Tag Archives: chinese graduate student

IGSM Retreat Speaker – Dr. Zhengrong Zhu

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Edward 17 e1267826776384 150x150 IGSM Retreat Speaker Dr. Zhengrong ZhuDr. Zhengrong Zhu serves as the General Advisor of the Beijing Haidian Church’s University Student Fellowship, the first official college Christian group in all of China, where he advises and trains student leaders in theology and ministry.  Prior to that, Dr. Zhu started the Beijing Cedar Church with other university faculty members, serving as the Chairman and Elder, and helped to grow Cedar Church to 200 members.  He was invited in 2005 to Washington D.C. by the U.S. Congress for the 53rd National Prayer Breakfast as an official guest from the Chinese house church movement.

Dr. Zhu was born in Jiangsu, China and received his B.S. in Chemistry from Nanjing University.  He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in Food Science and Nutrition in 1993.  It was during this time that he became a Christian and was baptized at Amherst Chinese Christian Church.  He furthered his Christian training at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a well-regarded Bible Institute.  After completing his studies, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Viva Life Science in Costa Mesa, CA, where he published a research paper in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry.

Dr. Zhu is married and has 2 children. In 1999, he returned to Beijing because of the great need for trained Christian ministers in China, giving up his U.S. green card, which he had held for over 10 years.

We are excited to have Dr. Zhu share from the Bible and his experiences at our Annual Retreat!  Sign up for the retreat here.

From Course 101 to Baptism Sunday

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gracepoint berkeley fall baptism From Course 101 to Baptism SundayThis past weekend was Baptism Sunday at Gracepoint Berkeley.  Brothers Allen and Eric (not biologically related) were baptized, and Eric gave his testimony (again) during the worship service.  Hearing once again at how God worked in his life, bringing him to Berkeley for 1 year for a masters, and how he learned about sin and his need for the cross in that period of time was really powerful.  Indeed, it validates everything that we are striving for at IGSM: impacting international students with the gospel in the short window of time that they are studying here at America.  We also had a chance to celebrate with them by taking photos, presenting them with gifts–flowers from the sisters and NIV Life Application Study Bibles from the brothers, and giving them a warm hug was a very special time.

gracepoint baptism course 101 From Course 101 to Baptism SundayPersonally, it was very impactful for me because I’ve gotten a front row seat to see God change these two brothers’ lives and hearts in the 1 year they’ve been here.  I remember going on an SF outing with them 1 year ago.  I had no idea then that these two would be taking Course 101: Christian Foundations (you can sign up here!) with me and Jesse.  During C101, I saw them think about their lives more seriously and conclude that the gospel is true–and in the process, they had personal encounters with God.  I was so thankful to see them up there Sunday, and I can testify that God is good.  If you missed Baptism Sunday, be sure to congratulate them when you see them!

LBNL Moon Festival Outing

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3977814489 904f561348 m LBNL Moon Festival OutingAfter our Friday Forum message entitled, “Why Am I So Stressed?”, we headed out to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to enjoy the view…  and relieve some stress.  (also known as relax)  It was a perfect day to head up to LBNL as the clouds and fog were nowhere to be found–we had a perfect view of Berkeley, San Francisco, and the Bay Bridge.  And it was all perfectly lit up by a perfectly full moon!  It was a gorgeous view, and so we took a lot of photos from the LBNL plaza overlooking the view. Continue reading →

Graduations 2009… congratulations to our (former) grad students!

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graduations2009 thumb Graduations 2009… congratulations to our (former) grad students!This post is a bit late, but it’s still worth remembering all the graduations that took place last month because graduation is a significant milestone. Last month, we celebrated Ted, Betty, Diana, Hui, and Sara’s graduations with their families and friends. We pray for these graduates that they will experience God’s leading and provision as they begin the next chapter of their career. Congratulations! 

Baptism April 2009

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Praise the Lord, Chin-Long, Holly, and Howard were baptized at Gracepoint Fellowship Church to symbolize their new life in Christ. We celebrated God’s work in their lives and heard their salvation testimonies.

GSWN was a blast!

