International Graduate Student Ministry – Gracepoint Berkeley

In preparation for the new school year, the graduate students in the International Student Ministry gather together at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary for a one-day prayer retreat last Saturday. In the morning, Chul gave us two messages from the story of Ruth and the story of Elijah and Elisha in the Bible to address the issue of overcoming inconvenience in order to experience the provision and power of God. Several members in our group gave stories about how they experienced God after they pushed through the inconveniences that they faced. Each story was unique; yet, every one of them testified to the common truth that God would mature our faith and trust in Him through our struggles against the inconveniences in our lives. I was blessed and challenged by Chul’s messages and these powerful testimonies.

In the afternoon, we reviewed our past efforts in meeting and serving new international graduate students. Several of the staff members gave PowerPoint presentation that summarized what we had done in the previous years. And then, we had broke up into small groups to discuss what we could do in the future to better serve the international graduate students’ community. We had a lot of ideas. And I cannot wait to implement them, so that we can better meet the needs of the incoming international graduate students in the fall semester of 2009.