Friday Fun - Bowling

Greetings, This past Friday turned out to be lots of fun for the Juniors and Sophomores as well! While the Freshman flocked to Steve and Suzanne's, the Sophomores, Juniors, and Staff (Kevan, Jenny, Eddie) decided to try our luck at some good ole' bowling.

However, getting there turned out to be trickier than expected. All three of our cars got lost at one point or another. After a bunch of calling and driving up and down the same street 3 or 4 times, we finally arrived at our destination! We were all eager and ready to relieve the stressful experience by crushing the little bowling pins with our 15+lb bowling balls.

Once we got settled, we decided to play Staff vs Juniors vs Sophomores - loser had to cook a homemade meal for all of us :) We played two games and averaged out the scores. Here were some highlights from my lane.

• Irene Kwan (who said she had only gone bowling twice prior), the only undergrad sister that went (ahem), getting gutter balls and then strikes! A+ for improvement Irene!
• Michael Kim's "finishing pose"- basically after he released the ball each time he would turn around before the ball hit the pins and raise one arm in the air like Superman. Amazingly it actually worked. There was one point in time when he had 5 or 6 strikes in a row!
• Kevan Ho getting 4 strikes in a row!
• Kevin Ding almost broke 100 but could not knock down the last pin on the last try and ended up with 99 :(

In the end, the Staff came in 1st, Juniors in 2nd, and the Sophomores in 3rd (aka last). We are all anticipating the wonderful home-cooked meal that the sophomores plan for us :) thank you in advance sophomores!

anyways in the spirit of fall I thought this would be nice:

Sophomore Welcome Back Dinner

Hey sophomores, you're invited to a welcome back dinner. Come on over and let's grill some chicken and eat. Need to know how many of you are coming, so sign up online and let us know. Thursday, 9/4, 7:30 PM at Kevan & Jenny's.

All Sports All the Time

As usual, the first Friday of the month was Gracepoint Monthly. We met in Berkeley at First Pres., Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang sat in the front, interspersing the entire night with words of wisdom and their thoughts, had good music (this time w/ real drums!), and listened to some really moving testimonies from Ray, Aileen, and Perry. Thank God for how He works in our lives and in our faith community.

Afterwards, all the guys went to the RSF. From Praxis all the way to Element, we had our first ever Bros Sports Night. It was awesome. Although shooting hoops was one of the events, it was really Tug-of-War that took center stage that night. Out of three ropes, two were completely incinerated because of the sheer brute force. You don't have to be a physics major to know the rope got the big hurt. Anyway, I was as surprised as everyone else that the seniors and first-year grads took first prize. As huge as the freshmen were, maybe they were too young and too passionless to really contend for the grand prize. We had free time for an hour, playing basketball, volleyball, and even indoor soccer.

On Saturday, sophomores from Koinonia 1 & 2, and acts2fellowship 1 & 2 pulled themselves away from studying to go catch, hit, and field on the baseball diamond. When I asked for a show of hands for first-timers, very few people raised their hands. But, as Ben memorably added the group of those for whom "it might as well be the first time," about 80% of the 25 raised their hands. So Bryan, baseball junior Olympian, ran drills and taught us how to field grounders, snag pop flies, and what it ought to look like to whip the ball around the bases. The ensuing softball game was much more productive as a consequence, and it was cool just to be there with sophs from other groups and fellowships, as well as hanging out with their smallgroup leaders. 30 lbs of sirloin skewers over a barbecue plus hot chili was our dinner. Afterwards, all of us headed over to Ben's place for dessert, and we sat around, talked about sophomore year, sang some songs, and shared about the things that encourage us and strengthen us during our moments of weakness. Definitely something we have to do again.

An all sports type of weekend. Very good.

J-Term & other news

Some of you guys (Sophs) are thinking about signing up for J-Term (Jan. 13-16) and wondering what class to take. If it helps at all, the plan for the spring semester for sophomore smallgroup is to go ahead w/ the Bible survey we wanted to do first semester but didn't get a chance to do. You can take that into consideration as you're thinking about what J-Term class to take. Of course, a study through the NT Survey or OT Survey class at J-Term will probably be more in-depth than what we'll do, but wanted to give you guys proper notice.

