It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

Old fake tree. Not enough branches or tinsel. No decorations. The star is too heavy. But we got a Christmas tree!

Ni Hao everyone. I hope you're all doing well as Christmas nears!

Everything is still rolling here in Wuhan. It's cooling down, but it has been a mild winter so far. There was one week of very cold weather with a little snow, but it's been in the 40's for the most part. I've been extremely happy with that since the outdoors temperature usually matches my apartment's temperature!

Last week, Dominic (our boss), along with some Chinese English teachers, sat in on one lesson from each foreign teacher. I think we were all a little nervous, but not too much. My lesson didn't go nearly as well as I was hoping. All week I had been needing to hurry to get through everything in time. For my demo lesson, I wanted to make sure to get it all in. I ended up hurrying through it too fast and having more time than I wanted for the last part! I was a little frustrated with myself for that. The good part was that the lesson was on William Tyndale, the man who translated the Word into English. Rebecca and I were able to talk about that with all our Senior 1 students. The next Monday, Dominic came to our weekly teachers' meeting to talk about our performance. He didn't go into specifics for each person, but he said he was very pleased with all of us. We're all pretty young, so I know he was nervous about us being unprepared and unprofessional. As the head teacher, I somewhat oversee all of us, so I was very happy to hear that. I'm glad we're making a good impression with the school's staff.

I've been surprised with a few gifts over the past few days. We usually go to two places almost every day. One is a restaurant down the street. The other is a small store right next to it where we pick up snacks and drinks. Zhen Zhen is a teenage girl who works at the store. The other day, I was buying a Snickers bar when Zhen Zhen ran to the back of the store and brought out 4 pictures she had drawn. At first, I thought she wanted me to buy them. Then I realized that she was giving them to me as a gift. One each for me, Kirk, Daniel, and Rebecca. While she scans our items, we always talk to her in English and help her practice it. Her family does not have enough money for her to go to school, so she was giving us the pictures as thanks for helping her with English. I thought that was pretty cool. Sometimes I think people have their biggest influence on people they don't even realizing they're influencing! One of my students also gave me a Christmas card with a nice note and a small decoration.

Other than that, a lot of the same. The Father has opened up opportunities to talk about Him. At Mr. Mai's, students may hear I am a C and just ask me about Him since they haven't really heard anything about this growing up.

Last night, we had a Christmas tree decorating party which we all enjoyed. We decorated our Charlie-Brown fake tree with some lights and not enough tinsel and then watched "Jingle All the Way." Daniel bought a DVD with 20 Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, so we had to watch the Christmas one this month!

Trains, Food Poisoning, and Turkey!

Enjoying Coldstone with friends. It can't get much better!

Doing the Usain Bolt pose right by where he did it a lot!

The Great Wall

The famous picture of Mao right across from Tiananmen Square

Well, a LOT has happened over the last two weeks. I've been wanting to post an update for awhile, but I haven't had too much time until today. So, here it goes....

A few weeks ago, Rebecca and I visited Beijing for a few days. We have five in our group who were all thinking about going, but for different reasons, it only ended up being us two. We both have friends who are studying there, so we still decided to go even when others did not. (On a side note, my friend Kirk Ransom made it home to Ohio just in time. The day he arrived, he spent a few hours with his grandfather who died later that same night. I was sad to hear that, but incredibly happy that Kirk made it home in time to see him. It's like he was holding on just for him!)

We had the week off, and we decided to take an overnight train and arrive Wednesday morning. (I'm glad we left later in the week because I was able to watch the Colts-Patriots game on Monday morning. What a game!) We arrived to our hostel and found that it was on Wangfujing Street (the Times Square of Beijing) and only a 10-minute walk from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (the Capitol Hill/DC area of China). I was excited to be in such a big city that had a very American-feel to it.

We immediately walked to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. On our way, we were met by the first of many people trying to con us! There are "artists" all over town who want to give you tours and show you their art-work who will then demand money when they're done. Luckily, we knew this was coming so we avoided them the whole trip. It was cool to see these places that have so much history in China. Unfortunately, we don't know much about Chinese history and the English signs didn't explain much. But we both had a fun time recording a video making up facts about these places as well as the other sites we visited that week.

Later that day, we met up with one of my good friends from high school Kirk Lacy. He will be studying Mandarin at a university there as well as teaching English at a middle school for the next few years. I was looking forward to catching up with him and hearing about his China experiences. The three of us ended up having lunch at McDonald's (Rebecca and I took full advantage of having some American restuarants right by our hostel that week!) and then just hung out downtown the rest of the night.

