PHOTO: Nunda Lodge Worshipful Master Franks Richards and Amber Rayne Steinhaus. INSET PHOTOS: Kailyn Elizabeth Serbinski and Danielle Marie Serbinski.
Nunda Masonic Lodge # 169 had the pleasure of awarding their 2022 Scholarship Award to Amber Rayne Steinhaus, Kailyn Elizabeth Serbinski and Danielle Marie Serbinski. All three recipients received a check for $1,000.00 to assist them in their first year as University or College students. Each recipient also received a gift basket courtesy of Raising Cane’s Restaurant. Dinner was served to the attending family members prior to the presentation.
The Annual Masonic Scholarship is awarded to students who submit an essay expounding on Faith, Hope and Charity, the core tenets of masonic giving. All three girls are excited to begin their advanced academic careers.
Amber Rayne Steinhaus attends Crystal Lake South High School. Amber’s extra-curricular activities include football managing, baseball managing and VFW breakfasts. She also assisted in several masonic fundraising activities. Amber is interested in Early Child Education and will be attending University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois. She attended masonic activities with her grandfather and Uncle.
Faith, hope and charity. What do these words mean to me? I have Faith that through my hardships God will guide me along the way. Hope is keeping a positive mindset on my future and remaining hopeful that I will get into the colleges I dream of and the health and prosperity of my friends and family. Charity has always been a major peice of my life, and I will always continue to help out people in need and the lodge with my time.
Through my life, I have always tried to remain positive through the hard times and use my Faith in God to guide me along the way. One of my life mottos has been that whatever happens, God has given me this life for a reason. Everything that has happened to me, good or bad, he has decided to place this life for me and I will learn throughout these moments. Devoting your moments to someone makes it so much more helpful to remain optimistic. I don’t just take my faith as just a state of confidence, but also an action.
Hope is something that I think is crucial to succeeding through life. Without hope, I know I would be an extremely pessimistic person. Throughout applying through colleges, having a strong will to have hope has helped me so much along the way. Although it is easy to lose hope when going through hours and hours of applications and scholarships, I stay hopeful that my hard work will pay off. It’s also detrimental that even if I don’t receive the news I hope for, life will go on and I will move onto the next.
Although people in our community can tend to lack a sense of charity, I believe this is one of those most important aspects of life. Charity impacts people’s lives and shows devotion to making the community a better place. I have devoted a ton of my charity work to the lodge and their partners. My sister and law is a member of the Algonquin Rotary, and numerous times I have gone to help with their events. I have volunteered at their Farmer’s Markets and have gone to their Feed my Starving Children events. Being able to help out the Rotary has been such a privilege to me. I have had the privilege to go to Masonic Dinners, and been able to help out with food and cleaning up. I have also devoted my time to multiple VFW pancake breakfasts and have been able to provide charity with my family.
Between these three topics, they have all come together and changed the way I live my life. Without adhering to Faith, Hope, and Charity I know that I would not be as well rounded and the person that I am today.
~Amber Rayne Steinhaus
Kailyn Elizabeth Serbinski attends South Forsyth High School. Kailyn’s extra-curricular activities include Vice President of Mock Trial, Beta Club, Food Pantry, National Art Honors Society, Senior Center Volunteering, Prom Committee, Boys Varsity Basketball Manager, Basketball Cheerleader and Plays Varsity Lacrosse as a Defender. Kailyn is interested in Political Science and Philosophy and will be attending SCAD (The University for Creative Careers) in Savanah, Georgia. She has a masonic affiliation through her grandfather and Great Grandfather.
Today, the average life expectancy for someone with Cystic Fibrosis is forty-four years. That means, without consideration to variables, I have about twenty-six years left to live. That’s 13,665,600 minutes for me to spend. Each minute, however few, is mine to live with and choose what to spend it on. But a timer on anyone’s life can not dictate how they live.
