Dearest Brothers and Sisters,

As the new school year approaches, I am excitedly writing to you about a few announcements regarding the future of the Circle of Life fellowship and some other events at the Chinese church.  Please bear wtih me, as I am sure most of you have already received many emails regarding the Circle of Life fellowship throughout the summer...and have found most of the emails to be the same in format.  This will be different.  I am just going to share some announcements, but I really do hope that you consider and pray about checking out these events.

First, I wanted to let you all know that Circle of Life fellowship on Friday nights will continue throughout the school year.  I won't go into as much details (I already do on a weekly basis), but basically it is a fellowship for college students and anyone else to come and worship God on Friday nights at the Chinese church.  From the beginning, it has been on our hearts and in our prayers to provide a place for our college brothers and sisters in Christ to come and worship God.  Not only that, we want to provide a place where you can become a part of the community and get plugged into a church.  Personally, during my time in college, I always hoped for an opportunity to get plugged into a church but often felt overwhelmed at the really large gatherings.  Later on, I had the opportunity to get connected at the Chinese church, and I hope that others may be able to grasp this opportunity as well. 

Finally, I just want to cordially invite everyone of you to the Chinese church's annual Church retreat.  It will be from Friday, October 6 through Sunday, October 8.  Retreats are wonderful ways to get to spend time with God in a place with less distractions of this world, and what is great is the opportunity to meet other brothers and sisters in Christ as well.  This year's speaker for the College and Youth group will be Richard Kim ...who used to speak at UCSB's KCM.  For more details, please feel free to email me at helicon@xxxxxxxxx, or contact brother, Kam Choi at 805-968-3920.  Oh, and this year's theme is: Building Up The Body of Christ ... the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up (Ephesians 4:12).