The Snow Trip You Should Have Been At

We met Saturday morning and headed up to the Sierras. A brief stop at McDonald's for breakfast and before we knew it, we were in a winter wonderland of fresh snow. It was fantastic. We played 3-way capture the flag, pitting the Koinonia upperclassmen vs. All Berkeley freshmen vs. USF/SFSU. We poured red Kool-aid on the ground to mark boundaries, and then people started blowing through enemy lines trying to capture flags while avoiding would-be tacklers.

Then we went up the sled run, bringing up inner tubes and our swashbuckling adventure spirit, then plummeting down the slopes. The sled run was lined with friends and staff holding out snowballs and other cold wondrous gifts for the trip down. There's a lot more pictures online at our Flickr site as usual, and John from H.5 uploaded another set of pictures online too.

And because you want to see it again, here's the video that was made after our awesome day in the snow. Make sure you're there next time!


Snow Trip 2009 from kevan on Vimeo.

All college freshmen and Koinonia upperclassmen went up to Sierra Lodge to see some snow. While there, we ran into the students from SFSU and USF, and we quickly got to know each other pretty well, throwing each other into the snow and playing capture the flag. Between the snow fights, the sled runs, and the good food, we had a great time. We were a little sore, but it was awesome.

Juniors Discipleship Retreat, Fall 2008

The juniors from across Koinonia, acts2fellowship, and Kairos all took off for Sierra Lodge some Fridays ago after "This Is Your Life" bible study. About 60 juniors left from Berkeley with a handful of staff for our Junior Discipleship Retreat, Fall 2008.

Once we got there, after registration, we played a fun game, "This Is Very Fun." The whole point is no laughing, no smiling, while trying to be as silly as you can to eliminate the other folks in your circle. Some people were terribly gross in their attempts to get others to laugh (ahem, K.Huang & K.Ding), and there were others who were just plain funny (Daniel).

The next morning, Pastor Ed and Kelly joined us and we shared insights from our week's devotion, Ezekiel 3. Then, we read an excerpt from Nation of Wimps before heading out to Island Lake for a short, but beautiful, hike. After returning to the house, we discussed the Nation of Wimps excerpt and how we could apply it to our lives and how we can understand the college campus. Then it was Sophie Scholl, an incredible movie about a young woman's conviction to stand up for what she believed to be right during the Nazi regime.

The next day, after some time of reflection and sharing, and some work around the house, we had our Worship Service there. And then we came back home to Berkeley. It was a whirlwind, but very memorable.

Caught some things on video. Think it's a pretty good summary of what happened:


Junior Discipleship Retreat, Fall 2008 from kevan on Vimeo.

As usual, pictures are posted online (and have been for a while now!). Until next time.

What's Up

Here's the news for this weekend, starting with Friday dinners (Oct. 17):

• H.1 Guys are meeting at 5:45pm @ Anna Head West parking lot on Channing. We'll be heading up to the Rose Garden and Cordonices Park to hang out, eat dinner (we'll bring the food!), and get away from Berkeley. Yes, it's only 10 minutes away from Berkeley, but it'll be fun.


• H.1 Girls are meeting at 6:00pm @ Anna Head West parking lot. The girls will head up to LBL for a nice dinner and hot chocolate. There's a Berkeley LBL webcam, but personally I don't think it does the view any real justice. You'll just have to go there yourself to experience it in person!

Afterwards, we're headed to Koinonia's "This Is Your Life" bible study. Pastor Ed'll be talking about the reliability of the bible, how we can know it's trustworthy as a document that tells us about the life of Jesus and about God. "This Is Your Life" will be at 7:45pm @ 2050 VLSB.

After VLSB, some of the juniors will be taking off for the Junior Discipleship Retreat with Pastor Ed and Kelly. Come to 2050 w/ your bags already packed because we're leaving directly from the parking lot! Pack appropriately: it'll be mostly low to mid-70s during the days, and low to mid-40s at nights.

The rest of H.1 will be going over to Steve and Suzanne's to hang out with them, and also with H.5. We'll watch GLive, laugh at the juniors and seniors, and look ahead to the Spring semester when we'll be putting together GLive for 2009! Wow. Crazy.

Extra: This past weekend the Koinonia staff went to Sierra Lodge to work on the Barn. It's awesome right now. There's a ton more pictures, but here's a small taste. For those of you going, you'll see this very soon.

