Happy Lunar New Year to all our family and friends who celebrate this 15-day celebration that began yesterday!  We wish you all peace, joy, and good health in the new year!

Countries like China, Vietnam, South Korea, and more around the world follow the Lunar Calendar, and celebrate this New Year Schedule. This year, the new year started yesterday and it will end on February 24, with the celebration of the Lantern Fesitval.

Exodus 12:1-2 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 

In Exodus 12, God tells us what the first month should be, and the entire chapter continues with instructions on what exact days we should do specific things and celebrate specific festivals on particular days. The Hebrew calendar inthe Bible (along with the Chinese, Tibetan, and Hindu calendars) was lunisolar; it functions harmoniously with the solar and lunar cycle, based on observations of both the sun and the moon. HERE is an article on Calendar.com that explains this in detail. 

For anyone wanting to celebrate the Lunar New Year, there are events all over the Bay Area that you can attend. One event to mention is the Chinese New Year Parade which has been named "one of the top ten Parades in the world by the International Festivals & Events Association, the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco is one of the few remaining night-illuminated Parades in North America and the biggest parade celebrating the lunar new year outside of Asia." - www.chineseparade.com

Many who celebrate this celebration will spend time with family over the next two weeks, but many can not be with family at this time and so it can bring sorrow and a longing to be with family. We want to acknowledge those who wish they could be with famioy but can not. We hope that God fills your heart with love and joy and we are so grateful to have you be a part of our spiritual family.  

So again, for those celebrating the Lunar New Year, we wish you a Happy Lunar New Year! Chúc mừng Năm Mới! xn nián ho! Gong hei fat choy (恭喜发财)! Saehae bok mani badeuseyo!

Super Bowl Sunday takes place on the second Sunday in February which is today! After 17 hard-fought matches spanning 18 weeks, the two best football teams in the NFL will battle it out today to see who is the best team for this season. This year our very own San Francisco Forty-Niners will compete against the Kansas City Chiefs later this afternoon for the championship title!

So if you are going to a Super Bowl Party today, here are 10 interesting facts about the Super Bowl that you can share with your friends!

1. The NFL was officially created in 1920, but that was not the year of the first Super Bowl. That happened after some businessmen who wanted their own football franchises were denied by the NFL and decided to create their own league called the American Football League (AFL). For many years, there was competition and rivalry between the NFL and AFL – for players, fans, and funding. Finally, the owners reached an agreement in 1966 to merge the two leagues by 1970. 

2. The Super Bowl grew out of this merger but didn’t have this name, and was originally known as the ‘AFL-NFL World Championship Game. Even though the merger was not until 1970, an end of season championship game – the first Super Bowl, was played on January 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The game ended with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers defeating the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs by 35-10.

3. The term ‘Super Bowl’ was coined by Lamar Hunt – the owner of the AFL Kansas City Chiefs, to refer to the championship game and from there it caught on.  After the two leagues merged into one big NFL, it was split into two conferences: The National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). Winners of each play against each other in the Super Bowl. 

4. In 1980 the Pittsburgh Steelers become the first Super Bowl winners to visit the White House.

5. Super Bowls have all been numbered with Roman Numerals. This year is Super Bowl LVIII (58). There has been one exception, though which came for Super Bowl 50. The league called it the "golden anniversary" game, and because of that, the league leaned into the gold element and made it the standard 50 with Arabic numbers.

6. In fact, the 2015 Super Bowl became one of history’s highest-rated sporting events. Commercial slots during the game are the most expensive, with 30-second advertisements costing millions of dollars. With celebrity endorsements and the use of advanced technology, commercials aim to leave a lasting impression on the massive Super Bowl audience. This is probably one of the few times when interest in the commercials is parallel to that of the actual show itself. 

7. Four teams in the NFL have never qualified for the Super Bowl - Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions (Although Detroit came very close this year!)

8. The New England Patriots own the record for most Super Bowl appearances (eleven). The Cowboys, Steelers, Broncos and now our very own San Francisco 49ers are tied for second with eight appearances each. 

9. After Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday is the second-largest day for food consumption in the U.S. Pizza deliveries account for 60% of all food take-out orders, while other indispensable favorites include chicken wings and potato chips. If that's not a reason to show up to the party, we don't know what is.

10. The Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots are tied for most Super Bowl wins with six each. The Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers are close behind with five titles each, so if the 49ers win today, they will also be tied for the most Super Bowl wins!!

Ecc 8:15 NLT ¹⁵ So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.

We hope all of you who are attending Super Bowl parties have a wonderful time with old friends, new friends, family and/or your communities!

(Fun facts from nationaltoday.com and forbes.com)

1 John 4:7-12 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

For those of us celebrating Valentine's Day or Galentine's Day, we hope you make special memories with your loved ones this week.

The primary purpose of Valentine's Day is the expression of love between each other; the foundation for the kind of love God wants us to have is all over the Bible! Please take some time to reflect on the love of God that you have experienced this Valentine's Day and think about how you can show God's love to others on this day of celebration of love. HE is our ultimate Valentine! 

Happy Valentine's Day to every one of you!

Join us for one of our Sunday church services or other events around the Bay.

Join us at one of our services next Sunday! We will have services in Oakland/Alameda, Tri-Valley, South Bay, Peninsula, Palo Alto, and San Francisco. 

Our Winter Quarter midweek classes are continuing this week! We have four classes total; some are this week, and some are next week. All information is on our website. If you have yet to join in on a class but would like to, please go to the event page on our website that coincides with the class you are interested in, and there is an email there for you to contact to join the class.

The Hermeneutics class being offered on Zoom and being taught by Dr. John Oakes and Kene Izuchukwu will begin this upcoming Saturday, Feb 17th, at 9:00 AM. For more information, please see the events page on our website. 

We have our All Fellowship Service at the end of the month, and Tarik Burton from The Valley Church will be our guest speaker. A brief bio of him is on our website.

We have many additional things happening here at the SF Bay Fellowship this month, and we hope you can join us soon!

2 Thes 3:5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.

Have a wonderful week!