In other news:

• Winter Retreat early bird signup is $20 cheaper if you sign up online and turn in your check (payable to GFC) by Dec. 20. You can hand the check to your smallgroup leader or mail it to NorthLoop. Early Bird signup is $90; afterwards, it's $110. A table will be available next to the Book Table on Sunday at Willard if you want to drop off the check.
• If you want to be an Impact Volunteer next semester and participate in 1-on-1 tutoring, let me know at kevanDOThoATgpmailDOTorg. An email was sent earlier to one of the aliases and I can forward it to you.
• If you didn't get your two part gift from us (H.1 staff), hunt us down. It's our Christmas gift to you!

Staying informed

I hear from different people, "I didn't know bible study was at..." or "I wasn't sure if we had smallgroup this week..." or "I didn't know Ben was staff, I thought he was a sophomore." Yes, for those who are poorly informed or find themselves murky about what goes on week to week, never fear: this homegroup blog is here.

It's actually been here the last three months, and you can find all our meeting times and places on these very plain, but informative pages.

That said:

• Frosh & Soph smallgroups are Wed. night in Dwinelle: 6:30 PM & 8 PM respectively in rooms 211 & 204.
• Friday's bible study is 7 PM in the Lipman Room. Afterwards, we're practicing for Thanksgiving Celebration. It'll be the last practice for the frosh/sophs, altho the seniors will be meeting again on Saturday.
• Those of you in SK1 & Church 101, it's happening Saturday morning, 10-12. SK1 is on Berkeley campus and Church 101 is at NorthLoop.
• Thanksgiving Celebration is on Sunday, right after Gracepoint's worship service. The time is either 2 PM or 4 PM. We're having some difficulties securing the venue so more info to come soon.
• We're cooking together for Thanksgiving Celebration so stay tuned. Help will be needed Sunday morning. If you think you know how to cook a turkey, or candied yams, or any of the other Thanksgiving fixings, then get prepared to show your stuff.

What's Happening this week

What's Happening used to be a 70s sitcom featuring the infamous Rerun and his buds. It's way before pretty much everyone's time, but I thought a little historical education couldn't hurt. But seriously, here's "what's happening" this week:

• Bible study this Friday also turns out to be the first message of our annual Thanksgiving Retreat. It's at First Pres right across from Unit 3, beginning at 7 PM. Acts2fellowship, Kairos, and Koinonia will all be there, as well as Praxis.
• Frosh smallgroup is meeting Wed., 211 Dwinelle at 6:30 PM w/ scrumptious dinner and discussion time.
• Soph smallgroup is meeting in the parking lot next to Sather Gate and Sproul Hall. We're going to famous Fentons to celebrate birthdays and hang out. Wed., at 9 PM. Note the time change.
• Thanksgiving Celebration is next Saturday, 11/17. If you want real home-cooked turkey before the actual turkey day, join us for laughs and great food.

See ya'll soon.

A culinary sort of post

Recently, our homegroup has had to demonstrate its culinary talents. And pretty much, if happy mouths and satisfied stomachs are any indicator, you can call us Ratatouille.

Of course, our menu generally consisted of meat, meat, and more meat (sorry to our one vegetarian representative, Alan). It started with grilling 600 lbs of tri-tip for our Gracepoint Anniversary. The grilling took four hours, and although it started off with a bunch of laughs and "sampling" all around, by the end we were all business grilling to medium rare perfection. Afterwards, we showered and showed up at the Gracepoint anniversary. There was a real live orchestra, which served as a visual and auditory example of the message series, Divine Symphony. Then we watched a video in which different people shared their stories of how they experienced Gracepoint and the community of faith. Even I was in it! We had a wonderful time together, and then celebrated afterwards with a rock-awesome dinner, topped by 600 lbs of our medium rare tri-tip.

