Sang’s story

When I first came to Cal, I was a wide-eyed freshman, not knowing what to expect from the next four years of college. People say college is full of new experiences, but I never thought going to the church would be one of them for me. I was un-churched for my entire life and wasn’t planning on changing that. But on move-in day, I met a senior named Joe who happened to live on the floor above me. He invited me to Koinonia’s New Student Welcome Night and my life has never been the same since.

During my high school years, I was heavily influenced and addicted to all kinds of media: TV, movies, drama, video/computer games, internet, manga and anime. I spent hours in front of my computer everyday. My only breaks were to watch TV. I didn’t have much of a life outside school and my “media world.” So when I first joined Koinonia, I really enjoyed this new fellowship with real people. Everyone was so nice and friendly. So I decided to stick around. I remember being in the seniors’ dorm room more often than when I was in my own room. They must have had a hard time loving me since I was an annoying and nagging freshman with a very arrogant attitude. And they had to see me everyday. There must have been times when the seniors were tired and didn’t want to deal with freshmen like me, but their door was always open for anyone to come in. No matter how late it was, they stayed up to help us with our school work, listened to our complaints and struggles, and answered our fundamental questions about life. With their help, I invested a lot of time into investigating the intellectual claims of Christianity and I saw how accurately the Bible addresses the world and my sinfulness. I was convinced that Christianity is indeed the truth. So I decided to accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior on March 12th, 2006.

Everything feels as if it just happened yesterday. But here I am, only a couple weeks from graduating. Nearly three years have passed since then. Although there were many ups and downs, God has been faithful in my life. He has exposed and dealt with my many character flaws by using people and circumstances in my life. He brought healing to my addictions and he filled my life with people instead. Through mission trips, he shared his heart and vision with me. I used to believe that money and romance would make me happy. But God showed me that true happiness comes from a relationship with him and with his people. I know I don’t deserve any of these, but God has been so good and has blessed me more than I can imagine.

Becoming a senior was such a strange experience for me. Since I looked up to the seniors so much during my freshmen year, having the title of “senior” felt like a great weight on my shoulders. I always wanted to live in the dorms during my senior year. I wanted to follow my older brothers’ footsteps. So I applied for the dorms with a couple like-minded peers; unfortunately, we weren’t able to get it and so most of my peers moved into Dana house. Even there, due to the lack of space, I couldn’t move in. So I got stuck at Dwight apartment with a bunch of sophomores (Tim’s class).

Although I felt like I was missing out on the fellowship with my peers at D-House, I decided to turn this into an opportunity to outreach to the younger ones, even the sophomores. I had a vision of turning my apartment into a “place to be” for the younger guys. My roommates and I started out strong. We went to Costco to fill up our refrigerators with drinks and food every other week. We tried to cook every free night so that we can invite guys over. We even started this event called “church’s night” which we went to pick up nearly a hundred pieces of church’s chicken to feed all thirty of the Dwight guys at my place. It was somewhat easy in the beginning. I was passionate about loving these guys and nothing seemed to stop it. Well, that soon turned out to be not so easy. The real test came when school got busier and busier. We were physically tired from school and work and didn’t always feel like hanging out with these guys. On top of that, I developed a pinched nerve in my back which limited my physical activity; I couldn’t even stand up or sit down for a long period of time. This was the time when God really stretched my capacity to love. Time to time, I slowed down, but we never stopped outreaching to the younger ones. I remember lying down on the living room, cooking for the freshmen because I couldn’t continue standing due to the pain. When we felt lazy or found no time to cook, we got Jack-in-the-box to feed them. And during finals week, we opened our living room for anyone who wanted to study. We just opened our home and made ourselves available to them.

Our living room is very small, and dishes we can make are very limited. But as I offered these small things to God and was available for others, I experienced God multiplying it and using them for his kingdom work. Our living room is always filled with people every night. They hang out, study, eat, and even sleep over. We still have a couple more weeks to live here at Dwight, but some of the freshmen are already saying that they will miss us a lot. They say that they will take our roles next year and cook for the incoming freshmen. It really makes me smile. As a freshman, I was strongly impacted by the seniors I met at Gracepoint Fellowship, and the fact that I was able to do the same brings me great joy. Touching people’s lives in the way I had been touched—it’s something that I will never stop for the rest of my life.