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