More recently, we had a Koinonia and Kairos potluck at Northloop this past Friday. Again, we decided to cook 30 lbs of meat (it was Maurice & Wenjie's idea) to represent our homegroup, and also prepared some beautiful appetizers. We cooked a lot, ate a lot, and then had bible study all together, reading an excerpt from Joshua Harris' I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Seeing everyone from Koinonia and Kairos stuffed into the conference room at NorthLoop was a sight to see, but it was great having a chance to learn new names, and at last to sit down and talk to people we see all the time at our activities but with whom we hardly exchange a word. In addition to the Thanksgiving Celebration practice we had afterwards, another highlight was the magic show Maurice put on after we finished cooking, before we ran off to NorthLoop for the potluck.

There's plenty of other stuff I could write about, but I'll spare you guys. Plus, all this writing and keeping up to date stuff is tiring work. I'll put up some pictures instead with the Flickr link. It's easier, and it's worth more words, so they say.

Every Thursday there's home night at my place and Ben's place. People come over for dinner, hang out, and study. Some people are regulars... which is a good thing. Getting out of Berkeley every once in a while is good for your sanity.

A little while ago (in keeping with "meat" theme of this post), the frosh went to Fuddruckers during smallgroup. It was a gross display of oil, grease, and good ol' fun.

Thanksgiving Retreat coming up

The big news, as the headline goes, is the one-day Thanksgiving Retreat coming up on Saturday, Nov. 10, led by Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang (Gracepoint Berkeley). It's the date of the USC game, but we'll all watch it together on the big screen at the end of the retreat. It's our annual tradition to do this--the retreat, not the game--and I expect we'll be challenged and blessed by the messages. I also expect to hear department news of what's happening throughout our church, from the children's department Joyland to the post-grads in Praxis. If you have time (and even if you don't), I encourage you to go. Of course, this means you need to plan and study beforehand, but likely you'll be glad you did.

There's more Thanksgiving retreat info and signups online. Check it out.

Other news:

Bible study this week is at Lipman Room, 7 PM on Friday. Afterwards, the freshmen are heading to Dana House and the sophomores are going to Manny & Sunny's. The seniors... well... ya'll have a free night!

Also big in the news is the baptism on Sunday after service.

And we're also helping with NorthLoop cleaning on Saturday, @ 10 AM. Afterwards, we'll grab lunch @ In-n-Out, and then study for the rest of the day.

the News: upcoming and days gone by

First we'll tackle what's happening this week, and then we'll look at all the stuff that happened the previous couple weeks (there was a lot!):

• Friday bible study's at Lipman room, 7 PM. Our homegroup's in charge so if you can help, talk to Kevin D. Afterwards, there's RSF night. Time to see if the sophomores will hold onto their championship, and if the freshmen will continue to place in the top 3.
• Frosh and Soph smallgroups are same time, same place: 211 Dwinelle, 6:30 PM & 204 Dwinelle, 8 PM.
• Saturday Sierra Lodge trip: if you think you're manly (and even if you're not) and pretty good with power tools, love the smell of lumber, then I want to invite you to join us at Sierra Lodge this Saturday. It's a house we're building (that's right, us!) for all the good memories and trips we plan on taking. Plenty of people have pitched in to make the place wonderful, and all of us want to be able to point to a floorboard and say, "I painted that." Not only will it be good ol' hard work, it'll be fun being together with the rest of Koinonia, and have an opportunity to be a part of something our whole church is involved with. Plus, one of these days, we'll be staying there on one of our overnight trips! If you want to go, you got to let me know. Included a picture of the house to the right.
  
• Gracepoint's first anniversary is this Sunday. We're having all-combined service at 5 PM on campus @ Pauley Ballroom. Koinonia is in charge of the food so all of you guys, be prepared on Sunday to pitch in and help out for the celebration!

Now onto all the stuff that's been happening the last couple weeks.

Several Sundays ago, a ton of us from Gracepoint went to celebrate Waypoint Community Church's 10th anniversary on Sunday evening (9/30). God's faithfulness for 10 years, multiplying 5 original people into a group of more than 200! Amazing! As Gracepoint was the sending church 10 years ago, I was so thrilled to see and hear what God has done. Waypoint's our sister church out there in Davis, where the cows graze and the John Cai's of the world roam.

