This Friday, most of the staff will be away at a retreat but there will be Bible study and dinner for those of you who are still around.

• 7pm – Dinner at Sun Hong Kong
• 8:30pm – Bible study at Durant Loft

This Friday, we’ll be getting together by Life groups. It will be something to look forward to after your all the cramming and exam-taking. Hang in there, everyone! The end of finals is near!

Where do I go this Friday?

Freshman: Pickups at 6:30pm at Underhill Parking Lot (Channing side)

Sophomores: 6pm at First Pres (McKinley Hall)

Juniors: 7pm at First Pres (McKinley Hall)

For this Sunday only, there will be two worship services at 10am and 4pm so that we can go to afternoon graduations. (Hint: Helen and Yiyi are at 2pm)

Time flies and after 4 short years, the seniors will be graduating next week. Congratulations to all of you! Check out the graduation schedule and join us as we cheer them on during their graduation ceremonies!

The class of 2012 with their leaders over the years.

Congrats to our very own Helen and Yiyi for graduating in only 3 years!

Hang in there, everyone! Study hard and do well on your finals!

Join us as we congratulate all the graduating seniors (and some juniors) from A2F, Koinonia, Kairos, and Klesis! We’ll enjoy a Korean BBQ dinner (yeah!) and listen to some of the seniors share about how God has led them during their years in college.

This Friday, we’ll be having Bible studies and activities by class!

Freshman will have dinner and bible study at First Presbyterian Church (room Geneva 207) at 7pm, followed by mini-golf!

Sophomores will be at the Emeryville Marina for sports and dinner over a campfire! Meet at Underhill parking lot at 6pm for rides (and let us know if you can’t make it that early). Volleyball is on!

Juniors will be heading to the beach at Pacifica! Meet at Underhill parking lot at 6pm for rides. Note that we’ll be back to Berkeley a bit late at night, and if you want to come but can’t make 6pm, just let us know so we can get you in a late car.

Rick is the 4th contestant, at the yellow table. Also pictured is Richard from IGSM.

Rick is the leader of A2F, a software engineer, and a faithful husband and father. But unbeknownst to most, he competes against football players in pie-eating contests whenever he has spare time. Here he is, throwing down with the best of them, at the Cal spring football game during Cal Day. Sadly, he lost to some large football player (offensive lineman Dominic Galas).

By the way, if you ever want to meet up with Rick to ask questions, get to know him, share what’s on your mind, shoot the breeze, or get pro pie-eating contest tips, sign up for his office hours!

Here is a news report from the Juniors Tri-Canyon Road Trip a few weeks ago. Congratulations to Iksoo, who recently won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in News Programming!

During Spring Break, the A2F juniors trekked across four states, traveled over 2000 miles, and enjoyed a lot of bonding time and fellowship with the people in our respective cars, minus the times when everyone knocked out due to exhaustion from a long hike … or food coma. We visited the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon National Parks, and truly experienced the wonders of God’s creation as we marveled at the beauty and sheer size of these canyons.

Yeejie:
There was a lot of excitement in the air as we gathered in LA on Thursday morning. A warm breakfast prepared us for the many hours of driving ahead of us.

We saw a lot of this during our trip.

After a long drive, we reached our first stop: the Grand Canyon. After a stop at the Visitor Center, we proceeded to taking in the spectacular view of the Grand Canyon. Words cannot describe the magnificence of it all – the 277-mile long, 18-mile wide, 1-mile deep canyon that was carved out by the Colorado River over millions of years.

The Grand Canyon at sunset.

"What did you say about us, Gideon?!"

"That'll teach him!"

We then did our DTs while overlooking the grandeur of the canyon, taking in the beauty of God’s creation. We had a cozy dinner of gumbo and rolls at a campsite nearby and then hit the road heading towards Utah to spend the night.

Not a bad place to do DT.

Too cool!

Gumbo ... yum!

Gideon:
On the second day of our tri-canyon trip, after some awesome waffles at the motel, we visited the magnificent Zion National Park. One of the first things we noticed as we entered the park were the roads made entirely out of red asphalt, which blended in with the rest of the red canyon.

Reddish roads ... nice touch!

As we drove in, some of the brothers remarked that one of the large rock formations looked like a huge chunk of glazed ham. Lo and behold it did look like a huge chunk of glazed ham, but the national park called it the Checkerboard Mesa.

Checkerboard Mesa ... aka. "Huge Chunk of Glazed Ham".

Continuing on the winding red road through the canyon, we went through the longest tunnel created in America during the 1930′s. Periodically placed along the tunnel were gaping windows that gave an incredible view of the park.