The Real Long Version of Announcements

I don't know why each week there are so many announcements. I guess it just goes to show you there's a ton of stuff going on... which is a good thing! It also means: you got to pay attention! (update: video at the bottom of Kevin losing in pushups contest)

Here we go:

Jam-Packed Friday
For the guys: 6.30 PM dinner at Unit 3. Jrs & Soph guys will do setup beginning at 5.30 @ dHouse, and then we'll meet for dinner and decompress from the week @ U3. We'll grab a lounge or maybe the multi-purpose room. Just make sure you have your friend's cell number handy so you can find where we are!
For the girls: 6.30 PM dinner in the First Pres. Courtyard. Registration setup is at 6!
For both guys and girls, dinner will be provided!

This Is Your Life Koinonia bible study is at 7:45 PM, First Pres.

Afterwards, there's study hall or Ghirardelli's in SF. You make the call and bring your gear: books or spoons.

The rest of the announcements:

• 9 AM at the YWCA: Sophomore guys' discipleship group. Remember your homework!
  
• 11 AM, it's our turn (plus homegroups 2, 5 & 6) to clean NorthLoop. Afterwards, we'll eat lunch together, and for those who want to watch the Cal game (Homecoming!), we'll watch it together. Otherwise, you can study at NL or head back to Berkeley.
  
• Sierra Lodge construction (10/11). Yes, if you want to go and help build the Barn, make sure to let me know. It'll be all day Saturday. Not for wimps. If you were ashamed of your performance at the Sierra Lodge booth at the Gracepoint Open House, then come and get trained.
  
• Convalescent Home Visit (10/12). Our homegroup is going to the Crown Bay Elderly Home Sunday morning from 8:45 -10 AM. We'll spend time with the elderly there and have a small program for them. Please contact Caroline if you'd like to get involved.
  
• It's never too early to plug the College Winter Retreats! You don't want to miss this just because of bad planning around airline tickets! The dates are Jan. 23 - 25 (Friday to Sunday). Signups will be up soon so stay tuned!

Last but not least, there's the H.1 committee "To Keep Things Running". There's plenty that goes into helping our homegroup run and we need help! Thought some of you would like to get involved or maybe get trained? Check these out and email me what you'd like to do:

• Transit Chief: need one guy, one girl to take care of rides for the various events we do. Whether that means coming over to Alameda in the middle of the week, rides home after a Friday night, or when we head out to bowling or SF, you the man (er, woman). Pluses are that you get to meet everyone. Recommendations: cell phone, email, and text messaging is your friend.
• News Reporter: Be a journalist. Write about messages from Friday or Sunday, maybe a brief summary, a funny line. Write about life on campus, or the people in our homegroup. Offer your perspective and help broadcast some news. You can even video yourself and be an anchorman/woman. Short description: blog.
• Media Guy (or Gal): like photography or videography? Want to share them with people? This one's for you.
• Chef: food makes people happy. Food makes you happy and you like seeing people happy because of food. You got menu ideas for refreshments or meals? Want some guinea pigs to try it out on? What better place than for your homegroup!
• Entertainers: when we hang out as a group, it's not always fun just talking in little clusters here and there. Lots of times we need activities, games, icebreakers, and ways to jazz up the time together. Help plan out activities, make phone calls to bowling alleys, game times, and think of ways to help people bond and have fun!
  

The names are just for fun, of course, but each one represents an important role in keeping things running! Thanks for reading so much! (It's good for the engineers! Yes, Kevin, Howard, and Irene, I'm talking to you guys)

Here's a video of the push-up contest from two Fridays ago, when people came over and we played games. Not sure why we had a push-up contest, nor why it was 4 guys and a girl. But it sure is fun, especially Justin's quip at the 1:45 mark.

Congratulations on your Baptism, Mike!

Mike
Originally uploaded by Kevan & Jenny

Mike got baptized this past Sunday during Gracepoint's worship service. We heard his story (as well as Albert's, Kim's, and Anne's) and rejoiced together over how his life has changed. What a happy day.

Also, guest appearances by Magnet Man and Bad Apple were made at the Open House following the service. The Open House was our annual "Come & See" sort of event, where each ministry group set up their booth, showing pictures and information so people could get familiar with all the different arms, legs, and wings of our community of faith.

Plenty of barbecue, plenty of sun, and even a Sierra Lodge booth where participants take the proffered hammer and try their skill at banging in nails with the least amount of hits. Bend a nail and you're disqualified. Check out the video:

Junior Discipleship Retreat at Gracepoint Berkeley

Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang

It's an annual thing (starting this year) for the juniors to head up to Sierra Lodge during the summer and have a discipleship retreat with Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang. It's a nice getaway from Berkeley, and as beautiful as campus is during the summer, it's just not the same as going to the mountains, rivers, lakes, and meadows of the Sierras.

