This weekend's plans

Hey guys,

For this Friday, we're going to be having a Bible study combined with H2 (Joe and Annie's homegroup). We'll provide rides at 6pm from Anna Head West and start with a scrumptious dinner too. Contact Eddie for rides and more info.

Also, there's been a change of plans for this Saturday: because the weather has been very warm, snow has been melting and conditions are not good for sledding. So for this Saturday, we're going to have a college wide BBQ and sports with everyone from Koinonia, Kairos, and A2F! Again, we'll provide rides from Berkeley -- meet at Anna Head West at 10:15am. See you there!

Let Allen know if you have any questions!

The News for December's first week

Jenny and I spent some time on Tuesday night just reading through the scrapbook, all the words you guys wrote, and we just thank God for how He's worked in each of you this past year. We look forward to how He'll continue to lead not only our homegroup, but all of Koinonia and our church in 2009. We're grateful to God for each one of you guys.

On to the news, starting with Friday (12/5):

• 6:00pm dinners by smallgroups. Listen for more info from your smallgroup leaders.


• "This Is Your Life" Bible study at 7:45pm, First Pres. It'll be our last Koinonia Bible study of the semester.


• The last RSF Night of the semester is after bible study. Come with a change of clothes and get ready to rumble and shake out all that Finals stress!

The other big news of the week is this Sunday's baptism. Several weeks ago, Tabby was baptized along with 6 other people. We gave God thanks for how He had worked in each of their lives and celebrated together afterwards by taking a ton of pictures. And this Sunday, after the 1:30pm Worship Service (at Willard Auditorium), we'll sit down to listen to the stories of 7 more people who are getting baptized, including our very own Hugo! Be sure to be there so we can celebrate together!

In other news:

• Heads up on our annual Winter Retreat! It's the spiritual highlight of our whole year. It'll be the first weekend after school starts (1/23-1/25) and you need to sign up online! There's early bird and late bird registration...
• Joyland Christmas Celebration is an awesome annual performance put on by the kids (and all the helping adults) at Gracepoint Fellowship Church.
The children from Joyland and Impact get on stage and tell the real story of Christmas! It's one of the highlights of our calendar. To put it into perspective: think of it as a kids' GLive! It'll be on Sunday, 12/14. But if you want to help as a stagehand, prop mover, acting coach, or anything else (AND you're prepared for finals), Joyland could always use more volunteers.
• If you want to help paint Sierra Barn, there's a workday next Saturday (12/13). You can sign up online and participate in the fun!
• Sophomore discipleship retreat is 1/13-1/15. Don't miss it. Sign up online.

That's all folks. Study hard... see you Friday!

To the Driving Range

Last night, some of the guys came over. None of the sophomores (maybe because they're still reeling from their bowling defeat?) We made some quick dinner, thanked Annie profusely when she brought over extras, and then cleaned up. After dinner we crammed 9 of us into a single van and headed out to the nearby golf course: the driving range. None of us really know what we're doing when it comes to golf, but that's alright. Figured it'd still be fun and a nice way to relieve stress. Plus, the driving range is usually empty and last night was no exception. We paired up, got a couple buckets of balls each and started to whack at the balls. Mike, our in-house Tiger Woods, gave us some tips on swing, posture, form, and everything else. He's pretty good and we were impressed.

After some fun and good coaching at the driving range, we stopped by for frozen yogurt, and then sat down to study for a good hour and a half. We even had baked cookies and ice cream for brain food. Pictures from the night are online, as usual.

Forgot to mention at the driving range, we saw H.2 guys: Joe, Sean, Paul, and Newton. Here's an inspiring video from Joe showing us proper golf form:


Joe at the Driving Range from kevan on Vimeo.

But seriously, here's a video where someone actually hits the ball further than 10 feet, and does so in style.


H.1 Driving Range from kevan on Vimeo.

Koinonia - Why I Love the Olympics

This past Friday Koinonia watched the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. It is difficult to express in words what we saw, but it was a mixture of awe, wonder, excitement, and intimidation. Everyone was blown away by the sheer magnitude of the spectacle. WOW. Even people who were remotely connected to China were suddenly being filled with Chinese nationalistic pride. Needless to say, I am really excited about this year’s Olympics.

There are so many things about the Olympics that I love. There's the awe-inspiring physical skill and strength of the athletes. There's the national pride in which the athletes compete not just for themselves, but for something greater than themselves. Then there are the things in the Olympics that simply transcend sports. In history, there's Jesse Owens winning four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (embarrassing Hitler and the Nazis), the U.S. Men’s Hockey team defeating the Soviets in 1980 (inspiring America in the midst of the Cold War), and Eric Liddell refusing to run on Sunday (honoring God first above country).

A few years ago, I saw a replay of an Olympic moment from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics that impacted me. It was a simple yet memorable last-place finish by a sprinter, Derek Redmond, from Great Britain. He was one of the favorites to win the 400m dash, but collapsed in the middle of the race because he tore his hamstring. Courageously, he still tried to finish the race, but struggled. Then a figure from the stands broke through security and rushed to help Derek while Derek was weeping. They finished the race together. Who was that figure? It was his father.

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!

Hungry? Feed Yourself.

The early crew this past Friday was in charge of dinner: burritos & carnitas. We finished in about 20 minutes and decided to go to the park next door and throw around a football. What ensued was a bunch of guys throwing around the pigskin, taking advantage of the beautiful weather. Some guys ran barefoot in the grass, and others--mindful of the frequent visits by neighborhood dogs--decided to stay w/ a shoes-on policy.

The seniors joined us this Friday, which was really nice. Together, we all watched New Hope's Wayne Cordeiro's Divine Mentor message on the importance of the bible to give us God's wisdom for our lives. I think a lot of it will remember it for his very poignant line: "Hungry? Feed Yourself."

Afterwards, we went to North Loop to participate in the Impact runthru. About 9-11 guys from our homegroup are serving as either instructors, teachers, team leads, photographers, and even a sound guy (really, just a sound boy, if you ask me). We got to participate as stand-in 2nd graders. It was pretty cool.

Tug of War, caught on video

This is for the seniors, who turned to me right after they won and asked, "Did you get that on video?" This is real documentary footage from the brothers' RSF night after Gracepoint Monthly.

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.

SF Eats, Maxwell Field, GP Monthly setup

Hola.  Here's a picture of bald people for your enjoyment.  It has nothing to do with the nature of this post other than the fact that it happened this week.  These other things are happening this week.  Some of it might be of interest to you:

• Night Trip to San Francisco this Saturday evening, 3/8, for the seniors and freshmen.  We'll meet at Anna Head West at 4:30 pm, catch the sunset at the Battery, and then head into the city from there.  Bring $$ since we'll be swinging by Beard Papa's, In-n-Out, Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, Palace of Fine Arts and some other good eats.  Let your smallgroup leader know you're coming so you make sure you have a ride.
  
• Koinonia 1 in charge of setup for Gracepoint Monthly this Friday, 5:30 pm @ Willard.  We'll have food together in the courtyard after we're done.  But we need your help, so come on by.  If you can't make it, that's alright.  Just come by the start time, 7:30 pm.  Afterwards, we have Maxwell Field Night, so dress appropriately.
• Spring Break Yosemite Trip is 3/23-3/26.  Deadline to sign up is this Friday, 3/7.  You can sign up online.  There's tons of info for this, but at the risk of overburdening an already verbose post, I'll leave that info for later.  We'll dedicate a whole post to it.  If you can't wait, you can ask one of the staff.

That's it.  Props to Howard's computer for taking the awesome picture.  To all the other bald bros in our group: too bad you weren't here.