Our St. George Serbian Orthodox Church School held its annual Summer Camp on July 27^th through July 29^th.  We had a spectacular weekend with 68 energetic children who participated in a weekend FULL of fun and educational activities such as church services, religious and choir classes, arts and crafts, field games, kolo dancing, sports, team building project, a guest speaker, build your own ice cream sundae, soccer tournaments,  & Munster Swimming Pool, etc.

We were blessed to have some of our older high school and college students come to help as counselors during these camp days and a big thank you goes out to Nina Ogrizovich, Milana Katic, Nikola Katic, Nikola Tatic, Dejana Nonkovic, Ana Alavanja, Nina Bogunovic, and Jovan Milunovic. The children look up to our older high school and college students and it is a treat to spend time with them.  Our church school teacher, Jana Maric, helped out tremendously with planning and supervising for the weekend, and we are blessed to have such a teacher who is caring, dedicated, and supportive of the Church School program!

Many of your children are probably still singing “Ajde Jano” around the house thanks to Tijana Samardzija and Natasa Radulovic who did a superb job of teaching some new favorites.  These songs are just the beginning of the new selection that will be taught this next season of Children’s Choir and be part of the selection for the banquet that will be held on Sunday, October 28^th as our parish will proudly celebrate the burning of the mortgage of our new hall!  Prota Dobrivoje and Protonamesnik Aleksandar Novakovic lead our children in religious discussions and the children always enjoy this special time with their priest.  On Saturday, during ice cream social, we were pleased to have Ms. Gordana Trbuhovich of Chicago, IL, come and speak to our children on how their Orthodox faith and Serbian heritage will stay with them and cradle them as they will one day finish college and venture out into the workforce within their communities. She gave them all a bracelet to remember their visit together.

We had a NICE group of mothers and babas who stayed to help in the kitchen and/or supervise children.  We are really grateful that they took the time to help us out for it does take a big effort to guide, feed, and clean up after these children ALL weekend!! Our Church School also thanks our ladies at the Halls of St. George who prepared our lunches, and even with their busy weekend, they always show it is never too big of a burden when it comes to the children of this parish.

All of our families enjoyed Saturday evening at Munster Pool.  This complex has something for all ages and after a warm day of activities it was refreshing to hit the pools, diving boards, and water slides!

As you know, our last day of camp was a PICNIC for all to enjoy and this too required extra help on Sunday in the kitchen, bar, baking, etc, and we had, again, a great group of mothers and fathers help out.  Coach Jovica Tica along with Dr. Daniel Vukas, Milan Tica, Stefani Tica, and George Raic did a FABULOUS job leading the children in soccer tournaments Sunday afternoon.  The children spent the whole afternoon outside on those fields and enjoyed every minute!

As our children have enjoyed so much, it is important to give back and our Church School made a donation of $200.00 for a family of seven children in Bosanski Brod, Republika Srpska, who are stuggling and can barely feed their family.  Prota Stavrophor Jovan Banovic, who is the parish priest in Bosanski Brod,  is visiting the US and participated in the Drazin Dan celebration in Schererville and shared that this family has many struggles and that his parish along with the local Kolo Sestara help them as much as they can.  Our St. George Kolo and Cetnik Kolo also made a donation along with some other private donors. They live in a small apartment that does not even have a refrigerator. We cannot forget that there are people in need and our mission to help should never end.

It must be said that our children showed true spirit and enthusiasm this whole weekend and enjoyed each other’s company and firmed up their friendships.  One mother shared that on Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m., her son woke everyone up and asked if it was time to go to church camp yet?!  Of course he got a “NO, GO BACK TO BED!”, but it was nice to hear that he was anxiously waiting for day 2 to start.  Many of you gave your positive comments about camp this year and it is appreciated. God once again blessed us with great weather for the weekend. Watching ALL OF THOSE CHILDREN joyfully play and interact for the weekend is really worth all of work and effort put in by so many.  THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU!