As of Fall 2010, Grace Christian Fellowship has undergone the metamorphosis of becoming Asian American InterVarsity. Along with it, this website for GCF will no longer be actively updated, please visit our new location at www.rso.cornell.edu/aaiv

Thank you and God Bless,

Highlighter

What an amazing year God has blessed us with! We just wanted to take a few moments to let you know what has been happening on Cornell’s campus and what some of our future plans are as this year comes to a close.

Name Metamorphosis
After many hours of prayerful discussion, dialogue, and debate, the fellowship had a chance to vote on a new name. We had concluded that a name change would help to clarify our purpose on this campus and our reason for existing as an Asian-American fellowship. We also wanted to make our affiliation with InterVarsity more apparent so that people realize that there is a huge network of people sharing God’s love and a common vision. Greg Jao, the regional director for the New York/New Jersey region of InterVarsity, recently spoke to us at a large group about the strengths and weaknesses of being an ethnic specific fellowship. As Grace Christian Fellowship, we are a "Pan-Asian chapter of InterVarsity." In order to better clarify our mission, we wanted to be bold about who we are and the emphasis on intentionally relating to those in the Asian-American community. In the end, over 2/3 of the fellowship decided on the name "Asian American InterVarsity" (Fact: over 8 other IV fellowships around the country share this name). As a result, this coming Fall ’10, we will no longer be known as Grace Christian Fellowship, but rather as Asian American InterVarsity.

Basileia
With three cars packed full of Cornell people, we spent 6 days in the Adirondack Mountains learning more about God’s vision for the campus as well as the people in it. We had at least one person in every track from Engaging God’s World to Work Crew (Happening This Week). On the last night, we took some time to share and testify to what we had learned at Basileia. It was amazing to hear how people had been able to personalize InterVarsity’s vision to see Students and Faculty Transformed, Campuses Renewed, and World Changers Developed. We are excited to see what we can accomplish this fall! Another e-mail will be sent out shortly regarding New Student Outreach (NSO) details and how you can help.

As we go about planning events for this coming semester, we want to make sure that what we do accomplishes at least one part of the IV vision. We are not solely an in-reach or outreach fellowship. We want to be a loving community that can support and care for one another as well as our neighbors, while at the same time encouraging and lifting one another up in our walks with God. Imagine if we were able to unite and create a true sense of community at Cornell because of our genuine love for one another and our hope in a renewed campus. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Changes
Over the summer, there will be numerous changes being made to the listserv as well as many other aspects of the fellowship (e.g. website, blog, t-shirts, etc). We will do our best to let you know ahead of time when these changes will be made, especially to the listserv, so that you are not left in the dark. If you have any questions, feel free to contact anybody on the servant team and we would be glad to assist you.

Thanksgiving and Blessing
On behalf of Asian-American InterVarsity, we would like to thank everyone for a wonderful and blessed year. Thank you especially to the class of 2010 who helped to encourage all of us to reach for our goals and deepen our understanding and relationship with Jesus Christ. Have a safe and wonderful summer. We look forward to seeing you in the near future!

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:16-19)

In Him,
Keren, Andy, Tim, Chelsea, Helen (AAIV Servant Team)

I wanted to let you know what the final three name options that have been suggested/discussed/presented at numerous meetings. As you may have heard, we are interested in re-evaluating and changing the fellowship’s name in order to better reflect our mission and purpose on this campus. Here are the final three choices:

• Asian American InterVarsity
• InterVarsity – Grace Christian Fellowship
• Pan Asian InterVarsity

I hope that each one of you takes the time to consider and pray about this and other important changes in the fellowship. Please come out to Large Group on Friday (Kimball B11 @ 7:30pm) in order to cast your vote (every vote does count). This will be the one and only time we are voting.

Have a wonderful and safe Slope Day!

- Andy

If you are involved in small groups you know that as a fellowship we are going through Daniel right now. Hopefully you have gotten up to chapter 9 where we see Daniel’s fervent prayer for his people Israel.

