The Indian-American Christian youth of today need a forum to express and discuss their spiritual and personal
concerns. There are many temptations and dangers in today’s society that can defeat and conquer the spirit
and resolve of a young, growing Christian. That is why it is so vital to Christian youth to have a group of
peers to communicate and express their ideas, questions, comments, and doubts to. About 4 years ago,
Abraham Thomas, one of the adults in our church, came up with the wonderful idea of taking the youth of
our church and forming it into a spiritual fellowship. He had the vision to come forward and organize the
youth. He discussed with us various issues and problems that Malayalee Christians faced in American
society and how we can deal with them.
Throughout our four years of existence we have accomplished a number of activities both spiritual and leisure that we are very proud of. This includes a SPYC trip to Great Adventure, a trip to the ice skating rink at the University of Pennsylvania, and a trip to a Christian youth conference in Baltimore. We have also performed community service at soup kitchen in West Philadelphia for every Wednesday for the past several months. We have had a clothing drive and canned food drive for the poor and needy. We recently raised over $1000 for Ronald McDonald House Charities by organizing a raffle. The youth has organized itself on a number of occasions to help with cleaning and maintenance of the church and surrounding property. We have also had regular youth meetings where all the youth come to pray, sing songs to our Lord, communicate their thoughts concerning faith, discuss youth club issues, and lastly to just have a good time!
We are also tremendously proud of the fact that we built a great infrastructure in order to make the transition of leadership to the younger SPYC members in the future much smoother. For instance, we have three officer positions (Vice-president, Secretary, and Treasurer). These positions are designed to develop leadership ability, maturity, and responsibility within those who hold them. The qualification necessary to run is the willingness to do the best job possible and more importantly, a sincere love and devotion to Christ. Another example involves the creation of an e-mail list, which had to be constructed so that important messages from the officers could be sent to all the youth members. This e-mail list has evolved into our primary means of communication with each other outside of church and youth meetings. Yet another example of our strong infrastructure is the fact that we have an official youth club bank account, which only the President and Treasurer can access. In this account we have accumulated several hundred dollars through various fundraising activities (bake sales, car washes, church cleanings, etc.). All the activities and events that SPYC has participated in have only succeeded in making us stronger as Christians and as a youth fellowship. We are all proud of the fact that we have done our bit to make our corner of the world a better place and to better ourselves as Christians. In conclusion, we just want to say that none of this would have been possible without the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thank and God bless.