On Thanksgiving Day, Chul and Sharon invited the ISM students and friends who did not have family in the area for a yummy dinner that included turkey, ham, and the trimmings as well as chinese and korean food. Many students said that it was like their mom’s cooking.
The theme of this post is "eating," one of the most universal, highly valued, and well practiced activities here in ISM. In the season of Thanksgiving, we give thanks to God by appreciating His abundant provision in the form of food and fellowship around the dining table. 
We hosted Thanksgiving meals one after another, starting out with the English Class Thanksgiving meal, to the post-Thanksgiving Celebration dinner, to a home-style potluck dinner at Chul & Sharon’s place, 
and to the hot pot dinner hosted by Jesse, Joe and Eliah. Though I could not make it to all of them due to my family engagement, I can experience the joy of these dinners by looking at these pictures. If you missed all the dinners because you were diligently working away in your lab, I have a good news for you. You will have a second chance at Christmas. Don’t miss it!
We sang a song about why we thank God and then danced to “Veggie Tales” songs expressing why graduate students have much to be thankful for. We had a veggie funny surprise at the end.
No Thanksgiving Celebration is complete without a traditional thanksgiving dinner with turkey and all the trimmings. We had lots of friends join us.
We had lots of fun practicing for the Thanksgiving Celebration performance. We laughed, we cried, we were sore the next morning from all the dancing.
Yesterday was celebrating Thanksgiving the Gracepoint Fellowship Church way. It started out with Sunday Worship Service, in which Pastor Ed Kang taught the congregation from Psalm 73. Ensuing the message is a series of year end review video from various department. (I hope to put up the ISM one later.) AND THEN, the BIG SHOW started. Boy, "shocking" is an understatement for some of the performances. For our performance, I believe that everyone had a great time on stage. No big mistake. We videotaped it, so that we could watch it after the turkey dinner. Everyone did very well, and we had a good laugh when we watched ourselves. Not without mention is that Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber stole the show (rightfully so!).
I cannot believe that the long-awaited, highly anticipated Thanksgiving Celebration, hosted by Gracepoint Fellowship Church, is only less than 12 hours away. We have been practicing hard for this wonderful event to give thanks to God and bring joy to fellow brothers and sisters in our congregation.
I really look forward to all the performances…
This Thanksgiving, the UC Village English Class to celebrate together with a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner with turkey and all the trimmings. We met people’s friends and spouses and enjoyed the holiday together.
The rich fool was a person who many of us could easily admire: successful, practical, a good planner, and a man who wanted to enjoy life. However, God calls him a fool because he overlooked the reality of death. Even more than that, he never realized that his greed would lead to unhappiness in this life, no matter how “successful” he was. That’s because God made us to live to do good works, not to indulge our greed by material accomplishment.
Listen:
ISM participated in Gracepoint Fellowship Church’s Thanksgiving Retreat, in which we listened to many touching stories of how God impacted people’s lives through their salvation in Christ. We were also treated to Pastor Manny’s report on Gracepoint Austin. On my drive back from the retreat, Howard shared that he really appreciated Pastor Manny’s sharing because he saw how God perfectly provided everything. It was truly amazing!
For the retreat, Pastor Ed Kang and Kelly Kang had us each write up a one-page reflection on how God’s salvation work changed our lives. We shared with one another in small groups at the prayer meeting this past Tuesday. As we listen to one another’s stories of thanksgiving to God in my small group, our hearts of thanksgiving multiply.
For many international students, cooking turkey for an American Holiday like Thanksgiving can be a daunting challenge. I just wanted to pass on this great recipe from Dishgracepoint, which is a blog that includes a lot of good recipe ideas for groups of people. The recipe even includes suggestions, Q&A, and various options on how to make your Thanksgiving turkey much better… and all of the people eating your turkey even more thankful.
International Graduate Student Ministry (IGSM) is an official graduate student group at UC Berkeley. IGSM started in the fall of 2003 with the vision to help all UC Berkeley graduate students from various countries (including students from the United States) find out the true meaning and purpose of their lives through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of us also attend Gracepoint Berkeley, where Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang lead the ministry.
