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

Busy American Holidays...Relaxing Chinese Holiday!

Hey everyone,

Just like I'm sure you were, I have been extremely busy over the past few weeks. Here's a few pictures and videos that I thought you might enjoy with a very short summary of some of the other things I did over the holidays:


First, here's a video of the other teachers and I singing a Chinese pop song, Gai Bian Zi Ji, in Chinese!

Taylor getting ready to play Dance Dance Revolution at an arcade with all his fans!

My Christmas gift from our group. Since I'm the organizer of our group, they got me a bright green sweatshirt that says Valiant Organizer.

Skyping with family my Christmas evening and their morning.

Melodie (in this picture on the right) is from Texas. She loves riding horses. For her birthday party, we found a place (with a whopping 3 horses!!!) where we could ride.

The Wuchang part of our team on Christmas morning.

Kirk and I were baby-sitting Sophia and Elise (Adam and Becca Carpenter's daughters) for the night when Taylor and Nathan decided to drop by.



You saw one of them above, but much of our time was spent preparing and performing for different Christmas/New Year's parties. The Chinese are very interested in learning about our culture and holidays. It was a lot of fun, but also quite stressful teaching, getting ready to perform, and also trying to get our own plans for Christmas figured out. They all went well though.

A big thanks to the Carpenter's (the leaders of Zhong) and the Whincop's (an Australian couple who we go to fellowship with). They let us stay at their homes for Christmas and New Year's weekends. It was a blast eating, playing games, and watching movies with my team there.

For Christmas morning, a few of us were able to go to Chinese chrch with some of our friends who are not C's yet. It was really encouraging for us to get to go with them. You can be thinking of them as we will hopefully have more opportunities to share with them in the future.

I am done teaching for over a month! China's big holiday, Spring Festival, is on January 23rd. Our students have final exams soon. Since our classes do not have exams, the other teachers take our classes to prepare for them. I'm planning on going to Hong Kong, Chengdu, and a friend's hometown to celebrate.

I'll try to post a quick update and pictures at some point later this month. Happy New Year!

Psalm 119:37

Hospital Round 2

A wanted sign at my school of the Wuhan bomber.

Peggy helping the doctor apply Rebecca's cast.

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to a Chinese hospital a few weeks ago to get eight stitches in my lip from playing football. With this being my third year in China, and just the first visit to a hospital by anyone on our team, I was expecting us to be done with those trips for the year. I thought wrong!

We didn't have internet in our homes for much of this past week, so we've been in our offices quite a bit. This past Sunday night, Mandi and I were hanging out in my office getting caught up on e-mails when my phone rang. I answered, and it was Rebecca: "I think my ankle's broken."

"What!!??" I responded. Then she explained to me that she had been rollerblading at the school. One of her wheels got caught on a rock and twisted her ankle. She had somehow made it back to her room to call me. By the time me and Mandi made it back, her adrenaline had worn off and she could barely stand on it.

After a semi-crazy time of calling Chinese friends, getting Rebecca down the stairs, and hailing a taxi, Mandi, Rebecca, and I were off to the hospital for x-rays. Peggy (our boss/culture assistant) called and told us to pick her up along the way. As expected, the visit was different and much longer than it should have been. The hospital, which is supposed to specialize in bone injuries had no crutches or wheelchairs! I piggy-backed Rebecca from the taxi to the waiting area. The rest of the time Mandi and I pushed her around on a gurney.

The x-rays showed she had broken her ankle in 3 places. She won't have to get surgery, but she will have to be in a cast for 6-8 weeks. I know she's frustrated about it since she can't teach for awhile and it could also affect her winter break travel plans, but she has had a great attitude throughout the whole process.

If you've been following the news, you might have heard there was a small bomb that went off in Wuhan recently. It's actually very close to our house. It killed a couple people and injured a few more. I've attached some stories about it on my "China articles" page if you're interested to learn more.

For those of you who know my sports interests, you know I had a GREAT weekend recently as well as a very long night. Indiana University (my college basketball team) was playing the University of Kentucky (the evil empire of college basketball). I was planning on waking up Sunday morning my time to watch it through the internet. However, two of my teammates (Melodie and Kirk) also wanted to watch their teams play that night. Melodie's football team (Sam Houston State) was playing in the I-AA playoffs at 1am. Kirk's basketball team (Ohio State) was playing Kansas at 4am, then my game was on at 6:30am. The three of us had an all-night ESPN marathon in Mandi's office since we didn't have internet at home. Melodie's team won. Kirk's team lost, but played well without their best player. And the best part of the night, was IU's 3-pointer at the buzzer to knock of the number 1 team in the country!

Other than that, there's not a whole lot else to write about right now. As usual, we have quite a few Christmas and New Year's performances to prepare for. Fortunately, it'll be a lot less than last year!

Have a great Christmas everyone!

Matthew 1:23