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

Gan En Jie

 Mandi and I celebrating the one-year anniversary of our first date

 A Chinese magazine that obviously has some in-depth analysis of the presidential election

Mandi with some of her students at a hot pot restaurant

Hello everyone!  Hope you are all doing well during this holiday season!  Here's a quick update on our past few weeks in Jingzhou.

- We celebrated Thanksgiving (感恩节 pronounced Gan En Jie) with some foreigners who are teachers at a nearby college.  We've gotten to know Adam, Jamie, Walker, and Elizebeth all a little bit, and it's been good to hang out with some other Americans once in awhile to talk sports and life in China....but especially sports!

- Mandi and I also had a small Thanksgiving party for our boss (Linda), her assistant (Sara), and their families.  They've been really helpful this year, so we wanted to have them over for some American food.  Mandi did a really good job cooking as much Thanksgiving food as she could here in our city. We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie, and rolls.  There's no turkey arond Jingzhou though, so we settled for duck.  They seemed to really like the food, and we all had a great time that night.  We're really happy to be working with such great people.

- We've been continuing to build relationships with students, co-workers, and other locals around the city.  Mandi has even been meeting with a few of her students who are interested in learning about the Book!

- For the past week or so, we've been working on a dance with some of the younger Chinese teachers.  We're going to be performing it in front of the school a few days before Christmas!  I'll try to record and post it on here next update.  It should be very interesting....

- We're getting ready to start our Christmas lessons for students.  You can be "thinking" of them as they hear about the birth of JC and how important He is to us.

That's all for now.  Have a great Christmas!

Romans 12:2

The last month

The street outside of our school's front gate.  This is where we eat a lot. 

Same street.  Other way. 

My apartment from the outside.  It's on the bottom right. 

The croquet court/field outside my apartment.  Older Chinese people love their "Gate Ball."

My study room. 

My kitchen/bathroom.  Pic 1 

My kitchen.  Pic 2 

Bedroom 

Mandi and I at a dinner with our school. 

This is the building where most of our classes are.

Mandi in her apartment.

Hello again everyone!  Sorry for the long break between posts (as usual).  Above are some pics around our school and apartments so you can see a little of what I do every day!

A few highlights of the last month:

School Breaks!!! - Mandi and I had a few surprise breaks off from school, which is always nice.  Our students had a "sports meeting" which is basically a school track and field week where classes compete against each other.  Some students love it, while others hate it, but I think they all enjoy the break from classes!  We also had a few days off later while our students had exams.  It was a great time to relax and get caught up on a lot of things.

Time with Friends - We've been able to visit with a lot of friends in Jingzhou as well as our old city of Wuhan.  My best Chinese friend Patrick (who lives in Wuhan) came to visit for a few days.  We had a lot of fun hanging out and riding a 3-person bike around the Jingzhou city wall.  It was more difficult than I thought!  Mandi and I also made a trip into Wuhan during a break to visit some of our American friends.  We even had a very early Thanksgiving party/feast with our Wuhan fellowship.  We've also been meeting and hanging out with some new Chinese friends in Jingzhou which has been great.

Wedding Date - Mandi and I finally have a wedding date set!  We will get married on July 27, 2013 in her hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  While we would love to have a big wedding, because of all the planning we'll be doing in China and the cost (We haven't exactly been making a fortune over here!), we're going to have a small wedding there, and we're planning to have some kind of a reception in Spring Arbor later that summer or fall.

That's all for now.  I will try to do a better job from here on out with my blog updates......but no promises!

Hebrews 11:8

Finally in a rhythm!

Mandi and I about halfway up Hua Shan 

Some parts of the Hua Shan hike were pretty steep

Spider climbing and jumping off of the Xi'an Wall

The past month and a half in Jingzhou have been great.  However, just like anywhere in the world, switching cities, jobs, and homes means a lot of little things to work out before you really start to feel settled.  Mandi and I are both finally beginning to feel like that thankfully!  We're into a rhythm with our new schedules, our apartments are starting to feel more like home, and we have found some good places to eat!  I will hopefully be able to update my blog more regularly now.  Here's what I've been up to the past month or so.

- The Chinese teachers at the school found out that I like to play basketball, so they have been inviting me to play in their competition.  Different grades are competing against each other.  I think they take the games very seriously, but not the competition as a whole because they've had me play on just about every different team!  It's been a lot of fun to play, and a crowd eventually always shows up to watch because it's not every day they see a white guy playing basketball in the middle of China!

