Koinonia Christian Campus Fellowship – UC Berkeley Club

Sierra Glory from Daniel on Vimeo.

The challenge: The guys must charge up the steep, soft hill, capture the sleds and ride down to glory. But the girls, frosh guys, and frosh bro staff are fiercely resisting them with snow projectiles. The result is some glorious fun.

Last Sunday, we witnessed yet another joyous baptism en masse as 20 members publicly declared their lifelong dedication to the Lord. Lindsey Hong from our very own homegroup was one of this lucky score of brothers and sisters. I remember when I first encountered Lindsey in my freshmen year, I could hear her loud intimidating witch-like cackle before even knowing what she looked like. All I’m gonna say is, praise the Lord God Almighty for her miraculous transformation. But in all seriousness, I was truly blessed by the vastly different testimonies that were shared, and of course, the ceremonial dunkings . As each baptism candidate awkwardly half-floated toward the mic without any sense of refinement or grace and publicly declared the rest of their life to the Lord, I thought back to each person’s life before God and experienced an inexpressible joy wash over me as I was powerfully reminded once again of the impossible life-changing power of our heavenly Father.

One of my favorite songs aptly captures the essence of this joy of baptism.

I said you gotta leave, you gotta promise me
It’s the beginning of my end, you gotta promise me
How can a holy God renew a wicked Pharisee
I’m saying I’m like Peter in the boat, so just depart from me
It seems I’m destined for doom like ancient prophesy
And in the dark I’m consumed, it’s just too much for me
With sin in full bloom, my gloom booms by the full moon
And I’m thinking to myself, ‘how can You rescue me?’

My before and after
I can’t but sing
My before and after
I’ll sing praises to my King
My before and after
Here’s the anthem, let it ring
One love, two arms, three scars
Draw us to where You are
No one is too far for You to save a heart

Then in the darkness of this room, You snuck up next to me
You put your hand upon my wound and whispered ‘rest in me’
And there I stepped out of the tomb and into destiny
The rest they say is history
Your grace is such a mystery

I got a name change
And that’s the strange thing
‘Cause I was once stained
But now I’m called saint

-Before and After by Jimmy Needham

Greetings!

For the past two weeks, we have been having bible studies by home group in Alameda. It’s definitely a new change from our large 260+ people gatherings on campus, but so far it’s been really good! We have the flexibility to study the word of God in cozier groups in an interactive way.

This past week, after a yummy hot-link-spaghetti dinner made by Jenn and some of the senior girls, we had separate brothers/sisters bible study. I think the one of the big lessons from the night for the girls (and for the guys too, of course) was that we really need to keep the word of God in our hearts, to help and protect us as we go through various issues in our lives.

Once the guys came to join us for fellowship time, we watched a few videos of the Olympics. For some reason, many people in our home group wanted to watch videos such as “Top 5 Worst Jumps”, “Top 5 Wacky Moments”, and the video clip in which an athlete from a small Asian country collided with another athlete from the VERY SAME small Asian country on the ice. We watched a couple of more uplifting videos at the end also, don’t worry.

We then took the much anticipated Myers Briggs personality test!

The self-proclaimed “Mother Teresa” team, the INFJs.

Our biggest personality group was ISFJ, ISTJ and ENFP! We had a fun time reading one another’s personalities, quirks…for some, the descriptions were EERILY accurate. But other people had some questionable characteristics, like Wynn being an adventurous spirit who loves motorcycles. Obviously the Myers Briggs is not perfect.

Anyway, come join us if you haven’t done so yet!

Just wanted to show real quick the prep that we did for VDOC. The frosh and senior girls decorated cards with verses on them that we were going to give as gifts to the elderly residents. Hannah busted out her big craft bin and we got to decorate the cards with our own artistic sense! Some looked really professional!

Intense…We take this stuff seriously, ya know?

The final products! Not bad, eh??

Posing with our creations…

Don’t get me wrong, the guys helped the next day with our frames and ribbon-tying as well so they also got to partake in the joys of prep. But alas, we don’t have pictures of that night. You just have to take my word for it.

