International Student Ministry Newsletter!

ISM participated in Gracepoint Fellowship Church’s Thanksgiving Retreat, in which we listened to many touching stories of how God impacted people’s lives through their salvation in Christ. We were also treated to Pastor Manny’s report on Gracepoint Austin. On my drive back from the retreat, Howard shared that he really appreciated Pastor Manny’s sharing because he saw how God perfectly provided everything. It was truly amazing!

For the retreat, Pastor Ed Kang and Kelly Kang had us each write up a one-page reflection on how God’s salvation work changed our lives. We shared with one another in small groups at the prayer meeting this past Tuesday. As we listen to one another’s stories of thanksgiving to God in my small group, our hearts of thanksgiving multiply.

For many international students, cooking turkey for an American Holiday like Thanksgiving can be a daunting challenge.  I just wanted to pass on this great recipe from Dishgracepoint, which is a blog that includes a lot of good recipe ideas for groups of people.  The recipe even includes suggestions, Q&A, and various options on how to make your Thanksgiving turkey much better…  and all of the people eating your turkey even more thankful.

Not only did the guys have good time cooking together, the girls also had a great time preparing their food for the dessert and appetizer night two weeks ago. Siao Charn shares:

The girls had lots of fun making desserts and appetizers for the International Food Festival too! Helen, Jade, Jenny, and Sherry got together at my place on Friday and we made stuffed mushrooms (country of origin to be determined) and red bean rice cake (country of origin: China). It was our first time trying out the recipes and they turned out to be very well received by the crowd. Honestly, I was surprised! All in all, I had much fun with the food preparation and I’m certainly looking forward to the next occasion we get to cook together.

I look forward to the next cooking event as well. If you missed it last time, be sure that you make it to the next one.

In preparation for our food festival this past Friday, several men of ISM gathered at Howard’s place to make fruit tart/pie/pudding-depending on how you describe it-and Greek Salad. Through the preparation, I discovered that Yen can cook and, to complete the rhyme, men can cook as well. Though our dishes were under-appreciated according to the popular poll on the night of the food festival, I am still very grateful to God that no one got sick from eating our food. If you didn’t get to try our food, I am sorry, but you really missed out.

Last Friday, everyone took off for Castro Valley Golfland for a round of minigolf.  We all braved the cooler weather to play a round of 18 holes.  In case you were wondering what miniature golf is, it’s not golfing on a small scale.  Instead, every player has a putter (a small golf club about 1 meter long) and has to hit a golf ball into the hole.  What makes minigolf fun is the fact that many of the holes have random obstacles: you need to hit the ball straight down a line and into a castle where the door opens and closes…  or you need to hit hard enough so that it can jump over a stream of water…  or you need to put the ball into a hole that’s located in the middle of what looks like a volcano.

If you can’t tell, its a bundle of fun.  You don’t need any real golf skill.  In fact, half of the game is about luck.  Ask the guys who were golfing with me–I had two “hole in one’s” in a row!  And one of those came when I hit the ball into the wrong ramp, but got a lucky spin on the ball.  (amazing)

The entire time, we were laughing and making fun of each other.  One poor guy in my group had trouble on every weird obstacle that involved a door…  and his roommate, instead of feeling great compassion, almost fell over laughing every time.

In case you were wondering who the picture to the right is of, these are the guys who hit under par.  In other words, they beat the “average” number of strokes it takes for a person to complete a round of minigolf.  Our champions.  The rest of us…  well, we were below average.  If you missed it this time, make sure to join us next time and test your skills.

Up for tonight: Sports night at Alameda High.  Bring your shoes!

Shufei wrote about their Doreimon cookie night, and I felt that we had to talk about what we did after Friday Forum.  2 weeks ago, Meowmeow and I took a smaller group of people out to Twin Peaks in San Francisco.  Twin Peaks has one of the best views of San Francisco… and for those of you who have never gone, the night view is even better.  (You will always see couples spending time there because its actually quite romantic)  We got there right before the rain started, so we had a fogless, gorgeous view of the city.  We stayed there quite a long time actually.  So long that we all got cold and wet because the view was so great.

We then headed out to Golden Island Cafe in the Sunset district for some tasty Cantonese desserts like sago with canaloupe juice, topped with mixed fruit…  or hot glass jelly and coconut milk…  or my personal favorite: mango sago.  Everyone agreed that the desserts were great.  So next time you are out in San Francisco and want to find a tasty treat, try Golden Island.  Or just make sure to come along with us next time!