Kirk L had to teach the next day, so Rebecca and I decided to see the Great Wall. Our hostel told us a "secret" way to get there that used public transportation and was much cheaper than taking a tour bus. However, the workers on the public bus will tell you that the bus is not headed for the Great Wall! So we ended up getting on the bus with a worker telling us loudly, "No Great Wall! Take that bus! No Great Wall!" She refused to take our money, so I told her we were sitting down and she could come get our money whenever she wanted. She finally did come get it from us, but she still told us one final time that it wasn't going where we wanted. After 1 1/2 hour ride, our bus stopped and everyone got off...but we weren't at the Great Wall! We weren't sure what was going on. We had done exactly what the hostel (and our Lonely Planet book) had told us to do. Fortunately, we found a hotel that told us to get on another bus with the same number and it would take us the rest of the way, which it did. After a crazy few hours, we finally arrived at the Great Wall. For those of you who don't know, the Wall goes over a mountainous area, so it is very steep! We didn't walk far along it, but it was another check we could mark off our Beijing to-do list!

Later that night, we met up with Kirk and his Chinese friend Mike for some AMAZING American food. I had chicken fingers and a root beer, two things I'd been missing a lot from the states! It was a fun night. Mike taught us a lot about Beijing, and he told us that he is trying to get into Spring Arbor University next year to get his MBA. I hope he gets in. I'd love to stay in touch with him whenever I'm back in my hometown.

The next day, Rebecca visited her friend in town, so I set off for the Olympic Park by myself since Kirk L had to teach that day as well. The subway system there is great, and it was very easy to find my way. It was great seeing the Olympic green. I was able to go into the Bird's Nest, (the middle field is a mess right now) but the Water Cube was closed for construction.

That night, our whole group met up one last time at Coldstone before Rebecca and I took off the next morning on our train to Wuhan. I love Coldstone, and was so happy Beijing had one! My mint ice cream with chocolate chips and marshmallows tasted just like it does back home.

Early the next day, Rebecca and I left on our train. The train we took to Beijing made no stops and took about 8 hours. We weren't sure if this one made stops or not. When we found out it did make stops, we thought it might take a few more hours. It turned out to be a 16-hour trip! We thought we would be arriving in Wuhan Saturday evening, instead we got home at around 2am Sunday morning! It was really long and boring, but the trip was definitely worth it. I had a blast seeing everything and hanging out with Kirk L for a few days. Central heating in buildings was a plus too!

Since our group had spent quite a few days apart, we all had a lot of stories to get caught up on. We usually did this at our favorite restaurant down the street. In my opinion, it's the best Chinese food you'll get in China! Myself, Kirk R, Daniel, and Rebecca all ate there Monday night. On Tuesday morning, us three guys all woke up throwing up! Apparently, our favorite restaurant had under-cooked some chicken that had made us all sick (Rebecca didn't get sick until a few days later for some reason). Tuesday was a miserable day. I was only up for about 6 hours, and all I did was watch some TV before heading back to bed. I'm glad the school understood and allowed me to miss classes that day!

Since Thanksgiving was this week, we celebrated a little differently than usual. On Thursday, we went to Mr. Mai's coffee shop for a sock hop/50's dance party. It was unusual, but a lot of fun. It was a big group of white and Chinese people (translation: not a lot of good dancers). I did dance with Louise (a Chinese friend) who is a very good dancer. She taught me some waltz-type moves and made me look a lot better than I was!

Yesterday, our fellowship gathered on the other side of Wuhan for a big Thanksgiving meal. There was turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pretty much everything you could imagine at any Thanksgiving meal back in the states. About 100 of us had a great time eating and talking. Then, a few of us stayed late and played games. It's definitely different than celebrating with family and friends back home, but I had a lot of fun which always helps with home-sickness.

Well, that's the last two weeks of my life. I'm hoping to post updates a little more frequently so they aren't as long as this in the future! I hope you all had a great holiday. I'm incredibly thankful for all of your "thoughts" and support! Happy Thanksgiving!

Checking In

Hey everyone. Nothing too new has been happening, but I wanted to give a quick update before I head to Beijing on Tuesday. Even though it's pretty cold there, I'm pumped to see the sights, visit my high school friend Kirk, and eat at a lot of American restaurants!

About a week ago, Kirk and I went over to the school to play catch with a football I brought from America. We ended up playing outside a building where most of my classes are. We were having fun tossing it around. After a few minutes, I heard "Oooohhhhh" after Kirk threw me a long bomb. I looked up at the building and HUNDREDS of my students were watching us. Apparently, the bell had rung and all my students wanted to spend their 10-minute break watching us play a sport they knew nothing about. A few of my students came down and played with us for a few minutes. I'd say they threw like American girls (yup, I said it!), but that would be an insult to the girls! It was a lot of fun, and I hope we can teach some students how to play this year.

