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
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