Change in plans: Sierra Lodge

H.1 (and H.2) are headed to Sierra Lodge today through tomorrow night. Contact Ben if you want to go but haven't gotten in touch with him. The cars are leaving at 7 pm latest.

The rest of us stuck in Berkeley for one reason or another--studying, sick, lazy--are joining Koinonia 2 brothers at Dana House, beginning at 6:30 pm for dinner and bible study. Pastor Manny will join us there. Afterwards, we're headed to Alameda gym to play basketball and volleyball. Unlike our last gym night, this time it'll be guys-only. Depending on what you value, this could be a good thing or this could be a bad thing. You make the call.

The previous plan of going to Point Reyes tomorrow, 3/1, is obviously at risk now since so many of the brothers are going to Sierra Lodge. If you still want to go, let me know, and we'll figure out our plan sometime tonight. Best case scenario: we go and have fun, even if it's just a few of us. Worst case scenario: we stay in Berkeley, study, and eat good food.

Friday lowdown & Pt. Reyes

This Friday, things are different:

• All the frosh from Koinonia 1 are heading to Pastor Manny and Sunny's place for dinner and bible study. Wenjie's in charge of rides, as usual.
• Sophomores at my place. Kevin H. in charge of rides.
• Seniors at Joe's place on Avondale, combining w/ the H.2 guys so you guys can be together.

Saturday, we're heading out to Point Reyes for a day trip. It's a beautiful piece of shoreline just north of San Francisco, w/ some hiking trails and an oyster farm where the brave ones among you can sample raw oysters (w/ a touch of horseradish), and the squeamish can look on with horror and fascination. After a brief hike, we'll throw around a football, kick around a soccer ball, and do barbecue. It'd be a nice chance to get away from the city and the Berkeley environs, and just hang out.

If you want to go, need to know (right away) so we can plan out rides and food. Even if you're NOT going, just take 20 seconds and fill out our online form.

For those of you who are just dying to know, Saturday's schedule will look something like this:

• 9am | breakfast and DT at the YWCA
• 10am | depart Berkeley from Anna Head West parking lot
• Get to Point Reyes, hike, do fun stuff, BBQ, play, eat, take bazillion pictures
• Oyster farm
• 4:30pm | Decide whether or not to go to the Lighthouse or head back home to Berkeley

If you need more details, you can always ask me or email Annie.

Exploding Eggs

This past Friday, we met at Wenjie's palatial home. After ribs (and some salad), we had bible study in Matthew 13 over the different aspects of the kingdom of heaven. The parables revealed several main points:

• Whether or not the kingdom of heaven grows depends on our response, on our receptiveness.
  
• There is such thing as a spiritual battle.
  
• The gospel is treasure, worth everything.
  
• There is final judgment.
  
• The kingdom of heaven seems tiny, insignificant, even undetectable, but then it multiplies into something far greater than we can imagine.
  

Afterwards, we went to NorthLoop and met up with the other homegroups. We got into teams and did this exercise where we tried to take normal everyday items and combine them to build a machine that can protect an egg from a 25-foot drop. The great egg drop, I guess you could call it.

Then we actually got together and dropped them. That was pretty traumatizing. But it turns out pretty much everyone successfully built their machines and protected their eggs. Some machines were absolutely horrific to look at. While others got style points for practicality, simplicity, and beauty. Here's a video clip of one of the drops:

I think for some people the real fun began when some of the guys walked next door and found the basketball in the gym. I think my favorite picture of the night is this one to the right. Is the guy playing basketball or dancing? Is this a new offensive stylistic approach to basketball on the court, or is he doing early tryouts for the Nutcracker? Feedback would be very welcome here.

Fatkins Diet over the Fire

Last night the frosh smallgroup in its entirety (except for the really studious ones in the library) took off from Berkeley and went to the mountains. Sporting a caravan of four vehicles--two vans, a sporty mazda, and a ferocious looking truck--we left the glittering lights of the city and (b/c we couldn't drive all that far in 30 minutes) went to a distant mountain top where we could see those same glittering lights from afar (read: 23 miles).