Earlier this week, Rebecca and I went to a small studio and had our voices recorded. Basically, we were reading off scripts that Chinese schools will use for the listening portion of their tests. It lasted for a long time (4 hours), but it paid decent, so we didn't mind! It's weird to think that somewhere in China a bunch of students will be listening to my voice as they're freaking out about whether or not they're going to pass a test!

On Thursday, I had another interesting conversation at the local coffee shop. Wendy is the mother of a 15-year autistic girl. I later found out that Rebecca had been talking to the daughter that night. The daughter is a musical genius and will be releasing a piano CD soon! Anyways, the daughter is a believer, but the mother (Wendy) is not. However, she goes to the local church with her daughter. She seemed to be confused as to what being a C is all about. She seemed to think that it's about what you do. I tried to explain to her that there's much more to it than that and tried to explain forgiveness to her. I'm not sure if I explained it well at all, but she was intrigued, and I hope to give her a Book if I run into her again. You can be thinking of her. I'm amazed at the opportunities that the Father has opened up for me to talk about Him in just a few months here!

Please be thinking of my friend Kirk (the one here in Wuhan with me). His grandfather had been in very poor health the last few weeks. Kirk was pretty close with him, so he decided to spend a lot of money to fly home and visit him once more. He made it home just in time to visit him for a day before he passed away on Friday night. While I know he's sad, he's also very happy with the timing of everything. We have this week off. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't have been able to make the trip. I'm glad it worked out for him, but I'll be missing him in Beijing!

It is starting to get cold here. And for those of you who know me, you know I HATE cold weather. It's been in the 30's which may not sound terrible, but the heating in China is very poor. It's been 50 degrees or lower in my apartment this past week. I can actually see my breath as I'm writing this to you! Not fun. However, that's about my only complaint so far, so I guess that's good.

I guess that's it for now. I hope you're all rooting for the Colts tonight when they play the Patriots! I'll be able to watch it on my computer, so I'm excited.

I'll have more with pictures after Beijing!

Wing Men

Well, last night was one of the most interesting nights I've had in China. About a week ago, Bubbly asked Kirk, Daniel, and me to come to his university's (Hubei Institute of Fine Arts) English Corner. Bubbly helped us in our first week here with things like shopping and picking out cell phones. We wanted to help out, so we said yes. We were expecting this English Corner to be like our high school's. Basically, we just hang out at the center of campus and talk with any students who want to meet us and work on their English. Very easy. Very laid back.

This is what we were expecting when we left in a van with some HIFA students for the school. Dinner with them was a blast. We made some new Chinese friends in Rebecca, Jesse, May, and Sunshine. However, I was a little confused when Katrina (another friend who helped us in our first week) said, "I'm interested to hear what you guys are going to say to the students." I started to figure out what was really going on, and I told Kirk and Daniel that we should be ready for the unexpected...

After dinner, we head to English Corner. We meet Bubbly and he tells us that there are more students than expected, so they are in two rooms. Daniel and Bubbly take one room. Kirk and I walk into the other room.....that has about 150 students......sitting like we're going to give them a lecture....for over an hour! Fortunately, I had been mentally preparing for this for about 5 minutes!

We began by introducing ourselves and singing a song (Jack Johnson - Better Together. It was the only one that I could think of on the spot. We nailed it by the way!), and then basically answered questions for about 20 minutes before switching rooms. We got lots of interesting questions. "What is your phone number?...Do you want to have a Chinese wife?...What kind of girl do you like?...Tell us something about the NBA...What do you think about dogs?"

There were definitely some awkward moments, but I think it went really well overall. You could tell the students don't have very much interaction with foreigners, so they just loved being able to talk with us. A girl actually screamed when Kirk and I walked into the room! And I think we all feel more confident if other situations like that come up again. If we could wing it for over an hour in front of 300 Chinese students, we can wing it anywhere!

Last weekend, our Wuhan crew headed to Huangshi to visit the other half of our group. It's about a 2 hour train ride away. They've came to Wuhan a few times, so we wanted to check out their city. They live in a "small city" of about 1-2 million. It was a great time. We ate some amazing Chinese barbecue and attended a Halloween party that they put on for their students. Imagine about 60 middle schoolers hopped up on candy and pop in a 2 bedroom apartment and that's what it was like! It was fun to talk with those students as well. I could tell that our teachers there were really having an impact on them. While we were in Huangshi, we actually got a picture of the whole Zhong Relations team. I will try to post that as soon as I get it from someone. My camera battery died, so I didn't take one.