Entering the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel

Exiting the tunnel, we continued on to a scenic drive through Zion Canyon. We got out, stretched our legs, and got ourselves acquainted with the three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then we began our first hike to the Weeping Rock. There, we found a large open cave with water continuously seeping down from the rock above and dripping like constant rain, hence the name. Jokes about weeping ensued. The air was refreshingly cool and sweet smelling. We walked a little bit further found a spot for lunch, cracked some eggs (on each other’s heads, only some people did that) and ate PBJ sandwiches. All the while, we listened to Eugene informing us about the Russian conspiracy regarding the Serbian rocks he claimed to have seen. We then visited the Temple of Sinawava, which was a natural amphitheater carved out by the river.

The Three Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Weeping Rock. The weeping is hard to see but it's there!

"So those Serbian rocks over there were moved here by the Russians when they sold Alaska to us ..."

Riverside Walk

Then we began the most awesome hike on the trip, the Watchman trail. There we began our 2 mile hike up the Zion cliffs. As we were making our way up the windy trail, we were constantly reminded that if we fell, we wouldn’t just hit sharp rocks, we’d hit sharp rocks and cacti.

The hike up the Watchman Trail

Once we got to the top though, we were greeted by an amazing view of the canyon. The vista point had a panoramic view of the valley, and we could see for miles in almost all direction. There we took some pictures, there are some really funny ones of us trying to do a jumping picture. There is also an epic picture of the canyon and Dan staring out across it.

From the top of the Watchman Trail.

Bros enjoying the view.

These guys don't have a lot of hops.

Dan is in there somewhere.

After the hike we tried to settle down and find a campsite where we could have a campfire and dinner. That was an adventure in of it self, as we went from the campsite (which was too full) to a park (which was taken) to finally another park that was right next to the river. There we settled and started up the grill. Some of the sisters learned to fan into flames the charcoal on the grill.

Sisters doing a great job of fanning the flames.

The steak tasted ridiculously good and the grilled vegetables were all gone before you could name the three patriarchs. To end the night we started a fire in one of the grills and gathered around it with marshmallows and all the other delicious materials to create s’mores.

All was going fine and dandy when suddenly we were attacked! By water sprinklers. As the devious turrets rose from the ground and released their streams of recycled water, we all scrambled to pack up everything as fast as we could. Needless to say that was the fastest we ever packed up. I should mention that Joy figured out how to hold the turrets at bay with a styrofoam cup, which was quite a nifty trick. After we got in the vans semi-drenched with recycled water, we chuckled how that frantic scramble was so fun, and how we couldn’t have planned such an exciting turn of events (or could we?). What a way to end such an awesome day.

Kim:
Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early to a chilly morning and were on the road once again to the last of our destinations, Bryce Canyon! For an expansive view of the canyon, we hit the 4 main view points of Bryce, Inspiration, Sunset, and Sunrise point.

Bryce Canyon Amphitheater.

Overlooking the “amphitheater”, we were in awe at the unique and vast array of orange colored rock formations going on for miles and miles. Along the way many haikus were made and pictures taken, inspired from the sites. We learned the fun fact (from “Simply Wong”) that the rocks called “hoodoos”, mean interesting rock formations caused by erosion and acid in the rain over a period of hundreds of years; the most famous called “Thor’s hammer”.

Thor's Hammer, one of the most famous hoodoos at Bryce.

Looks like Eugene didn't get the memo.

We made our way very partially down into the canyon on a short trail, getting another cool view from slightly below. After lunch, we went in the small museum at the Visitor Center which wrapped up the last part of our awesome trip.

We then commenced our 14 hour drive back to Berkeley filled with more bonding, canyon quiz questions, sharing of our favorite parts of the trip, car games, audio books, sleeping, and more eating By the end of our trip, it was quite amazing to think about how much we traveled and saw of God’s beautiful creation in just a few days! It was definitely a trip worth making!

Sooo cool! The scenery isn't bad either.

The staff were pumped up before the 14 hour drive back

In all, the Tri-Canyon peer trip was an awesome time not only of appreciating the majesty of God’s creation, but also of being able to zoom out from the stressful frenzy of classes, work, and exams. We were reminded of the joys of fellowship, as well as of God’s vision for our lives as we observed the patience and love of our leaders, who planned the entire trip and persevered through long hours of driving on a few hours of sleep. Looking back on all the memory making (getting attacked by sprinklers), hilarity (Simply Wong), and amazing sights that were all jam packed into three short days, all I can say to those who couldn’t make it is … you missed out

[CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE PHOTOS!]

Bible study is all together at Durant Loft this Friday. We’re starting with free dinner at 7pm, see you there!