Last week, we split up into smaller groups for post-Bible Study activities. Karen and I led a group of 12 people at Helen’s place to bake cookies and to play games. Some of the sisters got really creative in making shapes with the cookie dough. In the picture, Helen and Jade made a huge Doremon cookie. After it expanded in the oven, its chubby hands and feet reminded us of Baby Jonathan. Some of the sisters had a lot of fun making other shapes, while the rest of us played Clue and Bang!. The game of Bang! was quite intense due to the fact that Helen and Jenny pulled a stunt move that confused just about everyone in the game. It was a great game! I heard that other smaller groups had a lot of fun as well: one group went to Twin Peaks in San Francisco; another group made crepes and fondue; and, another group hung out at Ranch 99. Join us for our post-Bible study activity. We will be going to mini-golf this Friday (10/10).

Last Friday, we celebrated it with all of ISM together after our Friday Forum Bible study.  Right after Bible study and announcements, Chul noted that it was the last Friday for Frederick and Angelique, our encouraging couple from Germany.  They were only with us for a few months, but we felt a strong kinship with them–their heart for Germany and the campuses there, Frederick’s love for theology, and how they really immersed themselves into the community at ISM and Gracepoint Fellowship Church Berkeley.  Frederick shared some kind words with us.

After that, Shufei, Karen, and webmod went up to the stage because we had a “special song” prepared… for Chul!  We all sang Happy Birthday, and then gave him some gifts that we prepared.  Chul opened the wrapped package (without oven mitts though) that contained instant coffee and kimchee.  And yes, he was happy to receive these things!  Of course, today is Chul’s 40th birthday.  So if you see him around, make sure to wish him a happy 40th.

Jonathan Hong turned one at the beginning of September. All of us in the International Student Ministry celebrated together. Consisting of graduate students and alumni from Berkeley, we are surrounded by children. The Hong family with Jonathan’s grandparents are shown on the right with the traditional Korean rice cake and fruit. I don’t know how Jisup and Sara were able to raise Jonathan as they  are such busy graduate students, trying to juggle writing dissertations, presenting at lab meetings, studying, and raising an energetic baby. They shared how they are so thankful for this community who helped raise him. As I see Jonathan, he is a reminder of God providing all the energy and resources. Sara had a really hard pregnancy. Then after Jonathan was born, Jisup had to take his qualifying exam. Less than a week before his qualifying, he got food poisoning and had to be rushed to the emergency room. Life always throws surprises, but it is so comforting to know that we are never alone in facing these challenges. God is ultimately with us and he surrounds us with people.

This entry is dedicated to the overseas alumni who cannot see the children here at Berkeley grow up . They have changed so much and have only gotten cuter. On the left, Kate is holding Elizabeth, Paul and Mary’s second child. She is less than one year old. Ken is holding Nikki, Ken and Jean’s daughter. Next David is looking at Ken. David is now four years old and as energetic as ever. To the left of Jonathan is Christopher, son of Paul and Julie, friends of Sara and Jisup. Please send us pictures of your family, kids, etc. I would love to hear updates about you.

For those of you who missed our Graduate Student Welcome Night, I wanted to fill you in on what happened.  The night was a lot of fun, and we got to meet many new friends who were graduate students and visiting scholars.  In fact, there were 130+ people there that night!  Which makes this event our biggest GSWN ever.

Jisup introduced a brand new icebreaker game to ISM as well: table boxing.  Its not the same as table tennis.  But you do get to wear gloves…  oven mitts to be exact.  In this hilarious game, each table is trying to open a gift wrapped box.  But only 1 person at a time is allowed to do so, and that person has to wear oven mitts.  It was a lot of laughs!  And for the lucky winners (which happened to be my table), the prize was DVDs from Gracepoint Fellowship Church’s “Gracepoint Live” production.  We also played a game called “That’s Not Funny”…  but I won’t spoil it because we may be playing this one again some time soon!

We also had an interesting skit about 4 graduate students at an airport.  Josiah played the guy who was just going to graduate school, but didn’t know what he wanted to do.  We had Mr. Boogle show up again…  Changcheng reprised his role from last year.  Mr. Boogle is the guy who wants to network and build a global empire: but needs grad school training.  Frederik did an amazing job as the environmentalist, with a stern face that we normally don’t see on him.  And finally, Yiguang played the cool guy looking for romance, and the girl of his dreams in graduate school.  And the ending says it all for everyone in graduate school: “I’ll find it…  when I get there.”  Well, we at ISM hope that you can find what you’re looking for right here.

We then had a 30 minute Bible study from Chul about the call of Abraham in Genesis 12, where we got to learn that success in God’s eyes is to become a blessing to others.  The final piece of the program was a special song from our newly minted ISM band.  But for now, it’s only a 1 time performance…  we hope to see them back soon.  In case you can’t tell, that’s Howard on keyboard, Tony on guitar, Jon on bass, and Eliah on drums.

If you missed it this year, we have another GSWN coming up…  but not until next year.