Ice-skating

Hi everyone!

This Tuesday, November 6th, FoF had a Social Event! We gathered up on the corner of Królowej Jadiwgi St and Droga Dębińska St to walk together to the ice skating rink "Chwiałka". We had a blast! The place was huge and thanks to that we didn't feel it was crowded. At first we all had difficulties with skating, as most of us hadn't done that for 5-7 years, but after 15min we were as happy as a clam swinging from one side of the rink to another.

We will definitely go ice skating once again this winter! :)

the 4W's!

Hello to all!

On October 30th FoF met up for the 4W's.

After drinking a cup of latte and eating a bowl of broccoli soup, we began our meeting with the Welcome part. Each of us drew three M&M's and, depending on the colors, said a few words about him-/herself. The topics were e.g. Friends&Family, School, Animals, and so we all got to know one another better.

Next, we moved on to the Worship, which, this time differed from our usual routine. Andrew's idea was to walk around the Cafe, find something that was for us beautiful and then take a picture of it. That was a great way to discover the beauty coming from God -- by focusing on things we don't usually notice.

Having finished talking about pictures we took, we went on to the Word. Karoline shed a light on Romans 5:3-5 and the group had a deep and inspiring discussion about hope, endurance and character. By sharing our thoughts and experiences, we all grew more in love for God.

At the end of our meeting, Magdalena led the Witness. She told us an amazing story about her sister's achievement -- the hardships she had faced and the final result of her work. The courage and the strength Magdalena's sister needed, came down from Above. Her story was a wonderful encouragement for all. God's generosity and love are endless.

We all agreed that this meeting was a very special one.

Looking forward to seeing you next week! :)

ALIVE: "Courage"

In this week's sharing, we had the privilege of having Richard, Brooke, and baby Max Nungessers with us. Richard and Brooke shared from Mark 2, where Jesus called Levi to follow him. We see Jesus having the courage to reach out to a man despised by others. Jesus wasn't afraid of how others would perceive Him, He knew what was right.

How often do we talk ourselves out of doing something courageous? It could be standing up for a rightful cause, could be defending the weak, or simply approaching a person to get to know him or her. We are filled with daily opportunities to be like Christ, but often times we waste it because of lack of courage.

If Jesus was preoccupied with how others may think of Him, He would've never approached Levi, and Levi would've never followed Jesus, and Levi would've never written the gospel of Matthew. Imagine what may be lost in the greater scheme of things simply because we were too preoccupied with our fears of self-doubt or how others may perceive us.

Choose today to live courageous. It doesn't take much. Jesus did it with "Follow me." The Levis of city today are waiting for us.

FoF meets every Tuesday night 7:00-8:30 pm at Sweet Surrender Cafe (Ul. Krasinskiego 1/1 Poznan).

Our first guest speaker!

Hi y'all!

Last week, October 16th we met up at Sweet Surrender Cafe and had our second meeting this academic year. We started off with a game to get to know each other better. Next, we had a great worship by the candlelight and then moved on to the main point of our meeting.

Our guest speaker was Andrew Ngaditono, who started the "ALIVE: God, self, community" series. The whole group had a lively conversation, when analyzing Ezechiel 37:1-14. Andrew explained that God is active, as He pursues us continuously. He reaches out to all of us and restores the broken-hearted - He's the God of hope. We need to focus on keeping our eyes on the Lord, because He breathes life into us and breaks the chains of the painful past.
People seek God, people seek His help. Communities look for those, who were healed by the Lord, because they are blind themselves and need to be led to the Savior of the lost.
We must remember that in God we have our strength, our power, our hope. It is thanks to Him, the Creator of us all, that we can be healed from the pain, our weaknesses and brokenness.

It was a wonderful, encouraging meeting. We were very blessed to have Andrew preach that night!

And so, if you want to find out more about "ALIVE: God, self, community" series and grow in love for God, come and join us! We're there, Tuesdays, 7pm, Sweet Surrender Cafe waiting for you! :)

BUNKO NIGHT!

Tuesday October 9th we started this month with a social event.
We met up at karolek in the second floor for pizza and game night! :)

There wasn´t that many who showed up so we decided to play a game calledBANG!
It was a lot of fun, the game was basically like a mafia game.

The night was a success. Fun game, excellent pizza and great people. I forgot who won BANG, but hey! It´s not about winning, it´s about participating!! :D (I lost...)

Hope to see you all next time on FoF. Tuesday 7pm at Sweet surrender!

Xoxo

Kicking Off The New School Year!

Hi all,

you are all invited to the first general meeting of FoF this Tuesday evening October 2nd, at 6 pm. We will meet together at Sweet Surrender and walk together to the nearby Millennium Pizza for dinner.

Come find out what FoF is all about! We'll see you there!

Blessings,
Andrew Ngaditono

Sweet Surrender:
Zygmunta Krasińskiego 1
60-830 Poznań
http://fofnan.blogspot.com/p/when-and-where.html

Millennium Pizza:
Adama Mickiewicza 18A
60-101 Poznań, Poland
http://www.milenium-pizza.pl/

4W'S TUESDAY, APRIL 24TH

WANTED!

