Gesu All School Retreat
Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Brother Denis, Mr. Eric Sundrup, SJ and Mr. Cyril Pinchak, SJ
made our first school retreat a big success!
Thank you from all of us!

We began our day with a prayer service in the
Family Center.  Fr. Snow led the prayers with the
Student Council members.  Thanks to the Choral
Club for the beautiful singing.

Our buddies took us to the different activities. 

Each faith family attended five different activities
during the day.

Throughout the day we had time to get to
know the students in our faith families a bit better.

Everyone in the school wore a special retreat tee shirt.
It was a present from the Gesu PTO for
Student Appreciation Day.

Each faith family has about 20 members.  The family is
led by two or three eighth graders.  There is also a
teacher moderator with each group.
 

The 8th graders did an outstanding job leading their groups.
They showed what it means to be
"Persons for Others."

Our 8th grade leaders took charge of two
fun art projects.  They will be displayed in the cafeteria
next week.

The big kids helped their buddies during
the day, especially with the Art.

We moved throughout the school to go to
our different activities.

The art activity gave us a chance to relax and take
a nice break from our busy schedule.

Each activity was 30 minutes long.

We did pictures to remind us of the retreat's theme.

It was fun to be with new friends for the day.

We always knew where our leaders were because
their tee shirts had the Gospel quote,
" Come and follow me" on the back.

Games in the Family Center was another great
activity. 

It took a lot of teamwork to get the hoop
passed around the circle.

Mrs. Krzywicki had us play a game with letters.

Our team had to work together to discover the missing
letters and then retrieve them.

Finally we were able to spell out our phrase,
Persons for Others.

We also played several other cooperative games.

Lots of laughter and smiles were seen throughout the day.

Moving a soccer ball down the field as a group
can be challenging!

We had a great time with Mr. Bob Kloos.  He had us
act out the story of the Good Shepherd.

The sheep were a rather raucous bunch!

Thanks to Mr. Kloos for sharing his talents with us.

It was a favorite session of many students.

Students also enjoyed hearing about Mr. Kloos' niece who worked in Haiti and his nephew Danny who was killed in the earthquake.  We donated some of our Haiti collection to
the orphanage where his niece works.

Mr. Laco, Mrs. Hering and Miss Jones directed the
Video Discussion activity.  We learned how we can be persons for others when we encounter people who are unkind to others.

There were many things to talk about after watching
the video, Bullydance.

We selected glass stones to help remind us about the
message of the video.

Mr. Cyril Pinchak, SJ gave one of the three Witness Talks.  Cyril told about his days at Gesu School and Walsh High School.

He gave us time to talk about things during his talk.

We were glad that he was able to join us for the day.
 

Cyril gave us some great ideas to think about.

Another presenter was Mr. Eric Sundrup, SJ.  He and Cyril came from Chicago just to be with us for the day.

Eric shared experiences about his life and the work he has done as a Jesuit scholastic.

Sr. Nan was the third presenter for the Witness Talks.

She shared her love of God through her puppets
and her clown ministry.

We thank everyone who worked hard to make this day so special.
It was a great new experience to add to our
Catholic Schools Week traditions.