There was the Koinonia sports night at Alameda Gym after the More Than A Face talk. We had free play with three half-courts of basketball, and 1 full-court of volleyball. We ended the night by splitting up freshmen vs. all the upperclassmen in ultimate handball. Freshman team 1 rocked, and freshman team 2, unfortunately, got rocked. But hey, we had a good time and even took a bunch of pictures.

Allen C. from Taiwan says hello. He recently sprained an ankle and also badly sprained his finger. Recovery time is 6 weeks, during which time no sports and no heavy lifting. Please pray for him and the rest of the Taiwan team.

I became a dad. Ha ha! Abigail J. Ho was born Oct. 8, 2007, weighing in very respectably at 7 lbs, 5 oz. Jenny and I are absolutely delighted, and also very thankful for all your prayers, and for many of you who have expressed such love as you came to visit us, bringing food, laughter, taking camera phone pictures, and your happy smiles. Also, it was neat to see that for so many of you, it was your first time holding a newborn. I posted an indulgent amount of pictures online, so if you really want, you can look through them and maybe find yourself when you visited.

That's news for now. That's a lot of stuff, but it only goes to show that life in the community of faith is very, very full.

It's October! 411 on the week of 10/1

It's October already. Unbelievable how quickly the semester's going by. The sophomores went bowling last Friday, and the freshmen went to Angel Island this past Saturday (pictures coming soon!). In between school, midterms, studying, Koinonia bible study, Gracepoint on Sundays, outings, basketball, and Cal football games, we still find time for weekly smallgroup:

• frosh smallgroup @ 6:30pm in 211 Dwinelle, Wed., 10/3
• soph smallgroup @ 8pm in 204 Dwinelle, Wed., 10/3 (Ben's smallgroup is meeting at Ben's home over dinner; more info to come)
• Friday, 10/5, Koinonia's presenting "More Than A Face," a look at how media affects self-image in 155 Dwinelle

And last, if you're interested in community service, stay tuned and let Wenjie know (wenjiecATgmailDOTcom). He's organizing a way for our homegroup to give to our community.

Extreme bowling with the sophomores

Just the week before, the sophomores walked away with the RSF night championship in the first RSF night of the year for Koinonia. Pretty impressive stuff.

Now that class competition was out of our system, we paired up with the sophomore girls from H.4 this past Friday after bible study and headed out to the bowling alleys of Pinole. We got three lanes, laced up our shoes, selected our weapons of choice, and before we could bowl our first ball, all the house lights turned off. What's going on? Strobe lights turned on, and the black lights glowing purple on everything white made all of us feel like we were back in a junior high dance. Loud music also came out over the house speakers. We took it all in stride and refused to be deterred. Extreme bowling, after all, is nothing for RSF night champions.

We split into three teams and played for two hours, with popcorn, nachos, and drinks on the side. Of the three teams, the last team had a pregnant woman. When we took team pictures, the whole team put bowling balls in their t-shirts to show their deep camaraderie and empathy. How about that for Christian fellowship?

You can find our cool bowling pictures on Flickr, as usual.

Good ol' home-cookin'

If you want to get away from Berkeley and have a home-cooked meal, you can come over to my place tonight. It's a "catch-your-own-ride" kind of a situation, and I'd say grab the nearest senior or smallgroup leader if you want to capitalize on the offer. Of course, there'll be the mandatory study room for the studious, and then there'll be the "I'm glad I'm away from Berkeley" room, mostly hovering in and around the food.

Last night's smallgroup among the frosh was fun since Joe's H.2 group joined too. The room was packed, but it was a good time to meet others and welcome new faces. We asked some questions and put the answers up on the board:

• What do you find attractive about Christianity or religion?
• What do you find repulsive about Christianity or religion?
• What do you think is difficult about being a Christian?

The sophomore smallgroups, as usual, each did their own thing. From inductive bible study to discussion over a chunk of text, I'll just speak for my group.

First, we took a survey of people's relative stress level on a scale of 1-10. With a kid on the way (yes, that would be me), mine was a little higher than most (a 7 in case you were wondering), and some of the sophs decided they'd like to retract their original number and submitted an integer significantly lower. But after that, we each of us put a question on the table so that we could talk about them in the upcoming weeks:

• One question about God; something I've always wondered or thought or wish I could ask...
• One question about myself; "If only I knew this about myself," or could figure out this part of my life...