Pastor Ed Kang teaching archery

About 50 of us--all the juniors of Gracepoint Fellowship Church involved in discipleship classes--took off from Berkeley on Friday afternoon. We arrived (after stopping by In-N-Out) around 9:30. After the requisite registration stuffs, we sat down for a guys-dominated game of King Kong Shower (yes, we crushed the sisters), and then each wrote out one truth, one lie. It was one way to get to know one another, laugh a little, and for names to attach themselves to faces. For many people, it was their first time seeing all their classmates in one room. Last year's Gracepoint Live seemed like a massive throng of people, but this was a lot cozier, and it was a real opportunity to see who our "partners in the gospel" were.

We listened to Tony Campolo's "Seize the Day" message, as well as Bill Hybell's "5 Tests of Leadership". Together with Philippians 1 and the message on Isaiah 40, we were filled to bursting with a sense of calling for our lives to reveal the glory of the Lord as we fill the valleys and flatten the hills in our own hearts.

Singing How Great Thou Art at the Lake

There was a bunch of other stuff we did... organize the basement full of tools, clear the hillside of combustible material, string bows and shoot at our own archery range (2 sisters hit the bulls-eye... no brothers--although Daniel, infamous author of Dis-Gracepoint, hit a granite rock), race on kayaks, throw each other into the water, sing Les Mis, hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, eat good food, have a lot of brownies, use Sierra Lodge rental Nalgenes, miss the Boreal exit, get worked by mosquitos, have our own Sunday Worship Service with college student band, sing How Great Thou Art at the lake, sing all of Beauty and the Beast and The Sound of Music with Emily & HG7, and more. What a list of stuff! Can't do all of that at Berkeley, Gracepoint Juniors! Only at Sierra Lodge!

We had a great time. And, more seriously, I'm very thankful we had this opportunity to reflect on the trajectory of our lives, and how we want to grow as Christ-followers together in the upcoming year.

Thanks to all the juniors, Hannah (who took care of all the food), Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang (for all the messages, challenge, encouragement, and inspiration), Ben (for taking care of the whole trip, not to mention the rides), Daniel (for laughs), and all the other brothers and sisters of Davis Waypoint and Berkeley Gracepoint Fellowship Church who helped build Sierra Lodge so great times like this can happen!

NorthLoop bible study & Worldview

Worldview Camp 2008 is happening right now, and Dr. John Bloom is speaking to the attendees even as I write this. I'm heading down to Monterey this afternoon, and will be giving my talk tomorrow. Please pray for me! I'll be gone until Saturday, and will return w/ the rest of the Worldview folks.

As for this Friday, dinner will be served at NorthLoop at 6:30 pm, and then all college department bible study will happen after that.

John C. left for China this past week. Daniel S. finished his PESI program at Tsinghua, and is in Tianjin now, serving an orphanage w/ some of the other PESI program students. The Rowland Heights juniors finished their Taiwan trip, and I think people are starting to trickle back in time for Session C.

I went to Sierra Lodge last week for SLT (Servant Leadership Training) retreat w/ Pastor Ed and Kelly. It was a really special time, and I'll post some pictures in a little bit. We had Sunday Service together, and then went to the Truckee River on the last day, where we got on rafts and boats and had a water brawl.

Sierra Lodge Trip: 4/25 - 4/26

A few of us left for Sierra Lodge on Friday night and came back Saturday night. I can not say much about the drive over there because I knocked out the first minute we drove off. After settling in, unpacking and introducing everyone, we saw some hilarious Manny videos. Some of these videos are better left unseen (football Korean drama one)! Afterwards, we played games with a bunch of snacks (kimchi chigae, chips, chili) starting with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. We split into teams of six and sad to say, my team was eliminated after getting the very first four questions wrong. We thought that a Blondie’s pizza slice was cheaper than a small Yogurt Park but we did not listen to the crucial piece of information that it was a Blondie’s “pepperoni” pizza slice which is actually $3.50! Then we had some harder and more serious questions such as naming all the devotions since January and message series since September. We then played a game of Subjective Bingo and this is when everything got interesting. Here are some highlights of what we saw:

• John Cai’s version of martial arts.
• Brandon Tsai’s break dancing that entailed moon-walking and Styrofoam.
• Mike Kim getting beat by one of the sisters eating a slice of bread in a minute.
• Nick Yoo’s version of Manny’s hammer dance.
• Derrick Chen’s amazing piano piece.
• John Cai juggling tangerines while speaking in his old man voice

The next morning, we had breakfast and started the day with the word of God. Manny gave the Bible study on Psalm 23 but before we did that, we split into our teams again and had to come up with a way to present Psalm 23 creatively. And of course, we shared among our groups. Some of these presentations were very meaningful and moving such as Ben Park’s group, some entailed acting like Brandon’s and Howard’s group and others just were ridiculous such as my group that included rapping, acting, imitating Wenjie, mocking Brandon and being flat out gross. If you are dieing to know what these actually looked like, Roy Lo got it all on video! Afterwards, of course, Manny gave his message on Psalm 23 going through each verse and focusing on the restlessness of our lives as a result of our fears and anxieties and having a personal Lord to guide us.