- Mandi and I headed back to Wuhan for a weekend pretty early after leaving for Jingzhou.  Zhong Relations had a team get-together with (just about) everyone this year.  Our group has grown a lot over the past few years.  We now have about 30 different teachers in three different cities.  That doesn't include former teachers who are still in China studying Chinese (Kirk and Rebecca), working at an orphanage (Melodie), or opening an ice cream shop (Taylor)!  It was good to catch up with some of our friends doing new things as well as learning about the new teachers' experiences.

- We recently had a week off of teaching due to two holidays (National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival).  Mandi and I traveled to Xi'an with Paul and Jacqueline Johnson and her younger brother Beau.  I had already been to Xi'an, but it was still a great time.  We hiked to the top Hua Shan Mountain, and the two girls even went out on a plank walk with a couple thousand feet of nothing below them!  I was considering it, but there were A TON of Chinese people traveling due to the holiday (the national government decides the days off for holidays, so everyone in the country has the exact same amount of time off), and there was no way I was going to be up that high with me and a hundred other nervous people crawling around!  Besides that, we just walked and parkoured our way around the city.  Beau is really into parkour (basically running, jumping, and climbing anything and everything), so we all decided to join in.  It was a lot of fun.

- Besides that, we've been teaching, starting the school's first English Corner, and celebrating our 9-month anniversary by watching Taken 2 at a theater that is about a 5 minute walk from our apartment.  I love living in the city center!

Unfortunately, my camera was stolen in Xi'an, but I will still try to use Mandi's camera to take pictures for the blog.  Next update I hope to show you some pics of my apartment and school.

Hope you are all doing well!

Romans 8:31-32

The saddest day in women's history....except for one of them.

 

Hanging out with friends after the proposal!

Hello again everyone!  It's been a long time since my last post, but it's time to give the people what they want: more of me!  :)

A TON has happened over the past month since I've been in China.  If I had time, I could have written an update every day.  However, besides my busy schedule, I've only had consistent internet at home for about a week and a half now.  So I'll try to fill you in as much as I can without writing a book.

- The biggest news first.  Mandi and I are engaged as of August 21st!  I got the ring and planned everything over the summer with the help of a lot of our friends in China.  The short story of the proposal is that Mandi was out at a Girls' Night with friends and they "just happened" to end up eating at the restaurant where we went on our first date.  I was hiding in another room and then came out and popped the question.  She said yes...this time.

- The same night of the proposal, we (and the friends at the dinner with us) decided to plan a fake proposal in front of all of the new teachers for a few days later.  So Mandi had to hide her ring for the first few days of our engagement.  It's hard to keep that big a secret for so long, especially with facebook around!  For the fake proposal, I stood up in front of all 30 of the Zhong Relations' teachers and asked Mandi to marry me.  She said no and walked out of the room.  Everyone was dead silent.  It was one of the most funny and awkward things I've ever experienced.  Then Mandi came back in and told them that she had already said yes.  Let me know if you want to see the fake (or real proposal videos), and I can try to get them to you.  It will take too long to load it onto my blog.

- Zhong Relations had their training in China this year.  I was able to help lead some of the "classes" and meet a lot of the new teachers.  It's our biggest group ever, and as usual, it's a great group.

- You may or may not remember, but Mandi and I moved to a new city this year.  We are now teaching at Jingzhou High School (Jingzhou Zhong Xue) in Jingzhou.  It's a city of about 5 million people that is about 2 hours from Wuhan.  It took some getting used to the new classes and apartments, but I feel like I'm finally starting to get into somewhat of a rhythm.  While we still don't have everything figured out (like our office at the school), it's starting to feel like home.  We also had a really fun time tonight playing volleyball and then having dinner with some teachers who are about our age.

- I'll leave you with this poem from one of my students.  A few days ago was Teacher's Day in China.  Even though we've only had these students for just a few lessons, many of them will still give us cards or gifts.  This was written from one of my favorite students named Iverson in Grade 2 Class 4.

Birds fly in the sky.
They look so high.
Lilacs sleep at night.
Fragrance through the side.
A man gives us love - offers us friendship and touches our hearts.
He's brave,
He's caring,
He's great,
He pressed us to study hard.
He taught us a spirit of persistence.
With full of love he says:
"Study is not to earn your bread, but to make every mouthful sweet!"
No one would think he was a Demon.
He was just a angel - without wings.

I hope you are all doing well!
Luke 1:1-4