Upcoming Events
Winter Retreat
Time: Friday 1/23 (4:30pm registration) through Sunday 1/25 (1:30pm checkout)
Location: Mt Hermon
Please Signup: http://www.gracepointonline.org/gp/signups/2009_winter_retreat
11.23 Thanksgiving Celebration
Hello Girls! More to come, but I just wanted to post A2f Gold’s “Vamos Alameda” video. Maybe each of you can write a few sentences about your favorite part of TC for this post? =) For your entertainment, click here!
Pictures from Thanksgiving Celebration Preparation (11/14, 11/20, 11/21/08) at Wheeler Hall and the YWCA.
Post-TC dinner at Rick & Sue’s place in Alameda:
11.26 Thanksgiving Day
(words & pictures contributed by Crissy, sophomore)
I hope everyone is having/had a wonderful thanksgiving break so far! As you all may know, some of us decided to stay for the break, and what else is better than celebrating thanksgiving with the sisters and brothers of Gracepoint!?! Someone brilliantly planned a great potluck dinner for those of us who stayed! So we had just as much fun today as well.
Our very own Kairos W girls decided to contribute to the potluck by making feta cheese + cranberries + walnut salad, brownies, and sweet Korean pancakes! We all started the day off early with Jenn picking us (Ming, Ning, Jenn C., Judy, and Crissy) up from Berkeley.
Jenn C. snacking on a cracker on the way to Alameda
After arriving at Jenn’s house and settling down, we started off the day with some good ol’ hearty BRUNCH! Crissy and Jenn C. worked hard on the blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes, Ning cooked up sausage with grilled onions, Judy and Ming made a supreme mix of vegetable Omlette, and Jenn was everywhere helping all of us out! Oh and of course, we couldn’t have made the brunch complete without Carmen’s help in getting the ketchup!!!! Sadly, there are no pictures of our awesome breakfast (although some of the girls might have some in their cameras) since the author of this entry was too busy eating and cooking (hehe).
When we were all done eating our enormous brunch, we decided it was a good idea to take a walk along the seaside of beautiful Alameda. So we all hopped in the car and drove off!
Ming & Judy ready to go take a walk
Thanks for the ride, Carmen!
It was a bit cold in Alameda, but we all managed to have fun and work off some of that heavy breakfast.
Jenn showing us her frisbee skills
Ming, Jenn C., and Judy
Group picture take 1!
Group picture take 2!
Group picture take 3!
So after our pleasant walk around beautiful Alameda, we all decided to go over to the place where some of the ISM girls live! They opened their home to us so that we could watch ‘Kung Fu Panda’ on a projector! Some of the girls snacked on some grapes while we watched the movie (sooo good!), and when it was all over, we played Push-On and then King Kong shower!
yay!
After returning from watching ‘Kung Fu Panda’ we headed straight to Jenn’s house and back into the kitchen, where we began another round of cooking. This time, we baked brownies for the potluck and labored over the Korean sweet pancakes. Some of the girls did some Pilates during this as well (got to burn off all that heavy brunch somehow!)
We were all having a good time cooking and eating that time managed to fly ahead without us! We were running a little late, but thanks to Jenn’s 60 mph-on-a-30mph-street-driving we were at Northloop within 3 minutes (this is NOT a joke!). Vamos a la Northloop indeed!
Yes, they ARE doing the Vamos a la Northloop dance. Yeah, I know.
The rest of the day/night can be summarized in three simple words: Food, laughter, and games! Praise God for such an amazing day of giving thanks and just being happy to be in each other’s company!
Judy drawing a portrait of Elise; they became pretty good friends!
Elise with her picture!
Elise adding details to her portrait!
11.15 Thanksgiving Retreat
We had a wonderful time at our annual Thanksgiving Retreat at GGBTS in Mill Valley, as church members from various departments shared reflections on the theme, Joy of Salvation.
11.09 Kairos W & Kairos 1 Crown Bay Convalescent Home Visit
When we arrived, Praxis ECM (Elderly Care Ministry) took us around to “pick-up” residents who wanted to join us for service. Jessie walked with Bessie to service (which was right down the hall), who at the age of 94 was still insistent that she pick up her own hefty bible and push her way to service with her walker. It was truly an honor to meet her, as she was a missionary in China in the early 1930s for many years. Though she couldn’t recount many details of that experience or of her life to us, there was a resounding look of joy, peace and godliness in her eyes that told the story of her (almost a century-old!) faithfulness in Christ, or Christ’s faithfulness to her. Students combed the halls inviting anyone they saw, bringing anyone who wanted to come. When we entered the service area, we were warmly greeted with Carmelita’s friendly and vibrant Italian “hello” (She’s the woman in in the picture above). We started with praise, singing “Your Love is Deep” and “This is My Father’s House,” and followed with a message from John 14:1-4, in which we talked about heaven and how God has prepared a room, a place, for each of his children, and how God wants to prepare a place for each person, but that we first have to choose to enter into God’s house through Christ. We mingled, we embraced, we laughed. We listened to stories of hardship and resilience, we held the hands of those who could listen but not respond. As we interacted with precious people nearing the end of their lives, all of us were forced to look at the life ahead of us and wonder if we were living in a way we’d be proud of at the end of our journeys. All of us left glowing, and shared how we were impacted by the visit at lunch at Crossroads. All of us were wondering “When are we going back? Connecting with and loving people God’s way and through God’s eyes, always leaves you wanting more. We went to bring some joy and warmth to the elderly there, but as in many instances in trying to love others, we ourselves received much, much more!
