International Graduate Student Ministry – Gracepoint Berkeley

It’s hard to say good-bye to 2009 without recounting the memorable, action-packed and snow-filled Sierra Lodge trip that took place in November 2009. It’s hard to describe the event in words, but hopefully you can get a picture of the trip by looking at the photos above and the video clips below.

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It would be an understatement to say that we had fun on this LA trip to finish out the year. It was one of the most memorable trip for me because I got to have so much fun with the IGSM members in LA for three days. Some of us drove down to LA from the Bay Area on December 25th. We stayed at our members’ parents’ houses, which reduced the cost as well as allowed us spend more time together.

We went to Disneyland on the 26th and spent a whole day there. Disneyland was indeed the magic kingdom, in which we got to get on rides and watched various shows. Here is a clip of a few of us taking the ride called “Big Thunder.”

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If you’ve been to Friday Bible Studies you know that our post bible study activities are limited to Barrows Hall.  We have had trips to Fenton’s or SF but that’s a rare treat. Two weeks ago we decided it was time for a change. We divided into teams and ran out, literally, into the night for our very first photo scavenger hunt!

Ok so what exactly is a photo scavenger hunt, you ask?

The scavenger hunt is basically a game where people, either individuals or teams, are given a list of items or activities they have to do (all free things) to accomplish. Whoever comes back first or within the allotted time wins. Except in our case, people were given a list of places to find on campus and take photographs as a team…some of the pictures turned out to be hilarious. Here are some of the highlights. Read more »

For the third part of the Connect series, we filled up  110 Barrows Hall, the room we will use for the rest of the semester. I was personally very surprised to see the hallway outside filled with people, pizza, and conversation- and all before 6:30pm. We started by watching our first video about Peter and the lab experiment and then an awesome video about a grad students fluctuating self-worth as he interacts and compares himself with the people around him. Dr. Chul Kim gave a message along the same lines about how we view people in our lives.  You can listen to it here:

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It was a really fun one-day tour around San Francisco on Monday (8/10) with the new friends that we have met through dinners and airport pickups. The weather was perfect. Although the trip was not exhaustive in terms of the number of sites that we visited, We hit several famous spots including Fisherman’s Wharf (and had clam chowder for lunch), Lombard Street (and the flowers were blooming), Golden Gate Bridge, and Golden Gate Park.

The IGSM Girls & Garlic: A Match Made in Gilroy…  Ten of us drove down to Gilroy, CA to attend the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival.  We sampled a ton of yummy food, including such items as garlic ice cream (quite edible) and garlic kettle corn (sweet crunchiness with a zing!).  You can probably tell which of us went by our sun tan and garlic breath!

After last Sunday’s home church services, the Alameda home church and the Berkeley home church in ISM had a friendly soccer match in the Godfrey Park of Alameda. Weather was perfect. The winning team would get free yogurt or boba drink from the losing team.

I don’t have detailed stats of all the players in these two teams. But suffice to say that both teams were pretty even skill-wise since the Berkeley home church was without two of their powerful players, Jon and fantheflame. Anyway, here is a quick run-down on what happened (Team Alameda = Alameda home church, Team Berkeley = Berkeley home church):

Team Alameda quickly scored a goal at 5 minutes from the start of game, 0-1.

In response, Team Berkeley quickly bounced back through a penal kick to tie the game at 1-1.

20 minutes into the game, Team Berkeley scored again to take the lead at 2-1.

End of first half.

Both churches looked significantly tired, but Team Alameda took advantage of Team Berkeley’s weak back field and scored the last goal in regulation with 5 minutes left to tie the game at 2-2.

Going straight into penalty kick to determine the winner, the two teams tied at 3-3 after 5 rounds of penalty kick. The goalies on both teams put on a great show in defending their goals, allowing for only one goal from each team.

It was the sisters’ turn to shoot for penalty kick at the Sudden Death round. Team Alameda scored the final goal to put the game away with the final score of 3-4.

It was a great game. And Team Berkeley treated Team Alameda to Quickly for yogurt and boba drink. I look forward to a rematch in the future.

The photo album below includes some really cute and funny baby pictures. Hope you will enjoy them.

On July 3rd, another group of ISM brothers went to Santa Cruz for fishing. I heard from Chul that they worked very hard and caught about 34 fish. I did not believe it until I saw the pictures. I was sad that they did not bring back any of their catch because I love fresh fish (yum!!!). But I am glad that they all had a great time!

Last week, we enjoyed our International Student Ministry home worship service of Gracepoint Berkeley. We listened to Del Tackett’s lesson on theology, “Who Is God?” And he challenged us all to be theologians, people who study God, and we can do it through the Bible. We might even be able to say like him in the future, “I love El Qanna”. (which means jealous God)

Afterward, we played a round of ultimate frisbee with both home churches–yes, the Alameda folks actually drove out for the festivities. The team with Jon Yen won–he is a force of nature–but it was a close 5-4 game, and it was a load of fun. We hope to do this regularly. And after running around, we then went out to Yogurtland for customized and yummy frozen yogurt.

Join us this week for Week 5 of the Truth Project and a sweet time of fellowship after! 10:30am, usual time and place.

And so, that’s exactly what we did at our Sierra Lodge Snow Trip during Spring Break!  Instead of our normal Friday Bible study, we had a smaller, cozier group of people who came…  and we resolved to have fun.  Now you might be wondering how we did that.

First, we arrived Friday night after dinner at In-n-Out burger to play a game of King Kong Shower.  And after that, we snacked on some tasty quesadillas made by Karen and Meowmeow.  And then, at midnight, we started our Nerf Gun war…  where we shot foam darts at each other to our heart’s content.  We also played Capture the Flag–Nerf Gun style!  It was fun.  See the picture if you don’t believe me!  And right when you think its time to sleep at 2AM, we watched a Live Free and Die Hard.

After sleeping at 4:30AM, we woke up to a hot breakfast of breakfast burritos and eggs and sausage.  After some DT time, we headed out to the snow, where we made snow men…  and had a snow battle.  (It snowed beautifully for 2 hours, what else are we supposed to do with nice snow other than throw it at each other?)  Yes, I buried Jesse in the snow 4 times.  Yes, Chul buried Travis 3 times.  The older guys had a field day with these younger brothers who are supposed to be stronger and faster.  

And after that..  after you thought we were tired, we sledded for another 2 hours.  Some brave souls, like Amy, actually took the boogie board face first instead of the softer inner tube ride down our new sled run.  And somehow, we made it back to the Lodge for Marinara meatball sandwiches for a really really late lunch…  and then we headed down.

So if you’re kicking yourself for not coming, we hope you can join us next year.

Last week, we split up into smaller groups for post-Bible Study activities. Karen and I led a group of 12 people at Helen’s place to bake cookies and to play games. Some of the sisters got really creative in making shapes with the cookie dough. In the picture, Helen and Jade made a huge Doremon cookie. After it expanded in the oven, its chubby hands and feet reminded us of Baby Jonathan. Some of the sisters had a lot of fun making other shapes, while the rest of us played Clue and Bang!. The game of Bang! was quite intense due to the fact that Helen and Jenny pulled a stunt move that confused just about everyone in the game. It was a great game! I heard that other smaller groups had a lot of fun as well: one group went to Twin Peaks in San Francisco; another group made crepes and fondue; and, another group hung out at Ranch 99. Join us for our post-Bible study activity. We will be going to mini-golf this Friday (10/10).