Over 80 people attended the Koinonia Winter Retreat! The weekend was packed with challenging messages from God’s Word, illustrations from Lord of the Rings movie clips, moving times of praise, and wonderful times of fellowship, especially through playing sports and singing around the campfire together. God worked in a mighty way at the retreat, leading 10 people to make salvation/lordship decisions, and many others to rededicate their lives to God. We look forward to all that God has in store for the coming year, and living it out together!

Here are some photos of what we did:

This past Saturday the Koinonia staff drove to Dallas and met up with 11 of our students from Dallas to usher in 2010 with many “twists and turns”.  We arrived at Six Flags as soon as it opened and chose to immediately face our fears by riding the scariest rollercoasters:  Shockwave, Superman, and Titan.  Some of the older people such as Pastor M (name not revealed to protect identity) were already feeling lightheaded and dizzy after just a couple of rides.

After some of the brothers burned $5 trying to win stuffed animals from the basketball challenge, it was time for lunch.  We gathered at the picnic spot right outside the park entrance for a scrumptious homemade lunch and shared with one another which rides were the favorites at that point.  The food and rest re-invigorated us for another round of thrills and screams (at least for most of us), but the highlight of the day had to be the final basketball challenge where ChinChin surprised everybody by making the lone shot of the day for the coveted stuffed animal.  Something neither Bryan, nor Pastor M (both self-proclaimed sharpshooters) could accomplish after numerous attempts.

We capped off our trip by driving to H-Mart where we enjoyed eating cheap, authentic Korean food to our hearts content.  Overall, it was a wonderful trip full of many laughs and memory making moments.  We’re especially thankful to have met up with our Dallas students in the middle of the winter break to bond and fellowship with one another.  Looking forward to the next one!

For those of us who were in Austin during Thanksgiving, we got together at Pastor Manny and Sunny’s house for a Thanksgiving Feast and a time of fellowship.  One of the games we played was Catch Phrase, with about 4 different teams competing.  The teams that lost were given punishments such as the memorable rendition of “One Day More” from Les Miserable performed by the Sophomore bros.  Though the staff bros (and Joseph) were dominating throughout most of the night, they too, fell and were given a punishment.  However, some say that the punishment was upon those who were the witnesses.  You be the judge.Flickr Video

Last Friday was our annual Christmas Gift Exchange and unlike last year, we were grouped into different teams. In order to pilfer the rival team’s gifts, we were given opportunities to duel each other through a variety of hilarious challenges. Some of the challenges included sending up representatives to do their best staff impersonation, while others were asked to do their best ballet routine, playdough sculpting, and marketing pitch. Overall, it was a fun-filled night with some coveted (and not so coveted) gifts being passed around til the very end.  Good Luck on Finals!

A few weeks ago some of us including 12 UT-Austin students packed our bags and flew all the way to the Bay Area in California to join our Gracepoint Berkeley, Davis and Hsinchu churches and participate in the 2009 Thanksgiving Retreat.  It was exciting to see all of our friends and mentors whom we missed so much, but it was even more exciting to have some of our students go with us and see first-hand the kind of community that sent some of us out one and a half years ago to start this church plant in Texas.

Check out the Thanksgiving Dare website and accept the dare to be grateful. Read about what other members of our church are thankful for, and post your own sharings!