We then went on a short, leisurely hike in the nice sunny weather. Before we went on the hike, however, some of the freshman (Isaac and Nick) gave Manny a t-shirt that said “2 Young 2 Care.” Manny obviously was flattered by this gift because he ended up wearing it for the whole hike. We then went on the hike enjoying all the nature around us.

After talking trash about staying in the water the longest barefooted (like at Yosemite), Manny challenged all of us to do it with him. Having experienced this already, the people from our group were pretty confident that we could hold Manny off. We all took off our socks and jumped into the water, which happened to be warmer than the Yosemite water. Manny, however, could not take the pain any longer and jumped out within the first minute. Surprisingly, the sisters were holding on really well and even Sunny was able to stay in the water the whole time! Manny was shocked and amazed at this sight and in the end, he was left speechless. Then, we all headed towards the picnic area to eat our lunches. A bunch of the brothers gathered on this little island located between the creek to eat. To get across, you had to leap (not jump) across some slippery rocks. All of us made it across but Manny, wanting to join “the boys,” attempted this for himself. On the very first step, Manny slips immediately and falls straight into the creek. Manny rushed out soaked with his drenched sandwich in his hand and a look of shame on his face! After this unfortunate experience, Manny stayed on the other side and ate with the sisters in shame occasionally asking us “how are your lunches over there?!” This is when you truly know that Manny is beginning to join the realms of the elderly.

We then all spent some time together in the outdoors playing volleyball and throwing a frisbee and football. At this point, you would think that Manny took on enough embarrassment for one day. But, NO, he asks for more by challenging us to a football game. With Wenjie, Aaron, FX (new sophomore we met) and Roy on his team, Manny took on the position of quarterback which resulted in multiple interceptions. Our team consisting of John, Howard, Ben, Henry and Mike had no problem taking it down field with a no huddle and quick plays. Our team eventually won 21-7 and Manny again, was left speechless and in shame.

We went back to the house, cleaned up and headed back home. Before we got back to Berkeley, we stopped by In N’ Out to eat dinner. Overall, the trip was super fun and amazing!

News in these parts

Here's what's happening this week:

• For those of you going to Sierra Lodge, meet at Anna Head West parking lot w/ all your stuff at 6:30pm. If you need more info, give Ben P. a call.
• Those of you staying in Berkeley, we'll have Homegroup bible study in Berkeley at the Rowland Heights guys' apartment: 2519 Parker St. #102. We'll start with dinner at 6:30pm, and then study Psalm 23, and hang out afterwards.
• If you need a computer science internship this summer, let me know right away. One of the a2f staff just told me about it and I can refer you to him for more info.
• Sunday is baptism! Steve Choi & Brian Chang from our homegroup are getting baptized. It starts at 4pm, @ Willard Middle School.
• A reminder that the deadline for Joyland volunteer signups is quickly approaching. I believe Impact volunteer signups for the summer and next year have passed... but I suspect that if you earnestly apply, you won't be refused.

K1 Sierra Lodge trip, 4/25-26

Koinonia 1 Sierra Lodge trip this weekend, Friday to Saturday (4/25-26). Sign up online so we know who can make it and can plan for the most important part... food.

For those of you sticking around Berkeley, don't worry. You won't be forgotten. We'll do something too... but more info later.

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.

Taco Truck Wednesday

Last week, because we moved smallgroup to Thursday night, a bunch of guys came over on Wednesday. Since Jenny was already gone to the retreat, it was just Abigail and I, and a whole bunch of barbarians: a couple frosh, sophomores, and even a senior and staff. We decided against cooking, and sent a scout team to the taco truck in downtown Oakland, which turned out fantastic.

Afterwards, we played Bang. Wenjie the sheriff thought he'd introduce some fear into the game and put out a dynamite, only to have it explode on himself at the first draw. From there, it was pretty much downhill as the outlaws (myself included), decimated the rest of the field: renegades, deputies, and sheriff. They didn't stand a chance. It helped to stifle everyone's restlessness and get people serious about studying.

In addition to the drama of studying, doing problem sets, and writing papers, the other drama of the night was taking care of Abigail. It turned out alright.

Also, thank you for praying for those of us who went on the staff retreat this past weekend. We had a wonderful time with Pastor Ed and Kelly and the rest of the staff at our new Sierra Lodge (I'm trying to figure out how we can get a slot and head up there as a homegroup in the new year!). I was really encouraged and strengthened by the time together, and renewed my own commitment to honor God with my life.