10.31 Bible Study, Crissy’s Birthday, and Sleepover!
Kairos Girls’ Sleepover at Amy’s House in Alameda:
ooh yum!
10.24 Bible study & Bowling
Written by Kairos W member, Jessie (sophomore)
After a good long dinner of meat loaf (seriously yummy stuff, Kairos should have cooking lessons for those of us who are unskilled in working a stove haha), salad (props to the person who made the sauce!), and rice (not your average white rice though but super yummy rice made with the love of our leaders), Kairos W began with intense Bible study led by one of our fierce and mighty leaders, Jenn the great. Haha just kidding, it wasn’t that intense, but it definitely was interesting studying John’s words narrating Jesus’ wrath when the villagers disrespected his father’s temple by making it a market.
Done with the serious work of exploring Christianity, Kairos W underwent our first exploration journey without a G.P.S. system in search of the bowling alley that all the other groups of Kairos found perfectly fine. I blame it on google maps. However, it was great bonding time as we drove back and forth on the San Rafael bridge and contributing to governmental funds by paying the toll twice in a row. No worries though, we were readily prepared with our Walgreen $0.05 coffee, expert map reader Yvonne, and pro-driver Jeanne so eventually we got to the bowling alley.
Kairos W showed our bowling potential with Jeanne leading the way and scoring more than 100 pts on our first game! Yvonne was not bad too, drastically improving from hitting one bowling pin to a 200% improvement of sometimes hitting TWO whole bowling pins! Our resident rally committee consisting of Jenn cheered everyone on and gave several well deserved high fives brought up team spirit. Tim, Debbie, and the two Richards were all graced by God with the ability to keep their bowling balls out of the gutter while Crissy, Samantha, Zach, and Christina were cursed by that one bowling pin that just refused to be knocked down.
After a day of fun and games while stuffing ourselves with the soda and chips provided at the bowling ally, we all said our goodbyes anticipating the next Kairos W trip (hopefully not as wasteful with gas as we were this time)!
Sierra Lodge All-Stars
I still can’t believe we built a lodge, financially and physically, as a church. And I’m so glad and grateful we did. We have had so many memories and relationship-building times there: relationship-building times with one another, and relationship-building times with God. What did this massive effort take? I wish I could recall all the details, but I can’t. I can only recall and recount the things that stuck out to me the most. First: our all-star pastoral team. One would think that most of the work was done by the church members while our pastoral team focused on preaching and their ministry work, but the truth is that all of our pastors, and full-time church staff, devoted themselves to building Sierra Lodge during the week in addition to their ministry duties. Kevin Han and another brother (both architects) laid out the plans for the house. In the early stages, Daniel would go up to Sierra Lodge alone, sleep in the camper that did not have any electricity, in the middle of the Sierras, in order to keep watch over our equipment. After different groups went up, Kevin Han and others would have to undo some of the mistakes our members made, and redo what they were supposed to do right the first time. In fact, our commemorative Sierra Lodge T-shirt says: “Who need skills when we can do it over.” =)
Pastor Ed and all of our other church staff, even staff brothers who took days “off” from work, would go up for a couple of days during the week, in order to maximize building time. I feel like Tim was almost always there (one of our Kairos leads)! I was especially taken aback when I went up to Sierra lodge for Bible Teachers’ Training, where Pastor Ed spent 2-3 days at a time with 6 different groups of people to train them to teach the bible more effectively. He concentrated as we each took turns giving bible study (3-4 hour sessions) and gave us gems of advice. And when we were done with training we went to work at Sierra lodge. He oversaw what needed to be done, and worked hard himself. When I was growing up, there were many times I watched my dad work hard on our house; my job was to bring him a cold drink once in a while. I remember feeling so loved when I saw my dad work in that way. I couldn’t help but feel the same way when I witnessed Pastor Ed and our staff work in the same way, for our larger church family, because they wanted this to be such a place of blessing for our church. They not only shelved out the cash necessary to build Sierra house, but applied their bodies to do the work, too. They worked the hardest, and set the example. During the weekends, different ministry groups would go up and work together. I remember putting the insulation in all the restrooms, nailing metal things to some really hard wood to secure the frame for the house, and shoveling dirt from one place to another. And now, once where there was nothing, stands our precious Sierra Lodge. Hope you can make it to our all-Kairos Sierra Lodge trip this weekend!