Angel Island this weekend for the frosh. Oregon vs. Cal also. Go Bears.

UPDATE: Got my phone back. It's a text-messaging machine

the news of the week, 09.24

It's another week, and the midterm snowball that hit last week is bound to keep rolling till the end of the semester. And since you guys need some relief at some point in the week, keep an eye on these:

• freshman smallgroup, 6:30pm @ 204 Dwinelle on Wed. (9/26)
• sophomore smallgroup, 8pm @ 211 Dwinelle on Wed. (9/26)
• Koinonia bible study, 7 PM @ 145 Dwinelle on Fri. (9/28)
• Freshman Angel Island trip on Sat. (9/29). Memory-making trip out into the middle of the big blue center of the San Francisco Bay. Sign up online, or if you want more info about Angel Island, or just want to be convinced about what a great time you'll have, talk to one of the seniors or staff.

That's the 411 on what's happening this week.

As for RSF night this past Friday, congratulations to the sophomores for being #1. And for the freshmen, 2nd and 3rd is more than respectable: it's almost unheard of for freshmen to place so high! Could it be the additions of the seniors, or were the freshmen themselves truly responsible for such a stunning RSF debut? We'll have to see.

Guys at babyshowers

Apparently, the cultural norm is that guys don't show up at babyshowers. It's a "woman thing". Well, not with me and my friends. This past Sunday (9/16) my friends threw Jenny and I a babyshower, literally showering us with gifts, good company, lots of laughter, and the kind of love evident through care and attention. Some of the H.1 guys made it out, and that was really special. There's a ton of pictures, but here's a couple. If you're really interested, I guess the Flickr album is always accessible.

Jenny said she laughed so hard, she was afraid she was going to self-induce labor.

411 on this week, 9/17

The funny thing is that the seniors (together with the freshmen) are taking Chem 1a. Their midterm's tonight, and I'm sure John and Steve are looking forward to it. Anyway, here's info on what's happening this week:

• freshman smallgroup's meeting on Wed., at 6 PM @ the Anna Head West parking lot, on Channing across the street from Crossroads. We'll eat dinner up in the Berkeley hills and be back to the dorms by 8. Kind of a longer smallgroup evening than usual, but figured it was a nice change of pace
• the sophomore smallgroups are meeting in different places on Wed. night. Kevan & Eddie's group is meeting at 8:30 in 204 Dwinelle. And Ben and Tim's group is meeting a little earlier at 8 in 125 Dwinelle.
• H.1 has setup this week for bible study (which is Friday, 7 PM @ Lipman room), and we'll probably start at 5. Kevin D. is the point man, so if you'd like to help, give him a ring.
• for the frosh, Angel Island trip is coming up. More info on that later, but if you'd like to go, it's Saturday, 9/29, and you can sign up online at our Koinonia site.

Totally unrelated, all you skaters, please be careful. There's been a bunch of falls in the past couple weeks: Justin, Howard, Brandon, Mike, Stephan, and last night Steve took a bad spill on Bancroft. He passed out from the fall and the police called the paramedics. Thankfully, he's okay (no doctor's note to get out of that chem midterm), but please be careful. Don't try to be cool and fast on busy streets. You can be safe and cool.

Jenny wanted to get you guys helmets and kneepads but I told her to just calm down.

things going on this week, 9/10

Here's the latest and greatest:

• Freshman smallgroup on Wed. (9/12), @ 6:30 PM, 204 Dwinelle. Dinner is on
• Sophomore smallgroup on Wed. (9/12), @ 7:45 PM, 125 Dwinelle. Light food
• Koinonia bible study on Fri. (9/14), @ 7 PM, Lipman Room, which is on the 8th floor of Barrows. Afterwards, we're headed to Manny's place to hang out so make sure you catch a ride.

Saturday's the Cal Football Game against Louisiana Tech. Some guys are going to the stadium, and the rest of us will have to find a TV somewhere. Then there's others (like Stephan) who need to study for their midterms. No matter what happens, Go Bears.

That's it for now.