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For those of you who missed our Graduate Student Welcome Night, I wanted to fill you in on what happened.  The night was a lot of fun, and we got to meet many new friends who were graduate students and visiting scholars.  In fact, there were 130+ people there that night!  Which makes this event our biggest GSWN ever.

dsc 0086 GSWN was a blast!Jisup introduced a brand new icebreaker game to ISM as well: table boxing.  Its not the same as table tennis.  But you do get to wear gloves…  oven mitts to be exact.  In this hilarious game, each table is trying to open a gift wrapped box.  But only 1 person at a time is allowed to do so, and that person has to wear oven mitts.  It was a lot of laughs!  And for the lucky winners (which happened to be my table), the prize was DVDs from Gracepoint Fellowship Church’s “Gracepoint Live” production.  We also played a game called “That’s Not Funny”…  but I won’t spoil it because we may be playing this one again some time soon!

dsc 0132 GSWN was a blast!We also had an interesting skit about 4 graduate students at an airport.  Josiah played the guy who was just going to graduate school, but didn’t know what he wanted to do.  We had Mr. Boogle show up again…  Changcheng reprised his role from last year.  Mr. Boogle is the guy who wants to network and build a global empire: but needs grad school training.  Frederik did an amazing job as the environmentalist, with a stern face that we normally don’t see on him.  And finally, Yiguang played the cool guy looking for romance, and the girl of his dreams in graduate school.  And the ending says it all for everyone in graduate school: “I’ll find it…  when I get there.”  Well, we at ISM hope that you can find what you’re looking for right here.

dsc 0144 GSWN was a blast!We then had a 30 minute Bible study from Chul about the call of Abraham in Genesis 12, where we got to learn that success in God’s eyes is to become a blessing to others.  The final piece of the program was a special song from our newly minted ISM band.  But for now, it’s only a 1 time performance…  we hope to see them back soon.  In case you can’t tell, that’s Howard on keyboard, Tony on guitar, Jon on bass, and Eliah on drums.

If you missed it this year, we have another Graduate Student Welcome Night coming up…  but not until next year.

Graduate Student Welcome Night 08 Message

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We kicked off our semester series on Abraham’s Journey at our Graduate Student Welcome Night. In the call of Abraham by God, we see something counterintuitive: God blesses Abraham so that he can be a source of blessing to the nations. We often think that our personal happiness is the most important thing in life. But from the Bible, we see that blessing really isn’t about our own self-centered agendas—it’s all about being a source of blessing to others around us. That’s how God made us to be.

Listen:
 

Graduate Student Welcome Night 2008

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Graduate Student Welcome Night was the biggest event of the year! We started with a delicious BBQ dinner, followed by some great music, a fun video, and a thought-provoking message. Did we forget to mention that we had a LOT of fun in the process?

And in case you were wondering what ice breakers we played, the funniest one was called “table boxing”. Imagine trying to open a gift wrapped box while wearing oven mitts. If you can’t, then you can see why this game was hilarious. Many people fumbled with their boxes for a long time.

If you missed GSWN, don’t worry. You can check out the pictures… and if you still want to know more about ISM, feel free to check out our weekly Bible studies! We still have great food, music, and a thought provoking message there too.

English Class: 4th Year Anniversary

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On the way to English class, I was trying to remember how many years that International Student Ministry has been holding our English Class: Effective Communication for Success. Maybe it’s age or  the fact that every year is so filled with great memories but I had to check my pictures to count the number of years we have been conducting the English class. This year we have many firsts: dsc 0159 thumb English Class: 4th Year AnniversarySharon is not the only certified TESOL teacher, but also Carolyn. Thanks to her, the material has been refined and expanded. Sara is a PhD student in English- how fitting! We also have two teachers, Alex and Eebeen, from our visiting scholars ministry, part of the Praxis group of Gracepoint Fellowship Church. This year, in addition to our session at Barrows Hall, we are holding another session at the UC Village Community Center.dsc 0143 thumb English Class: 4th Year Anniversary

The first Sunday at Barrows Hall, we had 47 new students from all over the world: Turkey, Israel, Chile, France, Japan, Korea, China, and more. In my group, in addition to me teaching English and word stress, I learned about English courses in other countries, how prevalent British English is, and the popular culture in other countries. In Israel, they start learning English in third grade. I am learning as well.

Pizza Ice Cream Games (PIG) Night 2008

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At ISM we like to throw in some pizza, ice cream, fun games and great company to create our very own tradition. So what happens when we mix all these things together? We get PIG (Pizza, Ice Cream, Games) NIGHT!

Here are some photos of our second annual PIG Night. It was a great time to get to know fellow graduate students, especially for those who were new to UC Berkeley AND are an international graduate student.

We played a group game where we broke into random groupings of people as an icebreaker. Then we had teams come up with a name, cheer, flag, and mascot. And to top it all off, we made teams build towers out of some random materials. Just check out the photos!