There's never a dull moment in our Joyland and ImpACT ministries! Earlier this month, we had our first ever Kids in Training program for all 80+ of our kindergarten through 6th grade students. What's Kids in Training, you ask?

KIT is a bunch of different opportunities rolled up into one. It's a fun-filled 45 minutes, where our kids can learn a variety of skills, from how to act through drama class to how to knit a nice scarf in knitting class. But it doesn't stop there. KIT also gives our college students a chance to get involved in the day-to-day activities in our church. Several small groups within the UC Berkeley Koinonia, Acts2Fellowship, and Kairos Christian Fellowship ministry groups have volunteered their precious Sunday mornings to spend time with our kids as they teach them how to expand their skill sets.

We've already seen God work in amazing ways to ensure KIT's lasting success. Brother Ray and a few of the college students in his small group ran into a little league coach while shopping for child-sized baseball gloves and bats. The coach told Ray that he receives donations for supplies for his team and that he has too many gloves, bats, balls and even an extra child-sized catcher's outfit! He donated the extra supplies he had in his car that day for our use and promised to contact Ray to send over the rest of the supplies. Amazing!

Just a few days before, I had been quite nervous about everything because I wasn't sure if all the small groups had a curriculum set for the 5 weeks or enough supplies ready to teach their KIT classes. But after seeing the kids' excitement on Sunday right after their classes and hearing Ray's testimony about the miraculous provision of supplies, I realized that God simply wanted whatever we could offer up so that he could work through us. I couldn't help but give thanks to God for providing yet another opportunity for our church to serve others in such a meaningful and loving way.

Who would've known the amount of work, detail, and energy involved in making Joyland Festival possible? It started with Joyland teachers brainstorming for games/booth ideas, their themes, and creative titles for each of them. Spreadsheets were created to organize all the work that needed to be done.

For our Thursday/Saturday workdays, eager volunteers from every department of our church came to help us out – from college to ISM to Praxis group sisters and brothers. People were working wholeheartedly, giving their best in painting, cutting, constructing, drilling wood, painting life-sized cars, treasure maps, and various signs, making a pirate boat, and more. The eagerness and willingness of people to serve was so delightful. No one was doing their work drudgingly, but people were having such a good time, laughing and conversing with each other while working, enjoying each other's company. People didn't even seem to notice the time passing. We literally had to kick people out as they wouldn't stop working even when it was midnight. As I serve, I experience again and again the joy and excitement of giving myself and serving together with others as one body of Christ. Though our church is composed of many parts – people from different ministries, different skills – the fact that we have all come together for the sake of these kids is truly a picture of the community in action.

Friday, 10am – we met at our Alcatraz building to work on various things we still needed to do before the weekend. Website content to write, brochures to publish, food to plan for.

Saturday, 3am – back at Avondale house we’re still working; we’re getting delirious, but it’s so fun. The laughter and banter around the table and our laptops, everyone writing or combing through our archives for pictures to use, some doing photoshop work, some cleaning, some baking cookies for us to eat, and some just plain fooling around.

Saturday, 10am – back at it at Ulster house, Conrad’s place (he’s our main web guy). I’m with a bunch of brothers, intently and intensely staring at their screens. They don’t talk much, just once in a while, a shout of, “It’s live, ‘Life at Gracepoint’ is up guys.”

Saturday, 10pm – still here, we were supposed to release at 3pm, then 8pm, then 10pm.
“One down, a few more to go guys.”
“Okay, I’m done, what next?”
“Yes! I am the man! It’s working.”

I have these experiences often these days. Days turning into nights, into daytime again. I can’t describe the experience. We’re tired, but running on adrenaline, running on the excitement of getting these brochures out, getting the website up and running, making sure all the links work, wording every brochure just right, anticipating the 800 people streaming in to Willard, anticipating the 12,000 per month who visit our website. If I experience what it means to honor God passionately through our service, this must be something like it.