Part I (Make sure to read Part II for some exciting news about this weekend!)

On March 7, 2010, 20 ordinary men and women got wet.

Very wet.

We are referring, of course, to Baptism Sunday.  That’s right, this past Sunday TWENTY people were baptized at Gracepoint, twelve of whom were from Koinonia.

Of those twelve, four of them were from our very own HGKJ!!!  WOOT!  Here they are.  We will go in order of age, from “youthful” to “old.”

First off is David, sophomore, whose testimony we all got to hear. Next to him is a mysterious stranger who is holding David tightly to ensure that he does not escape.

Following him, older by an entire four months, Mike.  Here he is with his leaders from freshman year, John and Ellen, plus Sangthan.

Then there’s Justin, who Mike and Jesse disapprove of.

And finally, Suzie, pictured here with Kevan, Jenny, their daughter Abigail, and their son, who we believe should be named “Jai.”  Ten points for the person who can find him!

A few more pictures…

Koinonia baptism candidates.  Steve and Suzanne snuck into the picture at the last second.

Our homegroup, HGKJ!!!  Also known as the “HG Cool.”

Afterwards, we all headed over to Buffet Town to enjoy some delicious, cheap Korean food.  This was all they had, however.  Some of us went away hungry.

No, we’re joking.  There was food.  They simply underestimated the power of Koinonia consumption capabilities.  In a word, what you see here is “domination”

But all joking aside, praise the lord for twenty new creations in Christ, brothers and sisters that God has been so faithful to.  If you missed it, the testimonies from this past sunday are here.  Looking forward to other encouraging stories in the future!

Now, on to

Part II

Brace yourselves for this one: THIS weekend, we are going on an epic, legendary, HGKJ and JE-only, OVERNIGHT GETAWAY TO SIERRA LODGE!!!  WOOOOOOT!  Warning: there will be snow.  If you want to go, sign up here.

We’ll be leaving after Friday Bible study (which, if you recall, is going to be all-Koinonia after a month of meeting by smaller groups) and returning Saturday around evening time.  Ask your leaders or somebody old for more info!  It’s gonna be awesome!  Be there, or be…studying.  Or something else probably not as fun as working people in the snow.  See you all around!

So the last few posts haven’t had that many pictures in it.  Sorry about that.  You really just can’t get a complete picture of the fun and fellowship we have without pictures.  So here they are!

Do you remember the crazy relay we had?

Leading by example

mmmmm chocolate

Hmmmmmm.. interesting.. right? Wait! There’s more!

Our Valentine’s Day of Compassion!

And last week’s Myers Briggs! Can you guess which Myers Briggs group these pictures represent?

Ok and finally our Guess who game! Last week, it seems like everyone almost got it! Great! Let’s see if all of you can get this one too.

I admit I was a little chubby as baby. My parents were constantly worried about me because I would put everything in sight in my mouth. Ex: when I was 2 I had to go to the hospital to get my stomach pumped because I drank furniture polish.

Hello! Long time no see! Hope you guys are surviving your midterms and papers.

Just wanted to let you guys know what’s been going on with our homegroup!

We’re starting a new style of bible study where we’re getting together by homegroups instead! Last week our homegroup got together in Alameda and listened to a message from Ajith Fernando who’s the leader of Youth for Christ in war torn Sri Lanka.  He gave a message on How a Pastor must Die.  Intriguing, right?  It was a timely reminder for us to develop your relationships in the body, in the church.

This week, we split up guys and girls and had our own bible studies and activities.  The girls took a Myers Briggs Personality Test and found out a lot of interesting things about each other and about ourselves! The guys had a chance to go up into the Oakland hills and take a gaze at the starry skies and Oakland city view.  It was a really cozy time of bonding and sharing and developing those relationships that Ajith Fernando encouraged us to develop.

We just got notice by the way that Ajith Fernando is actually coming to speak in April! We’ll also be having William Lane Craig the week after too!  It’s going to be a really inspiring and awesome time this April so make sure you’re going to be around to hear these precious Christian leaders speak!

Also, in the spirit of getting to know each other better, we are stealing homegroup MJ’s game of Guess Who! Thanks Homegroup MJ! Yay for stealing good ideas! Here is our first entry!

Hint: As a youth, she used to sit in the back of the church and roll her eyes and give attitude while reading magazines.

We’re starting off easy! First person who gets it, gets 2 points! Anyone after gets 1 point! At the end of the semester the winner will get a nice surprise!

We’re looking for entries from our homegroup so please submit your picture and obscure fun fact to Grace!

All I can say is wow. Yep. That’s right. Wow. End of post.

Haha! Just kidding! I’ll give you a little bit more than that!
A bunch of us headed up to Sierra Lodge on Sunday night. We had a really powerful time around the campfire in the new gazebo singing favorites like the Milk song and Let Me Shine as well as really ministering songs like He knows my name.

We ended the night with the longest Couch game ever where the guys had a really difficult time defeating the girls. I say really difficult time unbiasedly because the guys outnumbered the girls by approximately 3 times and still took a really long time to win. Ask someone who was there about Jason’s amazing redemption story. It’s quite a story.

The next morning we had a relaxing time of breakfast with sausages, scrambled eggs, yogurt with granola, toast, juice, and bagels! We reflected on the day’s DT passage 2 Cor 10 and immediately started to create wordly weapons, meaning snowballs!
The weather was just right because it was definitely not cold except for the snow that was flying everywhere! After the chaos of the sleds and snowballs, we organized into 2 games of class on class Capture the Flag. The first time the sophomores won in a surprisingly swift victory. In my opinion it was because they just basically stood around the flag waiting to tackle anyone. The second game the freshmen won with much tackling. A notable moment was when Isaiah was trying to take the freshmen and Joe S, from homegroup JA, in an effort to stop him, was flipped. Imagine Joe getting flipped. Quite a sight.  Hmmmm… the picture link broke.. so I guess you have to use your imagination now…

We ended with amazing Korean beef radish soup and headed back to Berkeley where we got stuck in traffic and basically almost took the same amount of time to go down to LA, but as one sister put it, “It was worth it!”

Hello! Here’s a little flashback for you all.

Over the winter break, a bunch of our brothers and sisters went to several mission trips: Cambodia, Mexico, and Taiwan.  In Taiwan, it’s common to see student groups doing a cheer of some sort to catch people’s attention to come to their event.  Here’s ours for our Christmas Celebration.

Can you name the brothers and/or sisters in this video that are from our homegroup?

Here’s a recap on the freshman dinner that happened on Wednesday.

It can only be described as awesome.  The food was was so delicious with a homemade sauce made by Esther W from JE.  There was enough for everyone to happy and satisfied! Then we went through a rousing game of modified charades (anyone know what we’re calling this game?).  Everyone was cracking up with the very characteristic engineers who before the Taboo round were pulling far ahead, but once it came to words, there was only silence, as well as an Brother J’s guesses of Jack-in-the-Box for every single word and Sister V from homegroup JE’s hilarious gesturing during guessing.  My description really doesn’t do it justice, just ask anyone who was there, how fun it was!

At the end, we ended with yummy pound cake with strawberries a la mode and a special version for Patti & Kevin from homegroup JE for their birthdays!

Here’s our group picture.  (I’ll post another post with more pictures.)

A heads up for the freshmen on something you don’t want to miss out!

We’re having a Frosh Dinner this Wednesday at Dana House with Homegroup JE!  We’re having a homecooked meal (don’t you miss that from home?).  It’ll be a great chance to just get together, catch up, and reconnect!  A sure chance for some good fun

Here’s the info again just in case you missed it the first time.
When: 7pm, Wed
Where: Dana House is at 2440 Dana St.

If you guys missed out on winter retreat, boy, you really missed out! It was such a powerful time of testimonies, bonding, messages, and good spiritual and non-spiritual food!

Here are some pictures from the retreat!

I’m so excited for this new year and how we will continue to spur each other on to concretely apply all of our commitments made at the retreat.