You may remember Thomas, the guy I've been talking with at the coffee shop. He has a lot of interest in talking about Dad and the Book, but I'm starting to feel like he just enjoys the debate. However, I asked him to read through the book of John with me so we can talk about any disagreements he may have. I figure if he's reading the Word, who knows!

I also had an interesting English Corner at my school this past Monday. I mentioned that I was a C, so one of my students said he was reading through Genesis, and asked me to tell him something about my faith. I asked what he would like to know. He said, "Anything!" I figured that would be difficult, so I had to tell them everything! It was cool talking with about 20 students huddled around me (it was cold!) and telling them about creation, JC, and love. Everyone was very interested, especially 2 of them (Richard and George). Be thinking of them, as I hope they will come by my office this year to talk more about it.

The student I tutored in English (Xiong Shi-Tong) had his interview with Cambridge. It sounded like it was focused more on his ability in math and science than a regular entrance interview. I'm not sure how much my tutoring would have helped with that, but he said it seemed to have gone well. He will hear from them in January.

That's just a little bit of what's gone on over the last 2 weeks! I wish I could go into more detail, but I think I'd have to spend a whole day writing! I'd love to hear from you guys. Send me an e-mail or look me up on Skype!

Chinese Lessons

Chopsticks! (Spoons with Chinese silverware)

Hanging out at Papa John's. Lily is in the red.

Well, our group finally started taking Chinese lessons this week. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before or not, but Cory (the returning teacher of our group) is married to Lara, a Chinese girl. We've gotten to know her pretty well, and she will be tutoring us once or twice a week in Chinese. So far, we've had three lessons. I don't know too many new words yet, but I am at least learning how to pronounce things after I've seen them in pin yin. The language is so difficult, but it doesn't seem as impossible as it did a week ago!

Yesterday, a big group had a 20th birthday party for our Chinese friend, Lily. Lily went with us on our vacation to Yangshuo. Lily has been one of the local Chinese that has befriended the Zhong Relations group members over the years here. It was fun hanging out with everyone at Papa John's (for some pepperoni pizza!) and then heading back to Taylor's apartment to play games. We played kick the can and chopsticks (Spoons, just with chopsticks). Everyone had a great time, especially Lily. I was glad we could do something to show her how much we appreciate her.

Last week, I had an interesting conversation with a guy at Mr. Mai's. His English name is Thomas. I've talked with him a few times over the last few weeks. I noticed him by himself a lot, so I wanted to go talk with him. It turns out, he is a very smart guy who wants to get his master's in Linguistics in America.

This night, we started talking about politics which led to a discussion on religion. According to him, "All truth is relative. I believe in truth with a lower case t, but not a capital T." We had a very interesting debate on that, the reliability of the Word, and other topics. It was very fun and frustrating at the same time. I can tell he's very smart, but he thinks he has it all figured out. He said the burden of proof is on believers. I said that's fine as long as he thinks with an open mind. Be thinking of him as I hope to have more conversations with him over the next few months.

Everything is still going well here. I finished up tutoring Xiong Shi-Tong today. I think he is much more confident with his English and interview skills than he was two weeks ago. His interview with Cambridge is on Thursday. I'm hoping to hear from him soon after about how it went.

Finally back to normal!

The stadium was packed for the track meet!

Well, I think I will FINALLY be back to a normal schedule (or at least as normal as it can get in China). It's been pretty hectic the last month or so. For National Day "Vacation" we had about 9 days off. I have this in quotes because it's not really much of a vacation. The government wanted a long holiday so a lot of people would travel which would help the economy. However, to make up for it, we had to work two weekends. So we worked for 9 straight days, then had 9 days off, then we were supposed to work 8 straight days. However, we ended up having this past Thursday and Friday off for a school-wide track meet. Basically, it's been crazy trying to keep classes on pace and get any kind of a routine. It's finally over, and it will be good to get back to normal!

The sports meet was a lot of fun. It's similar to an American high school track meet, but it was only for our school. Classrooms were competing against each other. It's cool to see so many students competing and having their classmates cheer them on by yelling "Jai-yo!" Anyone can compete, so there's a huge gap in competition. There's kids ranging from the top athletes in the country (they can fly!) to just average kids who rarely exercise.

