kairos 1 @ berkeley - gracepoint fellowship church

Time: 6:30 PM on a slow, August evening. Location: Fremont Starbucks, alfresco. A pre-sunset, sun-bathed patio with a serendipitous number of unoccupied metal tables. Who: a colorful assortment of Cal alumni and students, drinking venti vanilla frappuccinos and grapefruit Izzes. WHAT: a neat arrangement of Engineering pamphlets, semester deadline-lists, and handy campus maps. A frequent glance towards the direction of the observing parking lot. A constant milling in-and-out of the Starbucks establishment, with just a hint of nervous anticipation…

On Thursday, August 15^th, Kairos 1—doubling as Alumni Association members and Cal ambassadors—headed down to Fremont to host a Cal Connect reception for 2008-2009 incoming freshmen. Days earlier we had sent out several hundred "fruity" invitations to freshmen living in the Alameda County region, appreciating such a pat opportunity to reach out to new students, and with high hopes for a fair turnout. As representatives for the California Alumni Association, our goal was to be personable, yet reliable sources of Cal information, willing and ready to tell the freshmen anything they wanted to know about UC Berkeley (our Kairos brochures lay ready and waiting in a nearby basket just in case).

As one of the few current undergraduates representing CalConnect, I confess that as the time to meet the new freshmen drew nearer, I was plagued by an anxious dread of what I might experience during the encounter. Looks of rejection from freshman? Worse yet, an impossible-to-answer question? Besides, I asked myself, what would I know that freshmen would want to ask ME? (I'm no expert on the subtle implications of choosing IB or MCB, nor I am versed on the mysterious origins of Oskie…). As 7:00 approached, however, and our first freshman walked up to our expectant crew, my thoughts and feelings towards the freshman and to our "endeavor" began to change. Though it was somewhat awkward at first, me sitting there in my blue Cal shirt across from this really young and unfamiliar person, it soon became pretty comfortable and quite invigorating to truly connect with a future student at Cal. Offering them my 4-semester's worth of wisdom, I realized that it didn't really matter what I didn't know or what they might personally think of me—it was all about connecting with a fellow human being who was soon going to be exactly where I was, almost two years ago: an excited, anxious, and, (most probably) scared freshman at Cal. Though we were not supposed to directly promote Kairos, I think God used the opportunity to challenge me to venture out of my comfort zone just a little, and to practice loving others " more and more". Despite how much my selfish preconceptions caused me to resist the call to meet these freshmen, our DT passage on 1 Thessalonians 4 truly put things into perspective for me. True, I was secretly overwhelmed with Apostle Paul's plead to the Thessalonians to love their brothers, and the ramifications that might mean for me. After-the-fact, however, I can honestly say that I was privileged to have been at Cal Connect, knowing that it was only one act out of many which we should be willing to take on "in order to please God", and given to us "by the authority of the Lord Jesus".