We saw a fox run across the road (read: almost roadkill), pointed at a bunch of deer along the side, and generally had a pretty good time hiking in, setting up a fire, and roasting an assortment of meaty and sweet items on our sticks. We had about 3 Evergood Sausages available per person, although I think only Steve actually ate that much. In between scaring one another w/ ghost stories and telling just about any and every thing we've heard remotely related to ghosts, scary houses, and TVs turning on by themselves, we tired ourselves out and headed back home. Along the way, we found out a couple funny things:

• Daniel had no idea who Prometheus was, even as we were gazing at the roaring fire.
• Steve introduced us to the Fatkins diet. He's currently on stage 2.
• Daniel, Steve, and Justin can sing just about every Disney song out there (although you might not want to actually hear it from them)
• Joe looks scary in the firelight.
• Roy really knows how to build a fire.
• Safeway fire starter can be a lifesaver.
• Someone forgot to get veggie dogs for Alan.
  

We had a good time and I'm glad.

Dr. William Lane Craig and Tough Questions

For those of you who don't know him, Dr. William Lane Craig is one of the voices at the leading edge of defending and articulating the Christian faith in our culture's public square. He speaks at college campuses, debates professors and other thinkers, and trains students, future academics, and Christians around the country.

There's a lot of good information on his website, and a section that answers a lot of neat questions (at a much more scholarly level than yours truly):

• Why does God in the Old Testament seem different than the God of the New Testament?
• Time, Relativity theory, and how it affects our understanding of divine time, and God's relationship (knowledge) of time and future events.
• Do we really have objective moral values, and can we appeal to this when we argue for the existence of God?

Frankly, some of the stuff might be just plain nerdy. He's a scholar, academic, and heavily involved in philosophy of time, historicity of Christ's resurrection, and cosmology. But if this is your thing, or you think it'll help and you're interested, wanted to let you know about him and his website. Another site that has a lot of good info is Stand to Reason--and our church has a good relationship w/ Greg Koukl, its founder and president.

I bring up Dr. Craig because he's someone our church has a relationship with. He trains us (came a couple years ago and gave two lectures on UC Berkeley, hosted by us, "The Existence of God" and "Evidence for the Resurrection"), and we not only support him in prayer (b/c, boy it's tough doing some of those debates on the different circuits of which he's a part) but we also support him financially every month. As such, he sends up updates from time to time about how he's doing and what he's been up to, as well as prayer requests. If you're interested at all in these updates and newsletters, let me know and I can forward them on to you.

Week of 2.18-2.24

For those of you who think, "I want more information," and "I'm the calendar type of person who schedules things," here's our post for the record of what's going on this week:

• Wednesday night (2/20) Frosh smallgroup outing. It's a good time to take a break and get out of the city, so we're headed into the mountains to build a fire and roast some links. H.1 & H.2 guys will meet at Anna Head West parking lot at 8:30 pm. That means no mid-week Course 101 for this week. Oh, depending on the weather, you may need to bring some rain gear.
  
• H.1 Friday this week will be at Kiel Bay Mansion (Wenjie's). The staff will prep dinner (expect meat...), and afterwards we'll head over to a rock climbing gym w/ some of the girls from H.4, H.5, and H.6. Dress appropriately if you want to climb--of course, you're welcome to just hang out and make fun of people too--and bring $7 (which is a steal). And though the seniors have been w/ P.Manny the last several weeks, they'll join us for our post-bible study activity.
  
• If you missed GTS Course 101x, you need to give me a call so I can fill you in one what happened and we have a make-up session.
  

That's it for now. In other news:

• Ben and Helen are having a kid (Ack!)
• Working on uploading recent pictures, so stay tuned.
• Maurice's hair is starting to get out of control.
• Eddie's taking his BAR exam Feb. 26-28, so pray for him!
• Stephan's studying for the MCAT, so make sure to give him a big hug.
• Big props to the Seniors for organizing the Valentine's Day of Compassion visit to Berkeley Food & Housing Project!
  

Like Books? Wish you did?

Michelle T. is in charge of the book table on Sundays at Gracepoint. She recently sent a plea for help... if this sounds interesting to you and you want to help, let me know, or send her an email.

I am in need of help before and after service to man the book table for about 30 minutes as well as to help with set up and take down. Ideally, I would like to recruit enough volunteers to make a monthly rotation so that each member only has to serve once a month.

Whas' Happening: 2/13-2/17

Here's info for all you people who need to write stuff into your calendars:

• Course 101 midweek is tonight (Wednesday), 6:15 pm @ 233 Dwinelle.
• Thursday, Feb. 14, is our Valentine's Day of Compassion. H.1 and H.2 are heading over to Berkeley Food & Housing Project, where we're visiting the men's shelter. We got a program all lined up: some games, the Mo' show, a brief talk, and even some music. We're meeting at the YWCA, 6:45 pm in the Chapel Room to practice our songs before heading over to the shelter. Come having already eaten. If you need more info, contact Steve or John.
• H.1 Friday is at Ben's place again. If you need a ride, contact Wenjie. Sophomores are in charge of dinner, and will have it on the table at 7 pm. Afterwards, we have sports night w/ all of Koinonia at Alameda High gymnasium, so bring your sports gear and shoes. Fun videos below of our last H.1 Friday.
  
• Sunday GTS starts sharp at 10 am, Willard Middle School. Come at 9:45 am so we can get started right on time. For those of you in Course 101X or Seekers, the homework is to finish off the rest of Intro Week and Week 1.

Next week, we're probably going to do a Freshman smallgroup activity on Wed. night (2/20). Stay tuned.

Video: H.1 Friday

H.1 Friday looked something like this:



So after our hearty dinner, and after having a brief bible study on Matthew 5, primarily focusing on the Beatitudes (which we memorized!), we had our post-activity. It started with reciting the verses we memorized. Then it degenerated into mayhem, chaos, and yet, felt very much like the college student's version of the "blessed life":



If you missed out last week, don't worry. There's more surprises in store moving forward in 2008.

A week of many Firsts

This week certainly has a lot of Firsts to it.  We had our First College Prayer meeting tonight at First Pres, 6:30 pm - 8 pm... I thought there'd be a lot of room to spread out, but it was still pretty packed.  

Here's all the neat news about what's going on this week:

• Wednesday, 6:15 PM Frosh smallgroup Course 101.  We're meeting in 233 Dwinelle, and will have some snacks during Course 101, and will have dinner afterwards.  For Course 101, prepare Intro week.  It's only about 5 pages so it shouldn't take too long.
  
• Friday Homegroup dinner & bible study!  In lieu of normal Koinonia bible studies that we had last semester, we're all breaking up into much smaller groups.  Our entire homegroup--seniors, sophomores, and freshmen--will gather together at Ben's new house.  Seniors are in charge of dinner (yum), so if you want to help get in touch w/ them.  Wenjie-man is going to take care of rides, so if you think you're going to get left behind, send Wenjie an email.  We'll do dinner together, have bible study by classes (bring your DTs!), and then we'll have a surprise...
  
• If you want to be a part of Gracepoint Training School (GTS), it starts this Sunday, 2/10, 10 am - 11:30 am.  You can get class descriptions and signup online for: Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey, Church History, Apologetics, Tough Questions, and more.
  
• You've all heard of Ko-Ops, which is shorthand for Koinonia Operations.  Suzanne sent an email asking people if they want to help.  If so, you just need to show up at the YWCA, Fridays, 2-4 pm.  For more info, sign up online at our website.  Ko-Ops folks are the ones who do the background images for Prologue, take care of our Koinonia website, and help w/ other publication needs.
  
• Next week, Valentine's Day, 2/14 (Thursday), we're going to join our church's annual tradition of participating in The Valentine's Day of Compassion.  John Cai and Steve Choi are in charge and more info should be coming on the blog and over email.  Basically, we'll join other smallgroups to go out to different shelters and convalescent homes throughout the Bay Area to show Christ's love on a day which has had its meaning utterly twisted.  Love isn't the cheap stuff out there propagated by Hallmark.  Love is something God has created and demonstrated, and it's something He calls us to live out for others.
  

Guess that's all for now.  That's an awful lot, but I figure ya'll are smart people and can figure it out.