Some of our team ran in a co-ed teacher's 4 x 100 relay race. They ran hard, but didn't do too well! Mostly because some of the Chinese female teachers were ridiculously fast. I think our group was 6th out of 7 teams! It was fun to have them be a part of it though.

Recently, I've been tutoring a senior named Xiong Shi-Tong who is trying to get into the University of Cambridge. His English isn't great, so I'm trying to prepare him for an interview which he has in about two weeks. He's trying to get one of five scholarships that Chinese students can get. It's currently narrowed down to 55 people. Needless to say, he's very smart!

Last night, our team hung out with Troy Peterson, a staff member from Spring Arbor University. My home town and Rebecca's (my teammate, not sister!) alma mater. He traveled to Wuhan because SAU has a partnership with a local university here. Neither of us know him extremely well, but we had a good time eating dinner with him. He lived in Taiwan for 18 years, so he was able to order us some new and interesting dishes! Plus, it's always good to talk with someone from home!

A few nights ago was one of our team's most depressing nights so far. While we were walking home, we passed a string of restaurants that is right next to our apartment complex. Out front was a man who had some dogs in a cage. He was taking them out and beating them to death with a stick so his restaurant could serve dog meat the next day. I guess this is a common way to kill them since there are no guns here. I knew dog was a fairly common meat here, but I hadn't realized how brutal their deaths are. It's definitely not quick and painless. We could hear dogs yelping from quite a ways away. It made us all sick to our stomachs.

I'm a huge dog-lover, but I was up for at least trying it when I came here for the experience. I definitely won't be doing that now unless I'm eating with someone who would be extremely offended if I didn't! It was a very sad experience. Honestly, the only way I could console myself that night was knowing that the Father is saddened by these things (as well as much more serious things) much more than I am.

Other than that, I am still having a great time here. My sinus infection lasted for two weeks, but I think I'm over it. Everybody else seems to be feeling better as well. Hope you all are doing great!

Vacation!

Kirk and I enjoying our chips on a stick at Snack Street.

We hiked to the top of Moon Hill.

Our group dressed up in Ancient Chinese garb. Apparently, men dressed like Snow White.


Li River boat cruise. This was my pose of the week.

Hanging out with our new friend Shane at a Yangshuo coffee shop.

x

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve given you an update on my life in China, so here it is.

The first week of October in China is a holiday: National Day (kind of like our Independence Day) mixed with mid-Autumn festival (not sure if that has any historical importance). Sixty years ago was when the Communist party took control of China, so it was a pretty big deal here. There was a big parade in Beijing, but I didn’t watch any of it on TV.

Since we had the week off of school, the other teachers and I hung out with some friends here in Wuhan before heading to Yangshuo for a few days. We went to a local Wuhan hot spot called Snack Street, which was a lot of fun. Basically, it’s a street that is maybe a half mile long with TONS of vendors selling just about every kind of Chinese food that exists. I had some noodles, a fried banana, barbecued lamb on a stick, and potato chips on a stick with ketchup and pepper. It was all really good and really cheap, about 13 yuan ($2).

On Saturday afternoon, we took a train to Yangshuo. The train ride took about 14 hours. Sitting in seats that long wasn’t great, but it was fun talking with the other teachers as well as some Chinese people. By the way, I dominated the hour of Uno we played! After an hour and a half bus ride, we arrived in Yangshuo around 7am Sunday morning with no sleep.

Yangshuo is a common vacation spot for both foreigners and locals. It has some amazing scenery. There are hills/mountains all over. We hiked some of them which was a lot of fun. We also took a boat cruise on the Li River and saw a lot of water buffalo up close. We visited a famous Banyan tree that is 1,500 years old. While there, we dressed up in ancient Chinese outfits and took some pictures of ourselves. I’m not sure who took more pictures of us, ourselves or the Chinese people around us.

A few of us teachers went to a local Chinese market which was kind of depressing. As I’m sure most of you know, dog is a fairly common food here. In the market, we saw dogs (among other animals) in tiny cages about to be killed and cooked.

While we were in Yangshuo, I got a really bad sinus infection that spread to my left ear. The night after our train ride, I didn’t fall asleep until almost 4am because it hurt so bad. I still have it a little, but I think I’m mostly over it. A few of the other group members are struggling with a cold, so we are all hoping to get better soon!

Other than that, things are still going well here. I’ve had some pretty cool conversations with Chinese students at Mr. Mai’s. Many of the foreigners who go there are brothers and sisters, so conversations are commonly about the Father. One friend of mine just became a brother after talking with another foreigner. I’ve also talked with a few students who are interested. They would just like to know more.

Hope you all are doing well. Below is a short video of Snack Street (if it works).