a2f newsletter.

glad to see all of you this past week.

know it’s finals week and hopefully all of you guys are hanging in there. the light is at the end of the tunnel. finish strong.

we ended the semester on a bang this past week.

we had our last student leader’s monthly with pasta. looking back and recollecting all that we got to experience this past semester. learning what it means to love people and in turn appreciating more and more how much we’ve been loved by others and by god. we ended the night by “trying” to sing some christmas songs by candle light. note to everyone here: don’t trust google for your christmas song lyrics. “there came wise men from orient land.”

then we had our end of year christmas party. chris gave a talk on the greatest rescue story from the only one who is mighty enough to rescue us from all our personal darkness. afterwards, we had our secret santa post-activity with an incredible appearance of… brian kelly in the form of a large poster.

we had our “post-post” which included sisters heading over to hayes for late night snacks, cookie decoration and a christmas classic, polar express.

some of the bros went to cumberland for food and a not-so christmas classic, knives out.

while the student leader bros went off to south bend to have a mini-farewell for liam and elijah who are graduating this semester. we had time to share words of gratitude and core memories for them and ended the night with… hard to describe. but imagine a fried chicken restaurant, narcotics cops mish-mash and you have this korean movie called, extreme job. we then played some pickleball and wrapped it all off by going to hello panda buffet where i, for a moment, genuinely feared for my life and my stomach. but it ended up being okay and no students or staff were harmed.

we ended the week by baptizing sue choi. worship. opportunity to hear sue’s story (“why couldn’t i be in america, where studying was fun?”). sermon through isaiah 9. wonderful counselor. mighty god. everlasting father. prince of peace. and the highlight - baptizing sue in our makeshift baptismal and sou-vide water. thankful for god’s incredible work in her life. a story that started in her youth all the way in korea then to west lafayette until she made her salvation decision at a retreat in washington dc.

on that note, i wanted to make the big announcement for spring semester. winter retreat 2026. a joint retreat where our uiuc and iu church plants will be joining. it will be an incredible time of a lot of fun and fellowship and laughter. good food of course. but also a time to hear from god’s word and to process all we hear together. it’s open to everyone whether you’ve been going to church for a long time or not at all. retreats were where i made my most significant decisions in my christian life like sue so i encourage all of you to sign up and join us.

where? camp tecumseh. i.e. only 30 minutes away.

when? fri, 2/6. we leave in the evening. and we’ll be back sunday, 2/8, in time for all of your super bowl watch parties.

why? it can definitely be a highlight-making, life-changing weekend.

how? sign up on this form - here.

here’s a trailer to describe (…?) what this weekend is from our very own student, daniel uh.

cheers.

dj.

i was personally moved by devotions this past week on isaiah 42. really enjoying these christmas passages and specifically the ot prophecies pointing to jesus and isaiah 42 is one of those prophecies describing the coming of a chosen servant that will bring justice and righteousness and light to all nations.

but the image that always arrests me from this passage is this.

it’s such a gentler and tender description of jesus.

i think often when we imagine god we can’t help but picture-think and imagine him to be a god with hands clenched. a god ready to judge. a god angry at our shortcomings, constant and consistent sins and failings. and maybe we think this way because this has been our experience of authority figures in our lives. or maybe it’s the way we often think about ourselves as we end up doing things we know we shouldn’t, doing things that we feel guilty or ashamed about, or end up sinning in the same ways, with that same sin again and again and again even though we’ve made commitments time and time again around that area. i think we end up being the harshest judge of ourselves and we end up growing faint, weary in our struggle with sin, and discouraged. maybe even close to being defeated and ready to give up.

but this is not god. this is not the picture of jesus we get in this text. even a bruised read ready to break, he will not break. a wick ready to go out, he will not quench. he’s a gentle and tender god who does not grow faint and discouraged with us. he’s the one who always hopes and is the one committed to us and will take us gently by hand and keep us to the very end where, one day, we will become the very people that he has vision for us to become.

and so i want to encourage all of you. i don’t know how this semester has been. if you’re anything like me, it’s probably been a mix of different victories and joys but intermingled with some sense of shame and failure. remember, there’s no sin too great or distance too wide that god isn’t willing to forgive. and not with a begrudging, wearied, and discouraged disposition but with an always hopeful, gentler, tender, and loving embrace. like the father with the prodigal. you can always come back and there’s always grace. he knows our frame. he knows our frailty. and he wants us to know that he knows and that it’s okay.

hope this can also be an encouragement as you head home for break. i think home can be complicated. happiness with family and all the christmas traditions but also away from the normal day-to-day and maybe closer to old habits, old contexts and people and it can be a struggle. remember, whether victory or defeat, a bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

until next time.

dj.