Dates: Sundays
Time: 1PM
Location: 1001 Giedt Hall

RIDES: for those at the dorms, please meet at the dorm pick-up spots at 9:45am.

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THURSDAY:
PTL! Today 5 children crossed the line of faith after Daryl’s message. They raised their hand to receive Jesus 3 boys and 2 girls. I followed up with one of the boys with a translator and he understood the message and really wanted to live for Jesus! We celebrated by having a carnival for the kids complete with –face painting, caricatures, obstacle course, etc. It was hard to say good bye to the kids and our prayer is that the church at Camp Esparanza will continue to grow and this community will raise many Christian workers and missionaries and truly become the “village of hope” for Ensenada. In the evening, we had a short tour of Ensenada and saw some of the richest neighborhoods and the poorest neighborhoods in this city. We also drove by some universities and had a chance to pray for the city at the harbor. We ended our evening at a visit to the local Taco shop and had some “tacos muy Buenos!”

FRIDAY:
On Friday morning, we are going to serve at an orphanage. In the morning we will do work projects at the orphanage since the kids will be on a tour to Costco! When they return we will have a program, message and a mini-carnival.

Thank you again for all your prayers for us.

Adios,
-Mexico Mission Team

Our first day working with the kids was incredible. Our trip out to the village was an adventure in itself. Our minivans never saw that much off roading. We arrived at Camp Esperanza at 10am and half our team prepared for the morning kids program and the other half worked on work projects at the church. Some of our team went out to the village to invite the kids to the program but at 1045 we realized it would be best to bring the program to the village. We gathered at an abandoned lot in the village and we led praise, performed a clown skit and Lynn (senior) gave a message.

We returned to the church with some of the children and mothers and had lunch together. In the afternoon, after school got out, we had about 40-50 kids attend our program. The younger kids liked the praise with motions but some of the 11-12 years olds tried to hide because they were too cool for that. Some things never change no matter what country you’re in J It was hard for the kids to stay attentive through the message but when it was time for the puppet show all the kids became attentive. Diana Correa, Danny and Vanessa Orozco and Kevin Jeung from Berkeley translated our puppet show into Spanish and all the kids and the parents thoroughly enjoyed it. We ended our time with some soccer fellowship with a twist. We played with the large braveheart balls and everyone had a great time playing together.

Today we are going to have a morning program at the village again for the younger kids. Then we will have our program with all the kids at the church starting at 2:30PM. We are going to give a message on sin and forgiveness and have an invitation time. Please pray that the kids would open up their hearts to the message and cross the line of faith.

We are going to end our time this afternoon with a carnival for the kids and families.
Please pray for us!

Adios,
– Mexico Mission Team

This Christmas Sunday we’ll be having combined Berkeley / Davis Service @ 4pm, 2000 North Loop Rd, Alameda

http://www.gracepointonline.org/events/sunday-message-series-christmas-quest/

Hi everyone!

What better way to finish off finals than with a trip up to the Sierras?
Start off your winter break right with snow, night sledding, good food and much more!

What: End of the Quarter Celebration! Our Annual Koinonia/A2F Snow Trip
Snow. Sledding. Campfire with marshmallow. Playing Games. Hot Chocolate. Singing. Studying God’s word. Just hanging out. Check this Video Out: Snow Trip Outing
When: Dec 9-11th (We want to extend our trip 1 more day for those who can join us.
We will be back by 1pm on Sunday. For those of you who need to come down early, we’ll arrange a ride for you on Saturday!
Where: Sierra Lodge @ Emigrant Gap (just 1 and 1/2 hours away)
Cost: $45 (includes food and lodging)

Please sign up even if you can’t join us. SIGN UP HERE!

I hope you had a happy new year and are ready to come back to school!

I just wanted to announce a change in the winter retreat date. I know that a lot of you signed up for the retreat and scheduled it into your calendars, so I apologize for this change. We decided to move the retreat to the President’s Day weekend (Feb. 18-20). The reason for this is that it will be our OWN GRACEPOINT DAVIS RETREAT! (It won’t be combined with Berkeley). This will give us a better chance to bond and spend extended time with one another. It will also give Esther and I a better chance to spend extended time with all of the different classes in message and Q&A settings. Another benefit is that the retreat cost will be significantly less.

I know that the new date might come before some midterms, but I hope that won’t discourage you from coming.

Hope you have a nice, safe travel back to Davis. Can’t wait to see you all very soon.

See you there!
Dates: Feb 18-20, 2012 (President’s Day Weekend)

Freshmen: Check out the Freshmen Special below…
Cost:
– $50 FRESHMEN SPECIAL!!!
– $50 Early Bird Special (must be received by 1/31)
– $75 Regular Price (cost after 1/31)
Church will be helping out a lot with our conference fees as you can see — nice and thank you!

**Remember, the cost covers a lot of stuff:
- 2 nights lodging,
- 7-8 hot (best retreat food!) meals, snacks/drinks, & the rental of the indoor and outdoor facilities.

Sign up here

We made our way down to Kofman auditorium in Alameda and settled in for three awesome days of sharing, praise, and videos.

One of the most memorable moments of Friday night was a collective sharing of all those that accepted Christ in the last year. After a quartet of beautiful voices sang for us, each new Christian came forward and shared a line to represent their testimony, creating a very powerful and moving presentation.

One major theme from the retreat was learning about the history of our church, and to be thankful for all those that have gone before us and paved the way. We learned about the history of Gracepoint’s Sierra Lodge (and the persevering brothers who built it… multiple times…) and got updates from all the different ministry groups. A lot of the staff shared about their experiences working with their peers or about the generations of leadership coming together at the church plants.

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving Retreat without the Gracepoint Orchestra, too! Their smashing performance was composed and directed by Gracepoint’s resident musical genius, Paul.

There were a lot of other surprises, too. For lunch, we enjoyed a visit from several taco trucks and Curry in a Hurry…

And enjoyed a Saturday night full of strange sights. That’s right. Strange sights. Any guesses what’s going on in these pictures?

The answer is: we played BEST OF THE BEST as classes, complete with a feature of Pastor Ed’s amazing abilities with a nunchucks. Among the categories, dude, were Best Song & Dance, Best Rap & HipHop Dance, Best Cheer, Best Thanksgiving Quilt, and Best One Word (or phrase) Skit. Oh my!

There were a lot of things to be thankful for in this past year all across our church. We had a great time paying tribute to them all, and look forward to another year of God’s work ahead of us.