Goodbye Xian

Well we have some big news to announce.

We’re leaving Xian, China. It’s been four years since we first moved here and we’ve seen plenty of changes in our lives and family since coming here. Xi’an has been our home and it feels weird to know this chapter is coming to a close.

Our new home will be in a city called Xining. It’s an hour plane ride west from Xian and 2 million other people call it home. I (Matt) will be teaching English there and helping out with a few other opportunities that we are looking forward to.

Why Xining? Why not Xian? Over the past year the landscape of Xian has changed drastically for us. My brother and his family moved away nearly a year ago and our good friends the Faillas headed home in June. We’re also coming through one of the most difficult seasons we’ve faced as a family. After Heather came back from her trip to America we had a very honest conversation about where we were at. We knew that something needed to change if we were to continue living here in China. It’s funny too, because a year ago Heather and I were coming home from Xining and we joked about how we would move there if Jeremy and Jenny and the Faillas ever left Xian. And, well, that’s what happened. The biggest thing that we’ve learned about ourselves over the past season is that we need community to make life here sustainable. We feel we can have that in Xining.

Email me if you have any questions. We will keep you posted about what life looks like for us in our new surroundings, but we are hopeful of the things ‘He’ has in store for us.

much love,

the petersons