Karoline, responsible for the “Welcome” part

The suspect was seen last Tuesday at Sweet Surrender Café around 7 p.m. She was wearing a black shirt and a wide smile. According to the witnesses, she was distributing small cards to the FoFers, asking them to write their names on the scraps of paper. Once they had followed her instructions, she collected the scraps and mixed them up so that no one could see their content, after which the participants were to pick one card and write something nice about the person whose name they drew.

WANTED!

Laurie, responsible for the “Worship” part

Again, according to the witnesses, Laurie brought her laptop with her to FoF and shared two videos that showed different ways of worshiping God.  In one of the videos, a young artist recited a poem for God’s glory. He was trying to explain the difference between real faith and religion, and showing how people can sometimes mistake one for the other. You can watch it here: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY&feature=share

The second video was related with visual arts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VtiHkkbq18&feature=share

WANTED!

Andrew, responsible for the “Word” part

The discussion started with Andrew focusing around Romans 12:9-21. Everybody talked about the verses that moved them the most in the passage, and in the end it turned out that in the Bible, even the seemingly short fragments are rich in important spiritual remarks.

WANTED!

Kremena, responsible for the “Witness” part

Kremi shared with the FoFers her experiences in living the Bible truths on a day-to-day basis. A consistent attitude of putting the Bible principles into practice pays out in the long run, because the others are drawn to the people whose moral core is clearly defined and well-founded.

BUNCO!!!

Bunco!

No, that is not a new acronym for FoF meetings, it was the game played on the 2^nd floor TV lounge in Karolek for the FoF social!  

Tim arranged everything to get us access to the room!  Go TIM!!!  At first David, Tim, Milena and Theresa were wondering if we should have a change in “game” plans, since we did need a few more people than 4.  Suddenly more people showed up and there were enough people to make it a game night of Bunco with a few “ghost people” added in to make it an even 12!

It was easy to get into the game and yell at the dice to roll the needed numbers.  In fact we were getting so intense that when someone came in to ask if it would be possible to watch TV, no one responded to him, but kept on rolling the dice!!!

Of course when the huge pink pizza boxes arrived, the game was stopped immediately!   Yum!

Soon the games continued!  There was an obnoxious duck that was passed around whenever someone rolled a “Bunco”!   Prizes were given to the person with the most wins, most losses and the final person with the traveling stuffed duck!  Hats off to Vince (most L’s), Nina (last person with the duck) and Roman (most W’s!)! 

 

Thanks to all who participated and we missed those of you who didn’t make it!  Hope to see you at the next FoF event. 

Happy Easter to all!  Our Savior is Risen!

WWWW March 20, 2012

“Ok, here’s what we’re going to do. First, we should stand round in a circle – has everybody found their place? Good. Now, you reach out your hands to grab somebody else’s hand, but make sure that you hold two hands of two different people… Done? Good. Our objective for now is to undo this knot”, explains Tim the rules of our welcome activity. The biggest difficulty? At any moment, you’re not allowed to release your grip on the hands you’re shaking. On the other hand, it’s the best way to welcome people whose names have slipped your mind and to greet them again with a hearty handshake! Tonight we’re in the Sweet Surrender’s office and since a lot of us have showed up for 4W’s, it seems that there’s not much space left in the room… But who cares? We’re having fun, even though we’re squeezed and tied up in a new Gordian knot in the cramped office. After some effort, we find our way back to the initial circle.

Andrea leads us in worship, and I like these moments on Tuesday when I can just be here and praise God with other FoFers. Karoline prepared the word section – she wants to share with us one of her favourite Bible passages: Matthew 6:33-34. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” It’s reassuring to know that even though our lives are far from being blissful and easy, no matter what happens God is and will be our provider if only we choose to put our trust in Him. One student notices that the promise of these verses doesn’t lose touch with everyday reality – for Jesus admits that each day brings its own trouble. What he offers isn’t a free from trouble existence smelling of roses and filled up with entertainment – but still, he guarantees that we can count on Him in every situation and, as a result, we have all reason to await future with hope!

After the short discussion on Matthew, Theresa asked us to turn a couple of pages in our Bibles to find Matthew’s last verses, in which Jesus gives us his Great Commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) This time, we are to particularly focus on two key words, namely “go” and “all”. Jesus doesn’t want us to stay in churches and hang out only with Christians. We are to be his representatives in the world, a task implying that we spend time with those who haven’t heard yet of His Good News.

Tuesday night is when my soul gets some good spiritual food. Join us next time!

They are listening attentively...

...aren't they?

The One Where They All Get Crazy About Laser Tag

March 9, 2012 will be always remembered as the day we crossed laser beams – we went to Kinepolis (a leisure centre on the outskirts of the city with a multiplex and other attractions) to play laser tag! Everybody had two chances of becoming the laser master – one “solo” game in which everyone played against everyone and one team game, which saw two teams of terrific players struggling to get the higher score.

Tim became the ultimate champion of the second game, earning his Red team 5775 points. Too bad the final score was in the favour of the Greens...

Some of us felt as if they had rediscovered their second identity. We should have been born in the Star Wars era...

