This past weekend, we had our much anticipated Spring Break getaway trip at Canyon Lake – about an hour and a half away...

We had our first Valentine's Day of Compassion here in Austin! A couple of sisters started this tradition three years...

“Gone…like Elvis and his mom, like Al Pacino’s cash, nothing lasts…” “Gone…like Elvis and his mom, like Al Pacino’s cash, nothing lasts…” What a catchy song. “Gone – In 24 hours, today will be yesterday” was the theme of our Koinonia’s Spring Welcome Night last Friday. The hope was to communicate that our time here on earth is limited and death, though difficult to think about, will surely come to each person. How then should we live our lives so that in the end, when we find ourselves facing death, we know we will have lived meaningfully? What a topic to deliver to an audience of young, spry, wide-eyed college students who have their whole lives ahead of them. I remember how I felt when I arrived on the college scene (which wasn’t that long ago). I was excited because I was finally on my own. I felt unstoppable. Not because I had anything in particular going for me, but that I was young and I had the whole world at my fingertips it felt like. Then, I got this uneasy feeling that there might be a certain, right way to live out there that I am neglecting or might be blind to. I began asking the questions that Pastor Manny challenged the audience to ask themselves – who am I?, where do I come from?, what is life? If there are answers to these questions, it means that my life philosophy of doing whatever I want needed to change. It hit me that my life is indeed short and will pass like a blink of an eye. I remember how I was sharing with the students around me last Friday that the season of life that I miss the most was my third grade year. Why, you ask? Because I was making a lot of friends, my teacher was so patient and gave me a lot of love/attention, and I was at the peak of my tetherball game. That was 19 years ago. Time just flew by since then like a flash. In college, I met people who challenged me to think about my mortality. I began to take their advice. If God exists and if He is good and worth following, then I want to know right now so that I live correctly in His eyes. I’m thankful that I was able to find God during my college years so that I can give the very best of my life over to Him and experience the meaning and richness of living according to His truths.

The year 2009 has already started off memorably with our first ever Koinonia-GFC Austin Winter Retreat. While the weather...