Koinonia Christian Campus Fellowship – UC Berkeley Club

Hey everyone! How’s your summer so far? For the sophomores who are in the Bay Area, we took a class trip this past weekend to the beautiful Pacifica Beach!

We were greeted with some high waves that crossed our paths and created a temporary panic. (Made us restrategize how we were going to reach our special spot.) While tossing the frisbee around, we lost 2 in the water but our 2 fearless sophomore bros fished them out. And, we had an amazing time playing the mother of all ultimate football. (Ultimate football = Ultimate frisbee – frisbee + football. You do the math. =) )

This epic showdown must have lasted for hours without any breaks. All we can say is that the sophomore class has some athletic sisters. (Other classes, you better watch out at the next sports night ’cause sophomores are taking over!) While people were running, the grill was firing.

Thanks to some students and staff, a yummy meal of grilled hot links, juicy pineapple sausages, piping hot clam chowder, toasted rolls, and caramelized onions were in the works that totally hit the spot. Afterwards we wrapped up the night with a cozy time around the bonfire together right on the beach, singing a couple good ol’ tunes and watching the sunset. A great, memory-making time for sure. We were also reminded of Psalm 1 and encouraged to be rooted in God’s word like a tree planted by streams of water. Sophomore year = prime time to build and deepen relationships with God and with each other! We also took a moment to pray for all our brothers and sisters not here for the summer, but are probably in nice, warmer climates. We miss you guys!

Don’t worry, there’ll definitely be more beach bonfire bonanza’s in the future. In the meantime, drop a line and tell us what you guys have been up to in the warm sun We miss you! (And check out the photos section for more pics on this trip.)

This past Saturday, while the sophomores were playing in the snow in Sierra Lodge, the juniors were playing in the sand at Pacifica. It was a great time of hanging out, playing sports, and enjoying the outdoors before all the homework we’ve been procrastinating on catches up to us.

We started off the day playing beach volleyball. For many of us, this was our first time playing (or our first time playing in a long while), so Ray demonstrated for us how to hit a volleyball correctly.

And for some reason, I was included in this picture. I think I was looking at someone tossing a football or frisbee or something.

So we set up the volleyball net and starting playing. Apparently, the net was too low because, according to an unnamed brother, even short people like Steph could spike the ball.

And of course, tall people like Will could spike the ball too.

After playing beach volleyball, I thought that we were going to play football. We split up into 2 teams, and I was relieved to see that Isaiah was on my team, especially since Dereck was on the other team and football on the beach usually involves tackling people. To my [pleasant] surprise, we ended up playing frisbee instead.

Despite recently turning…older, Ray can still play.

After our fun time our sports, some of us were pretty tired.

Being tired is no good, but being tired and hungry is even worse, so after our sports time we had food time: sandy clam chowder, hot links and dinner rolls. We would have had s’mores too, but we were short on time because we had to take pictures first…pictures like these.

I think we’re ready for G-Live.

The sisters didn’t want to copy our awesome pose, so they went for a more normal picture.

(Except for Myra of course.)

After picture taking time, it was time to go home. Hopefully we’ll have another trip like this soon, for all the people who weren’t able to make it out this time!

Here’s a picture recap of our exciting end-of-the-year ice skating event! We skated, did fun relays (including a contest where the slowest was the winner), played Ninja-on-Ice, and just had some memorable moments to end a great semester.

“Egg brain!” “Egg skull!” “Egg cranium!”…the word was actually “egghead.” As I fruitlessly tried to describe this word to the group around me during a hilarious game of Catchphrase, I couldn’t help but be thankful for being able to play this game with Berkeley students because only with Berkeley students could “egg cranium” come up and we could all laugh so hysterically. However, this was only one of a long list of things I was thankful for on Thanksgiving. During Thanksgiving break, most of us went home and a few of us stayed behind in Berkeley for various reasons. Despite not being at home with our families, we ended up having a great time!

Thanksgiving festivities spanned two days (sort of) that weekend. On Wednesday night, many of us went to Steve and Suzanne’s home to have a send-off/goodbye dinner for Isaiah and Will who were returning to Taiwan that night. After a delicious dinner of Korean rice cake soup, we prayed for Isaiah and Will that they may safely return to Taiwan and waste no time in getting back into the groove of things, revitalized and ready to continue their mission after their trip to Berkeley. Some of their peers went to send them off at the airport and the rest of us stayed to watch old G-Live videos, which is always a good way to end the night!

On Thanksgiving day, freshmen and seniors went to John and Ellen’s for lunch and sophomores and juniors went to Steve and Suzanne’s, where Jenny cooked Thai Curry for us! After that we all met up at a park to sweat off everything we ate and prepare ourselves for dinner by playing fun games of ultimate frisbee and soccer. Although I am not one particularly fond of sports, it’s a great way to get to know people you might not otherwise meet. Especially if the same tall person keeps grabbing the frisbee from over your head just as you are about to catch it. Those kinds of encounters are hard to forget.

