted a few pictures above.

In other news, Mandi and I informed our school that we will not be returning next year.  I've LOVED being at this school and city, and I hope the new teachers can continue to build relationships with the students, teachers, and other 荆州人 (Jingzhou people), but barring any surprises, we will be back in America next year.  We still aren't sure exactly where or what we'll be doing, so that's a big pryr request!

I will try to send out another update or two before the end of the year, especially if anything big happens.  Hope you all are doing well!  Go Hoosiers!

Mark 4:24

Spring Festival!

Kirk, Daniel, and I in Thailand a few years ago.  I'm ready to return soon!

Hello again everyone!

This update will be very short, as not a whole lot new has happened since Christmas and New Year's.  Our Spring Festival (春节 or chun jie in Chinese) break just started yesterday!  If you don't remember me mentioning this from past years, think of it as our Christmas and New Year's holidays all merged into one big day.  They celebrate the New Year according to the Chinese lunar calendar.

My favorite part about the holiday is a REALLY long vacation.  Today is January 20th, and I'll probably start teaching again around February 25th.  I'll be hanging around Jingzhou for about a week, then head to Thailand for a week with some friends.  I am extremely ready for this break.  As I mentioned before, it's been really cold here.  I read on the news that this might be China's coldest winter over the last 20 years.  On top of that, the air pollution has been TERRIBLE the last two weeks.  You might have heard about it as it has even made the news in America.

To give you an idea on how bad it's been, I'll use an app that I have on my iPod.  It measures a few different things in the air such as sulfur dioxide and the size of the air particles.  It then averages them all out to give a number.  The higher the number the worse the pollution.  My first two years here, I got a ridiculous amount of sinus infections from the dirty air in Wuhan, especially from running outside.  When I found out about this app last year, I learned that if the number was less than 100, I would probably be okay running outside.  If it was over, I'd probably get sick.  FYI, I would guess that a town in America such as Spring Arbor would have an average number around 20 or so!  Today is the first time in two weeks it's actually been less than 100, and it's reached as high as 300 this past week!

All that mostly just to say I am ready for warm weather and clean air in Thailand!

I hope you all are doing well!  I will hopefully send an update about my trip sometime in February.

Malachi 3:10

Christmas Traditions

Hello again everyone!  The last few weeks have been pretty busy.  As usual, I wish I could update more often, but when I have the time I forget, and when I remember I don't have the time!  Anyways, here's a brief update on the past few weeks.

This is my fourth year in China, which still blows my mind.  Being here for so long has created some new Christmas traditions.  Being in a new city didn't really change any of those.

Mandi and I spent about two weeks teaching our students on Christmas.  The second week was mostly just fun and games (we played Christmas Bingo), but the first week was probably one of the most challenging and rewarding weeks teaching here.  For that lesson, our students learned to sing "Joy to the World," read the Christmas story from the Bible, learned the Xtian history of the candy cane, and also about Santa, reindeer, elves, etc.  It was A LOT to do in one class, especially when you throw in the craziness of not knowing if powerpoint and/or the speakers would work for each class.  I walked around campus every day with my computer, speakers (in case they were broken in the classroom), a bunch of papers with the Christmas story (in case powerpoint didn't work), and a Santa hat filled with candy canes.  It was a very busy week, but definitely worth it getting to share about the story of JC and the real meaning of Christmas.  Many Chinese know he was born that day, but they don't really understand the importance of his birth.

Another Christmas tradition that has seemingly happened every Christmas is performing.  Nothing says a relaxing holiday like dancing in front of a couple thousand students!  The video is above.  Mandi and I joined a few of the other younger teachers in a "street dance."

Fortunately, after the busy Christmas lessons and performance we had a few days off to celebrate the New Year.  I just stayed in Jingzhou to get caught up on some errands.  It was also nice to stay up late and watch of few games in America.  Go Colts!

The weather has been FREEZING this year.  I would say it's been an average of low 30's during the day.  It really wouldn't be all that bad if most buildings had central heating....or any kind of heating!  Because of that, the inside is usually not much warmer than outside.  While our apartments don't have central heating, they do at least have a few decent heaters, so we've been hanging out at home a lot recently!  We're looking forward to a week in sunny Thailand during the upcoming Chinese New Year in February.

That's pretty much all for now.  Happy New Year!

John 1:1