Goodbye 2008

As I look over my shoulder at 2008 which will come to a close in about five hours I thought I would remind you all of everything that has happened at Corvallis Korean Church in the past 12 months.

1. Last year at this time our English worship service met in the small "chior" room with about 30 people attending. In February we recognized the need for more space and moved to the Gym and just a few weeks ago we had over 50 people in our service! Moving to the gym has been a blessing and a curse. It is great because we can now have a full worship team with drums and a few more guitar players. However, it does require a lot more work as we set up each week.

2. In March we had BreakAway (our spring retreat). Once again we went to Molalla Retreat Center. It was a ton of fun and we all enjoyed watching Daniel and San attempt to dance and sing on Saturday night.

3. In the spring we also had four of our students get baptized. Personally, it was the first time I had ever baptized anyone. Angela, Jane, Stephen and Lois each got baptized. Angela will forever go down in history as the first person I baptized.

4. We graduated four seniors from our youth group. Chris, Jane, Wonmo, and Janet are each attending college this fall. Chris goes to the University of Wisconsin, Jane attends Baylor, and Wonmo and Janet both go to OSU. We miss having them around at all our events but I am glad they still stay in touch with us.

5. In the summer we went on our first ever mission trip. Eight students and three leaders drove all the way to Arizona to work with the Navajo Native Americans. The week was incredible and we look forward to returning in 2009.

6. During the summer we also went on a camping trip to the sand dunes of Florence, Oregon. The trip was awesome! We rented sand boards, ate walking tacos, and laid out under the stars on the sand dunes.

7. We also had an all church retreat in July. The whole weekend was great, especially because we found an air conditioned room to hang out in!

8. We successfully ran a SAT prep class on Monday nights this fall. Well, I say we, but Danny was the teacher...I just pretend to be in charge.

9. Through out the entire year we have continued our weekly high school Bible study on Wednesday nights and youth group night on Fridays. I look forward to both of those nights each week!

10. Finally, just over a week ago we baptized two more students, Sun and Young-i. It was a privilage to be a part of that too.

11. Oh...and just for the recond thats 52 Sunday services, 36 Friday night youth groups, 34 Man Clubs, and 8 BYOLs....and that doesn't include all the retreats.

Thanks for a great 2008...I'm praying for an even better 2009!

Baptisms and Christmas Produciton

Last Sunday we had two of our students get baptized. I baptized Sun and Yvette. For those of you who don't know them, they are sisters. Sun is a Junior and Yvette is a 6th grader.
Besides Sun slipping and falling while getting in the water, everything went great!

I was honored to baptize them both. It was especially cool to baptize Sun because I prayed with her a year and a half ago when she became a Christian.

Here are a few pictures.

Now for the Christmas production pictures. It was a pretty awesome skit, everyone acted really well. I won't try to explain the whole skit, but enjoy the pictures. There's also some pictures of the band that played a little.

Christmas Party

What a weekend we had at CKC! Despite snow, freezing rain, and incredibly cold weather, we had our Christmas party, a baptism service, and Christmas program. This was our third annual Christmas party and every one seemed to have a lot of fun. We played bunco, ate dinner, played some team games, and had a white elephant gift exchange. Here is a bunch of pictures from the party. I'll get pictures up of the baptism and Christmas program soon.

CHRISTMAS PARTY

WE ARE HAVING THE CHRISTMAS PARTY!

So be here at 4:00

See you then!

Oldie but a Goodie

I love waking up and looking out my window at the snow covered fields.

I'm guessing most of you who read this like waking up and seeing the snow because it means school is probaby cancelled.

It's less than one week until Christmas, so I decided to bust out an old, but still great video.

Purpose

Purpose.

Everything has a purpose.

A pencil is for writing, an umbrella keeps the rain off you, coffee gives energy (and tastes good), school is for learning and guns are for killing.

Some things have noble purposes, others mundane and some even evil.

Different things, different purposes.

What good is something if it isn't being used for its purpose. There is a pencil sharpener that sits on the corner of my desk. It has been there for the past two and a half years and I have never used it. Actually, I don't think I even own a pencil. Basically, that electric pencil sharpener serves only one purpose at the moment: a paper weight. It's a pretty good paper weight. When I put paper under it, the paper never falls off the desk. In fact, I don't think I have ever had a better paper weight.

As good of paper weight as it may be...its purpose is to sharpen pencils. And I bet it is a good pencil shapener too.

Isn't it tradgic when something doesn't do what it was made to do.

Isn't it tradgic when someone doesn't do what it they were made to do?

The natural question is, what was I made to do. I'll tell you some of the answer. You were made to be in a divine romance with the King of Kings. You were made to honor and glorify him with your life. You were made to worship. You were made to lead others to the Savior. The list could continue.

The second half of the question is for you to answer.

Someone may be called to be a doctor. Great! Now honor and glorify God in that.

Someone may be called to be a student for the time being. Great! Now let your life be a worship service before God.

Someone may be called to be a janitor. Great! Now serve God as you work.


The tragedy is when someone misses one of the two parts. Either they don't glorify God in what they do...or they are not doing what God created them to do.

So, may our prayer be that we live the life God has called us to live, nothing more....nothing less.
In doing that we will live with purpose.

Everyone has a purpose. Don't get caught living out the wrong purpose.

Christmas Party

As I mentioned in my last post, we have our huge Christmas party coming up on the 20th. Just to remind all of you how fun it is, check out these pictures from last year.

Jane, Sun, Angela, and Eddie at the Bunco Table

Bunco Maddness

Daniel, Kevin, John and Stephen enjoying the mystery dinner

Veronica and Henna

Lois giving the camera some attitude

BUNKO TIME!

Some white elephant gifts!

Daniel being Daniel

Asian (thanks Tae-han) fun

Joe, Angie, Jane, and Timothy playing bunco