Koinonia Christian Campus Fellowship – UC Berkeley Club

Believe it or not, Welcome Week events have already passed by in a dizzying blur, and we are about to start our first full week of fall semester 2011! Whether it was our daily and rowdy game times during Koinonia Kream, delicious pizza and adrenaline-pumping ultimate frisbee on VLSB lawn, or the massively awesome showings of NSWN, everyone experienced the joy of forming relationships with new people. Here’s a brief recap of some of our events!

One of our most popular events hosted during Welcome Week was the Ultimate Frisbee and Pizza, where about 60 or so students gathered on the VLSB lawn to play ultimate frisbee, then satisfy their tiredness and hunger by feasting on delicious BBQ chicken pizza provided by Pepe’s Pizza.

Don’t be fooled, most of the time, the frisbees are flying ABOVE the ground! But even if they are rolling chaotically on the ground, it makes the game that much more exciting!

On Monday, a very large number of us packed ourselves tightly into about 30 cars and drove over to the In-N-Out located on the aptly named Hegenberger street. For some out-of-staters, they experienced great emotional turmoil as they tried to decide which burger joint was better: In-N-Out from the West Coast, or Five Guys from the East Coast.

Satisfied with their burgers! Some, more than others…

For those who weren’t sure of how many people I meant by “a very large number of us”…here’s your answer! Tons of fun for everyone who joined the event…but a lot of stress for the In-N-Out employees who had to take orders for our gigantic crowd!

For those adventurous people who wanted to find the best restaurants dotted around the Berkeley landscape, the Best of Berkeley tour was perfect for their connoisseur tongues! (For those who don’t know what “connoisseur” means, look it up. ).

Hands down, Cheeseboard is one of the best pizza joints in Berkeley! (And I say this with utmost confidence and authority, but maybe I’m just biased). While the restaurant uses only vegetarian ingredients, the way they make their pizza makes it taste better than even pepperoni pizza from Costco! Make sure to try Cheeseboard while you’re in Berkeley!

Another popular event we had was our Koinonia Kream, based on the delightfully sumptuous ice cream cookie sandwiches sold at the CREAM store on Telegraph and Channing. After each person received his or her free ice cream cookie sandwich, we all sat down in groups and engaged in the wildest and most hilarious games ever. King Kong Shower and Apples to Apples, anyone?

Proudly smiling at their collapsed Jenga tower. But it’s ok, because losing a game with all of your teammates is really fun too!

Our annual Night Market, filled with delicious, free Asian foods, also attracted a great number of people to cozy Barrows Courtyard. We wrapped up the night by dividing into our dorm groups and competing in wacky contests, such as holding a 20-pound bag of rice (or even 2!) the longest!

One of the more interesting and unorthodox team games was trying to catch plastic spoons in a cup that your partner sent flying. Needless to say, we were both highly amused and vividly impressed by the catching ability of some of the freshmen.

And of course, how could we forget about New Student Welcome Night, the biggest and coolest event on campus! Hundreds of students flocked into the Pauley ballroom to attend our two showings, having a grand old time laughing at the hilarious skit, listening to the rocking praise, and giving their undivided attention to Pastor Ed, who exhorted all of us to really think about life while we’re in college. And of course, the perfectly grilled Korean BBQ ended the night on a sweet note!

The skit was wildly popular with the students and evoked tons of laughs, probably because they never expected the characters to look this wacky.

Then on Friday, we had our LIFE group kickoff! After munching on free, delicious dinner, the students herded themselves into 145 Dwinelle and listened to some juniors talk about their LIFE group experiences. We hope that a lot of you guys sign up for LIFE group! It’s never too late!

And of course, we all headed to the cold and windy city of San Francisco for a night of feasting on In-N-Out and giant ice cream scoops from Ghirardelli!

Many of us braved the Earthquake challenge, where a group of 4 friends or so ate like…3 pounds of ice cream. Literally. It was probably 10 times the size of this little malt. My group also partook in the wonderful challenge of finishing the Earthquake, but after 10 minutes of fervently stabbing our spoons into the ice cream and stuffing it our already cramped stomachs, we thought we were going to explode. Still, it was a memorable bonding experience that I’m sure we will tell our friends down the years in the future

As such a fun-filled, action-packed week came to a close and classes are starting right around the corner, I’m sure some of us were a bit sad to end the week. But don’t worry! We’re going to have a full semester with many events to come, so stay tuned and get ready for the start of a new semester!