All ready for the battle?

4 W's February 21


The temperatures are on the rise and the winter seems pretty decided to let go. This Tuesday we met for 4 W’s in a bit unusual circumstances – as Sweet Surrender was booked up, we were promoted two floors up.

For welcome… well, actually, there were two “welcomes”. Kent, who joined us that evening to share the Word, showed us this clever little game where one has to cross out sticks arranged in rows. There are two players who play on turns: during your turn, you can cross out only one stick. You can’t let your opponent cross out the last stick in a row, otherwise he gets to cross out the whole raw, getting all the points. There is one good reason for which everybody should practice before the next week: Kent pledged himself to buy a ‘”kebab” to any person who would beat him!

Jocelyn (from Taiwan) debuted as our “welcome specialist”. She distributed sheets of paper and asked us to write vertically our names on them. To each letter of our name, we were supposed to find a word that describes us in some way. Sometimes having a long name can be really upsetting, especially if you don’t carry a Thesaurus on you…

For the worship part, Theresa asked us to do the same thing, but instead of looking for words to describe our own character, we were to find some that would describe God’s.

Kent led the word part. As he put it, he wanted to “give us some of his cooking so that we could taste it and see whether we would like him come back to have him cook some more”. That was an ambitious dish that he had prepared for that evening… an overview of the whole Bible story! On sheets of paper with the books of the Old Testament (subdivided into three groups: historical, prophetical and didactic), we were to discern the key themes for each and every one of them, and distinguish the thread that links one book to the other. Certainly not an easy task, but it helps to look at the Bible from a wider perspective.

The last part, witness, was Tim’s debut. He spoke about his latest discoveries inspired by 1 Corinthian 9:19-22, where Paul says: “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. (…) I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”

After the meeting at Sweet Surrender, we went to the railway station to share some food and hot tea with the homeless.

Touching Lives

Breaking into groups

A thermos or two...?

The temperature was 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-7 deg C) outside and only a bit warmer inside.  A group of students met under the departure sign in the train station and formed three groups.  One group approached a few people at the back of the station who were seeking shelter and warmth in the one of the few buildings that is open late and allowed them inside.  As a young college student pulled a sandwich out of her purse, a young man pulled a thermos out of his pack and poured hot water into a plastic cup with a tea bag in it.  Another guy, knowing the importance of sugar with tea, followed the cups of tea to offer a teaspoon or two of sugar.  The people seeking shelter and warmth in the train station welcomed the sandwiches and the hot tea (with sugar).   One lady after receiving some bread and tea, broke off a piece of bread and asked everyone in the group to share it with her.  A slice of bread was passed among the group standing with this lady.  The bread was broken in fellowship together followed by prayer, “Lord, please help this beautiful woman see that You can help bring about change in her life.”

After breaking bread together

On the ride back to the dorms, students were asking questions:  Where do we go from here? What can we do next? How do we help people change?

Hot tea and sandwiches

These students dove into something that took them outside of their comfort zones, and looks like it could go further.  One gal at first didn't want to come to the train station, but in the end said that she was glad that she came even if she felt afraid.  It was great to be with these students who took a break from warm dorm rooms and studies to reach out to those in need, showing the love of Christ.  And the best part of all?  The idea to do this came from the students themselves!  Cool, eh?  Maybe you can join us next time.....

Murder Mystery Dinner !!!

It was time for our 27th High school Reunion!

We had a great evening seeing old classmates, friends, and enemies... and what they have done with their lives.

Unfortunately one person wasn't liked by many and it cost him his "life".   

(Who died???? see pictures below)

Who was the murderer ?? 

Was it the math team captain who is now a financial wizard with millions?
The valedictorian who refuses to let anyone top her? Ever.
Or possibly the class president who is now a U.S. presidential hopeful? 

(see below)

(Nick Nixon - class president and Nancy Nixon - class V.P)

(Joe - the jock, Natalie - the cheerleader)

(Pamela Abdul - the pompom captain)

(Mike Majesty - the prom king and Mallory Majesty - the prom queen)

(Cindy Crawfish - the class flirt)

 

(Judd Jenson - the class stud) 

(Bailey Babble - the class gossip)

 (Steve Spielson - audio visual squad leader)

(Molly Ringworm- the drama queen)

(Bobbie Bright - the valedictorian)

(Randy Reporter- the newspaper editor)

 (Byron P. Keaton - the math team captain &.Myra S. Keaton- the math team cheerleader)

(Terry Johnson - the hall pass monitor)

(Sally Sax - marching band & Danny Drums not in picture))

(B.A. Barricade - the punk)

(Sam - Student Counsil)

(Micky - Honor Student)

(David - Math Team Member)

(Christi - band member)

 After everyone got reacquainted the lights went out!!!! When they came back on this is what we all saw......

Steve was DEAD!!!! 

Nick tried to revive him ... but it was too late.

After another hour of talking with each other, sharing evidence, and sharing others dirty little secrets, Terry was able to conclude who the killer was.

It was .....

Molly Ringworm- the drama queen !!!

It was truly a reunion none of us will forget !!!