The time I have spent and have left on Earth is a gift which can only be defined as an opportunity. I could choose to wallow in pity, be melancholic and melodramatic about every passing minute. Like back in elementary school when I would wheeze and whine through each passing sports game and sputter and spit out the green gunk residing in my lungs. Or, more favorably, I could choose to have faith and hope for my own future. Using these key principles, I proceed in my life with love for every opportunity, having faith in myself and hope for my own future. For every minute to come to these upcoming unknown years.
Faith in both God and myself helps me to grow in my mind and body. The minutes I spend putting my trust into God are moments that ensure that I can feel content in my life; knowing that there is a plan for me and I can do great things past my illness. Additionally, I have hope in knowing that every minute to come is one I have the ability to choose. Even if I had the weight of a time on my shoulders, I can not and will not let it weigh me down. Stereotypical teenage life encompasses me and I take it on with joy. I feel so delighted to have experienced my first day of high school, getting my drivers license, and everything above and in between. Also, I feel so very fortunate to be able to have my first breakups, my first failing grades, and my first major troubles. I have so much hope for the things to ome; graduating high school, going to college, and everything beyond in these next 13,665,600 minutes.
One thing I hope to do in my upcoming years is devote more of my time to charity, a principle I aspire to adhere closer to. My faith and hope are both aspects that I am entirely shaped by, but moving forward, I strive to engulf myself in charity. I hope to be able to share my love and faith with those who are in the similar unique position as me. Each minute I could spend with someone else is a minute that is invested into making someone else as hopeful and faithful; a constant circle that can affect so much more than just myself.
So regardless of y time left, be it 14,191,200 minutes or more or even less, I’m hopeful for my future, faithful in God, and striving to give back to my community.
~Kailyn Elizabeth Serbinski
Danielle Marie Serbinski attends South Forsyth High School. Danielle’s extra-corricular activities include Mock Trial Artist, Beta, Art Honors Society, Chorus, FCA Lacrosse and Plays Varsity Lacrosse as Goalie. Danielle is interested in Communications and will be attending Manhattan College in New York on an athletic scholarship. She has a masonic affiliation through her grandfather and Great Grandfather.
Faith, hope, and charity are the ingredients to a fulfilling and enlightened life. Faith is the invisible force that allows us to see and believe in the unachievable, hope is the compulsion that we can achieve the unachievalbe, and charity- charity is the strength to give our courageous feats back to the community.
Faith is an invisible force that binds all the leaders and ‘accomplishers’ of the world-faith is the belief that there can be better, and that I will make the world better. Without faith, there would be no vision or trust for the future, and the world would be stagnant. This is vision of a better future has guided me constantly thorughout my life. From small things, like seeing a lack of positive female leaders and coaches for young women in the lacrosse community, to heavy things such as witnessing the financial devastation of a global shutdown and pandemic on families. Faith aided me in envisioning how I could become a coach that helped girls to love the sport they play and how I could help the local food pantry with their dire need as hundreds of families now relied on our volunteer work.
Hope also guided me to complete these visions. I had great expectations for myself, and hope entrusted me with the knowledge that I could and that I must complete these tasks. I hoped that the young women who I coached would learn that sports are more than winning and the importance of lifting their teammates up. I hoped that my efforts at the food pantry would provide those who had lost their jobs due to a pandemic would find a place of security in the fact that they would be able to get the food they need for their family. I had hope that I could achieve these feats, and faith that I can always do more.
I became a lacrosse coach and helped girls become excited for practice and have fun while still learning the sport and becoming better teammates. I was eventually recognized as a county ambassador for women’s lacrosse. I also helped bag over 2,444 bags for the less fortunate at the local church’s food pantry. Faith and hope helped me to complete my visions, but charity helped me fulfill my purpose by using these forces to give back to my community and instill these values in orthers. Charity not only gives back, but exemplifies the pillars of a successful and fulfilling life to those who turn to this guidance.
~Danielle Marie Serbinski
Nunda Masonic Lodge #169 received their charter from the Illinois Grand Lodge in 1855 which makes them one of the oldest organizations in Crystal Lake. The Masonic fraternity is an organization for men of good character with the explicit purpose of bettering themselves and their community.