After we were done playing and our stomachs were ready to eat Thanksgiving dinner, we all congregated at Steve and Suzanne’s. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and staff alike all pitched in to finish cooking dinner and right before we ate, we all wrote on a paper leaf something that we were thankful for and taped it onto our Thanksgiving tree that Summer made. It was really exciting to see the empty branches be filled by all the things that people were thankful for and see it become a full-blown, literal Thanksgiving tree! We then sat down together to feast on turkey, beef, cornbread, stuffing, etc.

Everything tasted so good that we all ate until we could eat no more. Literally. Really. It was a little hard to get people motivated to play games after that, but everybody soon got into the competitive spirit when Josh (from Element Youth!) and Kevan split us all up into teams in order to get to know each other and play ridiculous, made-up-on-the-spot games like paper airplane making contests. But it didn’t matter, because it was all too hilarious. After being demolished by Ellen in the semi-finals of arm-wrestling (reaffirming my belief that moms are ridiculously strong), I was exhausted and everyone else was, too, after such fun. So, of course we ended the night again by watching more G-Live videos!

Although we should always realize how blessed we are, it tends to be easier to realize our blessings on holidays like Thanksgiving. Being in a smaller group than normal, we all got to meet a lot of new people and got to know the ones that we already knew even more. Thanks be to God who brings us all into community so that we can share such great times together! I hope all of you who went home for Thanksgiving had a great time and felt God’s blessings. Those of us who stayed in Berkeley sure did!

This past weekend, the sophomores and juniors headed up to the Sierras for an awesome time of fun and fellowship at our very own Sierra Lodge! Check out the video recap! Awesome!

Friday night, we headed up to Sierra Lodge and had a great time of board games, basketball and King Kong Shower.

King Kong Shower Ridiculousness

But the highlight of the night was gathering at the gazebo to sing around the campfire! We roasted marshmallows, sang songs, and even had some people sing solos for the rest of us! Gathering around the campfire and singing songs just never gets old.

Gathering around the campfire

Saturday, we went on a quick hike to get out and see the beautiful nature around us.

The sophomores on the hike...

...and the juniors!

After hiking we went kayaking at Lake Spaulding! We rowed all the way across to the other side of the lake.

Well, most of us.

We told them not to take the rowboat...

...because we had to "rescue" them after!

The rest of us went over in our spiffy new pontoon boat.

It looks like a Disneyland ride!

We had lunch on the other side of the lake and climbed some cliffs to take this awesome picture.

A little bit too awesome..

Awesome picture!

After the tiring time of kayaking, there was no time for rest as we headed back to Sierra Lodge to play frisbee and basketball! We also had a rematch of the staff versus students basketball game from last time. Needless to say, the students won.

Frisbee

The Epic Staff vs. Students Game

After all of that physical activity, we dug in for dinner at the lodge. After dinner, it was time for everyone favorite game not named King Kong Shower….Ming Mang Mong! We had an epic final round of Ming Mang Mong, but when all was said and done, the sophomore guys prevailed! Good job!
(Sadly, everyone was too busy watching Ming Mang Mong to take any pictures. Use your imagination!)

The night wasn’t over yet. We broke up into groups afterwords to brainstorm ideas for Thanksgiving Celebration, and then we had to go up and present our ideas. Here were some of the better ones…

They want to see YOU at TC!

The level of shamelessness in the performances was inspiring. The sophomores and juniors will definitely be ready for TC when it comes around.

Join us next time!

During last week’s split Bible Study, Kevan&Jenny’s sophomores and juniors combined with Ander&Myra’s and had an awesome time. The brothers and sisters of went our separate ways, but not to say that either path was not fun. Here’s what went down:

The sisters decided to have a fun night to themselves by cooking up a storm with some delicious bibimbap at the Hillegass Apartments. Then they broke some ice by playing a fun game called “the story of my life” where each of the sisters drew one another’s faces. Then everyone tried to guess who was who. But as if that wasn’t hard enough everyone had to draw with their non-dominant hand. Just think of how crazy the drawings must’ve turned out!

On the brother’s side, the two classes split up for some peer bonding time. The sophomores brought out their game faces and played some football! There were many crazy plays, sad misses/fumbles, but also great defensive interceptions. Afterwards we gathered around for some fun q&a about ourselves and delicious Costco pizza. Did I also mention night frisbee? That’s right, the sophomores ended the night with some wild night frisbee before heading over to Buffet Town for The Friday Night. The juniors, on the other hand, went all out on food and conversations. They left no room for the games and brought out a grill and cheesesteaks. They all gathered around with their delicious, juicy, cheesy, right-of-the-grill, homemade cheesesteak sandwiches in pure darkness for their fun night.

OH yea! It’s the Choi Band!

The split Bible Study was held at our very own Buffet Town and ended with some great small group sharing time.

I apologize for the lack of photos. Our classes were too busy having fun, so I gave you all a nice, lengthy description so you can imagine just what happened.