By the way, here is a sharing from one of our juniors, Lindsey, about her experience from that day:

During this year’s Valentine’s Day of Compassion, I was able to more concretely see how people really do need God’s love. I talked to one elderly woman, Janet, who shared with me parts of her life story, and I could tell that she was so bitter, hurt, and unhappy with where she ended up. She kept emphasizing to me that the facility they lived in was for people with problems, but I told her that it didn’t matter, because God loved all of us the same. I told Janet about how God can use all people for his purposes and plans and that he created everyone a certain way so that we can testify to his love for us. Janet started lamenting about how she didn’t feel that she had a purpose for her life because she was constantly in pain, laying in bed, or tired so she really didn’t see what she could do. This really made me heartbroken and so much more aware that she really needed to be loved. I told her that maybe God had a higher purpose for her, which is why she’s still here on this Earth. Even though I was going to school and it seemed as if my future was bright since I was still young, I still had one fundamental purpose for my life: To love others, the people in my life, people like Janet. It didn’t matter how old we were, how physically able we were, everyone’s purpose is still the same. After I told Janet this, her face got so much brighter, and she looked so much more alive. I told her that she had so many people around her in this home, and that she could start by loving them. She seemed so encouraged by my words and agreed with me, that her purpose for her life was to love others around her, and that she could start with her roommates. After this long exchange with Janet, I was just so amazed at how I was able to connect with Janet and use God’s word to speak truth to her. I was also amazed at how God’s love can transform people into more loving individuals, who have true purpose for their lives. From this experience, I was able to feel God’s love channeling through me to other people. I was also able to receive clarity about how it’s so true that we were created for something higher than just satisfying our inward desires and attending to only ourselves, because after I was able to impact Janet’s life, I felt joy like I’ve never felt before. I was very glad that I was able to concretely see God’s love for people, and that I had spent my Valentine’s Day sharing the gospel to people who are in need of God’s love.

PTL! Leave a comment with your own thoughts about what you learned/felt through this experience!

In acknowledgment that Valentine’s Day should be more than a celebration of romantic love, we decided to spend that day sharing God’s perfect love with people who are often overlooked and neglected.

We visited a rest home in Oakland, where we were welcomed by a small and cozy group of elderly residents.

The residents really enjoyed the songs that we sang (and the moves that we…danced?)

Wenjie gave a message from Psalm 139, reminding us that the longing we have to be completely known and loved is found in God. The residents are listening intently…

As gifts, we gave blankets with homemade cards of verses attached (thanks freshman/senior girls for decorating!) and frames with Zephaniah 3:17.

We ended the time with some more mingling and took a nice group picture:

We were so thankful to have been able to have this opportunity to share the TRUE LOVE of God with these precious people!

Last week, we had our Spring Welcome Night to welcome new friends for whom this is their first semester at Cal. Over 300 of us squeezed into VLSB and listened to our speaker Lem (welcome from Davis!) give a message on King David.

Afterwards, we headed over to Haniel’s (or Dannah’s, if you prefer) house to eat our yummy bentos, cookies, fruit, and ice cream!

Yum.

Boys lending some useful hands in the kitchen. I like it.

cooooookie.

After we stuffed ourselves, we thought it would be appropriate to just sit back and relax on the couch. JUST kidding. We did sit on the couch…but it was NOT relaxing. Why? Because we were playing the couch game! It was a competitive nice guys vs. girls game which tested our memories and helped a lot in learning one another’s names!

Intense. For some reason, Joy ended up having to guess the majority of the people. Tough job, as you can tell…

Some looked hopeful…but others…

In the end, the girls won the first game in maybe RECORD time, and we were nice enough to let the guys win the second round.

Here’s what we are doing on Friday (tomorrow!)
What: BIBLE STUDY
Where: 155 Dwinelle
When: 7:30 pm
What we’re doing after: something great with Joe and Annie’s HG @ the Y!

Seeya there!