Your 2009 SCYL President!

Hi! My name is Nina and I am this year’s SCYL president! This is my first year being an officer but I’ve been attending retreats since Blairhaven 2005. I am very excited to be president and I will do my very best to represent the Swedenborgian youth. And now I will tell you a few things about myself! I am sixteen years old. I am a vegetarian and have been since I was ten. I love musicals a lot and my favorite would indisputably be Rent. I also love skiing, but I love flip flops and beaches and warm sunny days more which is why summer is my definitely favorite season! When I finally get my license I would like to own a pink hybrid buggy convertible, but I don’t think they make those. An interesting fact about me is that my great, great, great grandfather was a slave from the Ivory Coast, making me about 3.1% African! I very much enjoy eating various forms of artificially colored/flavored sugar such as pixy stix and fundip! I love polka dots, and bright, exciting colors, and intense thunder storms! My two kittens make me happier than almost anything else in the world! If I could travel anywhere in the world I would go to Greece and visit that island where all the houses have blue roofs. I like to sing to pass the time. And I am one of the few people in the world who doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies! So… that’s me in a nutshell. Hopefully if you are reading this and I don’t know you, we’ll eventually meet and I will get to learn about you!

2009 SCYL Officers

The 2009 Swedenborgian Church Youth League Officer and Chaplain elections took place at the Almont Winter Retreat this past December. The results are:

President - Nina

East Coast and Public Relations Officer – Rachel

Midwest and Service Officer – Sam

Canada and Activities Officer - Jake

West Coast and Fundraising & Finance Officer - Cody

Editor, Clear Blue Sky and Communication Officers – Alex and Holly

League Chaplain – Rev. Dr. David Fekete

12345 82nd St. Apt 201

Edmonton, AB T5B 2X3 Canada

feketedavid@yahoo.com

780-893-0594

Some of the SCYL Officers return to another year of service, while we as welcome some new teens to League leadership as well. We say farewell to 2008 officers Sola, Naomi and Kristina. Both Sola and Kristina are 18 now and are ready to move out of the SCYL ;-( . Sola did a great job as President of the SCYL last year and Kristina was an inspiring writer and editor of Clear Blue Sky. We will miss them at our retreats and gatherings, but we’ll catch them at summer camps and maybe Convention. Naomi can run for office in future years and we encourage her to do so. Thank you Sola, Naomi and Kristina for your excellent leadership in the SCYL.

We have a fantastic group of Officers elected to serve in 2009. We welcome Nina, our newly elected SCYL President. This is Nina’s first year as an Officer. She enjoys brownie batter, skiing and musicals (Nina got a lead in her high school production of “Anything Goes”). She is very involved in church retreats, camps and Convention and has been quoted as saying, “I need to get a job so I can have money to travel to more retreats.” Nina’s is very sociable and has an exuberant personality. This combined with her ability to energize, engage and motivate others will help her to be an outstanding President.

We greet two first-time officers working together as a Clear Blue Sky (CBS) editor team, Alex and Holly. Alex has been actively involved in the Fryeburg New Church (he assisted his grandmother, Martha, with the primary Sunday School class), youth group, retreats and Fryeburg Assembly. Holly has also been very active in Fryeburg church activities, Convention and retreats. They are very enthusiastic about CBS and hope to get exciting new issues out soon.

Sam returns to the SCYL after a year off to serve as our new Midwest and Service Officer. Welcome back Sam! Jake starts his third and final year as Canada and Activities Officer. Along with encouraging Canadian teens to participate in the SCYL, he will assist in planning our Convention outings in Seattle this summer. Cody begins his fourth year of service to the SCYL returning as the West and Fundraising/Finance Officer. Rachel returns for her second year as East Coast and Public Relations Officer. We are happy to see Jake, Cody and Rachel coming back to another year of service.

Rev. Dr. David Fekete was re-elected to his second year as the League Chaplain. David did a great job last year traveling great distances to attend and lead sessions at both the Memorial Day Fryeburg Maine and Almont Michigan Winter retreats. He also attended Almont Summer camp and was the teen boy’s dorm dad (I hear he makes up great Mad Libs). He writes monthly chaplain posts for this blog and is available to talk to all teens whenever you might need advice or just a friendly voice on the line. Please feel free to email him or call him. He is your Chaplain!

Please congratulate all of our 2009 SCYL Officers and our League Chaplain. This is an exciting and talented group. I look forward to lots of new and wonderful SCYL happenings this year. Look for profiles of your Officers in coming blog posts. I’m thrilled to be working with this team and I hope that you get to know them better in the coming year.

Why Go to Church?

The January edition of the Chaplain's Corner
by Pastor Dave, SCYL Chaplain

Why go to church? I thought I’d share a few lines about what is in it for you to go to church. First of all, God is everywhere—in church and outside church. You can talk with God in prayer anywhere. You can see God anywhere—perhaps in a sunset or sunrise; perhaps in nature; perhaps in the faces of people around you. But do you make time to think about God? Is God a part of your life? That’s one good reason for church. It is a special time set aside for God. It is a special place set aside for God. When you enter a church, all the memories of times you found God come back. It is a time and place in the schedule of your life when God is put first. Church is also a holy community. When you go to church, you surround yourself with other people who are putting God in the first place. We need the support of other people. We pick friends who love us and whom we love. And it is good to love and be loved. Church is like that. It is a loving community where others seek God as you do. Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20). Then there is the church service itself. You hear God’s Word in the Bible reading. And you hear about God in the sermon. Hopefully, in a church service you will learn about God, think about God, and experience God. Consider attending church. But most of all, keep a light in your heart for God, wherever you are.

Reflections on the 2008 Almont Winter Retreat

By Nina

Almont ’08 was utterly amazing! …pretty much the third best retreat type thing I’ve ever been to (after Convention ’08 and Memorial Day ’08). This retreat was much bigger all the others I’ve attended (29 teens!) And we still managed to fit practically everyone on the coma couch! I really loved having so many people there and still being able to really connect with the other teens, even in such a large group. It was truly fabulous. I also very much enjoyed this Almont’s topic- the seven deadly sins. I believe I learned numerous things during the sessions that I will be able to apply to situations I encounter throughout my life. I found the topics of sloth, which I have decided is the worst sin of all, and lust to be most interesting. I also realized during this retreat how much of a glutton I am! So basically, this year’s Almont was magnificent.

Presidents of the SCYL

In honor of this historic Inauguration Day where the United States ushers in a new President, we announce the start of a new monthly feature "Former Presidents of the League - Where are they now?". We are contacting former Presidents of the Youth League trying to get as many as possible to send a little paragraph about what they are up to now, what they did when they were League President and what impact the SCYL has had on them and their journey. Look for the first edition of this feature this January. Hail to the Chiefs!

P.S. Our new League President is Nina! More on her as well as the other 2009 elected Officers soon.

Pepsi vs Coke

I loved the battles at this year's Almont winter retreat. Sola pummeled Jake in this round. No contest.

Almont Winter Retreat 2008

The 2008 Almont Winter Retreat was indeed bigger and better than ever. 38 of us (29 teens) from 7 different states and 3 Canadian provinces descended on the Almont retreat center to live, learn and play in community. With Ultimate Frisbee, great food, deadly sins snakes and ladders, the up-all-night, music, meaningful and enlightening sessions, great friends, dorm mad libs, SCYL Officer elections, worship and of course the skate pizza party how could you not have a fantastic time. We'll hear and see lots more about this terrific event, but let's start with some short videos of the skate party.