With a desperate heart, full adoration of God’s righteousness, and humble heart Daniel confesses the sins of Israel and pleads with the Lord to make his face shine upon the sanctuary. Daniel asks this of God not because of what Israel has done but because of who God is : For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy – Daniel 9: 18B

If we were to pray Daniel’s prayer right now it would be fitting as well. We are still in a world that’s groaning for Christ’s return, but praise God that we can come to Him in prayer and that He will listen.

So many times we are stuck in our own worlds and do not realize the specific time and place that God has placed us in. We can be praying for God’s hand to be in so many things across this world, yet we forfeit that opportunity because we are so immersed in our daily lives.

I challenge you to think beyond yourself and to pray for this university, nation, and world. An opportunity to do this will be this Saturday from 1:30-3:00PM. We will be joining Christians to walk around this campus, which God has specifically placed us on, and take time to intentionally lift it up in prayer. Come if you share this burden for prayer as well.

If you are interested the details are below, provided by our sister Charlene from Campus Crusade for Christ:

Come join us this Saturday May 1st from 1:30pm-3pm for the PRAYER WALK. Many of our prayer meetings are conducted in a quiet room indoors. A prayer walk is an opportunity to tangibly see, hear, touch, and smell the campus on behalf of which we are praying.

We will meet at the AD White statue (he is the one sitting down) on the Arts Quad to pray together and organize. Then we will disperse in small groups to different areas of campus. At the end, we will return to the statue for a closing prayer. Several other fellowships are participating in this prayer walk, so not only is this a chance to intercede for Cornell, but also to lift up our prayers together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The weather is supposed to be better this weekend, from the upper 50s to the mid-70s. If you have never gone on a prayer walk before, consider coming! We will have suggested routes, things to pray for, and maps available for you to use.

See you there,
Helen

This week’s LG will be a FUN one, so come join us on north campus in HELEN NEWMAN POOL! Yeah, that’s right, the pool! We’ll be chilling with each other, splashing around, and watching "Finding Nemo". Don’t worry about pruny skin, because there will be inner-tubes to relax in!

The night starts at 6:30PM, so come prepared with towel and bathing suit! Even if you can’t swim, come join us anyway because there will be floaties

Go accept the facebook invite! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114871558547823

Lastly, the ALGAE for the night (After Large Group Activity/Event) will be preparation for Mini-O’s! Unfortunately it’s a bit too late to sign up now (although the seniors did send out many reminders…) but if you’d like to help out with the preparation anyway, you are definitely welcome to join! Mainly you will split up with your team, and figure out the following details:

-team name
-tshirt ideas
-cheers
-flags

Therefore, if you are signed up for Mini-O’s, make sure you come out on Friday! The planning is half the fun! Tell all your friends who have signed up as well

Have a great remainder of the week!

de,
chels

This Friday for Large Group we will be hearing from Professor Fick of Crop and Soil Sciences. Yes, "Fick", as in Charles’ dad. So come join us, beloved brothers and sisters in CCF! We will be hearing a message that addresses the myth, "I have doubts, so I can’t be a Christian". It’s bound to be a great message and it will be a wonderful opportunity for you to invite all of your non-Christian friends to.

We will be meeting at 7:30 in Kimball B11, which is in the Engineering Quad. Hope to see you all there!

Have a fun rest of the week!

your sister,
Chels

We’re writing with some really exciting vision that we want to share with you particularly, our fellow servants. There’s a lot of information here, so please be patient with us

As you’ve been witnessing, in response to a vividly clear call for revival, COAH has been initiating some new ministries. However, as a Christian body, we’ve been realizing that a lot of disjointedness hinders us. So after some consideration, we would like to ask God to reconcile some of that disunity in mobilizing us with a week-long prayer movement, starting Sunday 4/18.

Our vision is to purify the hearts of the Christian body at Cornell through prayer, fasting, praise, and the spreading of the Word, so that God may bring revival into the hearts of many others at Cornell. We believe that God often works actively and powerfully when people seek His face as one body. This year, Cornell has been shaken by events such as student suicides and the Haiti earthquake. At the same time, various prayer meetings, both regular and spontaneous, have experienced surprisingly increased attendance, very much on the backs of freshmen. Many staff members and students have reported witnessing dramatic changes in attitude in the lives of believers on campus. Throughout this semester, God has been placing it on our hearts to carry on different initiatives, but their purposes are coming together. We believe that God is behind this movement, and we believe it is our job to run alongside it.

There are 4 major components to the movement next week, each with humble requests. To sign up to participate in any of these components, you can visit our online spreadsheet. Each component is listed on a different sheet.

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Prayer
Fervent praise and petitions to God for more of His glory and for an urgency to seek Him.

1) Next week’s regularly scheduled prayer meetings are open to the entire Christian body.

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Fasting – Hungry For Haiti
Intercession on behalf of the underprivileged, moving beyond giving spare change to voluntarily suffering with the underprivileged, and sharing with non-Christians the privilege of selfless living.

1) Opportunities to table and donate:
- Tabling: http://doodle.com/participation.html?pollId=4umx4gwnunhwh5t2

- Donating: http://firstgiving.com/hungryforhaiti

2) Weekly ‘lunch-fast’ prayer meeting, meeting outside WSH 12-2 PM

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Praise
Public gathering as the body of Christ to worship and to facilitate opportunities to open up conversation with passerbys.

We encourage the musically inclined to sign up to lead praise outside across campus, and we encourage individuals to gather groups to sign up together.

Attend these times of worship whenever you can!!

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The Word – The Chalking Ministry

The campus-wide encounter with God Himself, by utilizing artistic talents to literally spread God’s Word.

1) Participate at any time by signing up.2) Chalk will be available in ATH123. Alternatively, each fellowship may retain a box of chalk to be passed around!

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Thank you for your time and may God bless this campus!

In Him,
Larry Lin and Keren Wong

The weather is awesome, and it’s just going to get better, so get prepared to spend an entire day OUTDOORS with your fellow GCFers and FRIENDS at the annual GCF Mini-Os!
Mini-Os is held every year on the Saturday after slope day (this year it will be on May 8th from 9:00am-4:30pm), it is an all day event where we participate in team bonding and physique enhancing activities. There will be cheers, games and food galore.

The Miniature Olympic Games (henceforth Mini-Os) is a wonderful event to invite your friends: big, small, young, old, come one, come all!!!

Please sign up here by midnight on April 25th, so we have time to prepare food and t-shirts.

Sincerely,
THE SEEN-YORS!

This week’s LG will be back in Kimball B11 at 7:30PM. Sorry for all the back and forth stuff; just a heads up that the rest of the LG’s of the semester will be in Kimball B11.

There are many good reasons why you should come out on Friday night, dear brothers and sisters! Besides sharing in community, coming together to rest and learn from each other, this week’s special guest is Greg Jao! Greg is the Regional Director for New York & New Jersey, and we are very blessed to hear from him again. We will be hearing about what it means to be Asian and a Christian, and what that means for our pan-Asian fellowship.

In case you’re worried that 90 minutes of Greg Jao isn’t enough for you, then fear not! Join us for dinner in the Ivy Room in Willard Straight Hall at 6PM!

So besides those wonderful reasons to come out, there’s yet another one! This weekend is ALUMNI weekend, and seeing old faces is even more of an incentive to join us on Friday!

OK, until then!

Blessings,
Chels

I wanted to invite everyone to come out Wednesday to participate in another open leadership meeting with the lovely KATCH team (Keren, Andy, Tim, Chelsea, and Helen). We will be discussing some plans for the rest of the semester and we want your input on the matter. Also, if you are feeling burdened and in need of a squishy shoulder to rest on, please come. We would love to pray for you and give you a GREAT BIG HUG It is supposed to be sunny with a high of 62 degrees on Wednesday! The details are as follows:

Open Leadership Meeting
Wednesday, April 14 @ 4:30pm
Tables in front of Goldwin-Smith Hall
- Andy