September Update

 

Family Vacation Camps

This past weekend was one of our big family camp weekends.  Almost 400 people from inner-city Los Angeles attended! Family Camp at THE OAKS is so much fun—the program is designed to be a “family vacation” for families who rarely, if at all, leave the confines of their urban neighborhoods.  It is a chance for them to spend some quality time together as a family in a safe environment and experience things together they wouldn’t normally experience—such as…riding a zip line, shooting archery, playing paintball, jumping off a 30-foot pole, painting pottery, petting snakes, the list goes on and on!  We run the programs for two of these camps each fall, and many other inner-city ministry partners bring families up and run their own family camp programs throughout the year. This year several people who came up with World Impact’s Los Angeles ministry were baptized in our pool (photo below).

Volunteers

Here at THE OAKS we are blessed to have a huge volunteer network that helps in a wide variety of ways.  Here are just a few recent examples of how volunteers have contributed to our ministry:

• Last weekend for family camp, a group of 70 volunteers from a Santa Clarita church (Grace Baptist) came up to run the carnival for us.  We put on a carnival for every family camp and almost every week of summer camp.  It is quite a production, including bounce houses, a dunk tank, petting zoo, face painting, games, mini-train rides, and lots of carnival food.  The volunteers came up at 8am, ran the carnival from 9:30-12, and had everything cleaned up by 12:30! We couldn’t put on such a large event without their help.

• A group of boy scouts from Simi Valley have been coming up every few months for over two years now, helping to maintain our trail system and develop new trails.  A couple of Eagle Scouts have built trail kiosks which have greatly improved the professionalism of our trail system.
• Roving Volunteers in Christ’s Service (RVICS) and volunteers from the Mobile Missionary Assistance Program (MMAPers) visit us every winter for several months and help out with all kinds of projects on camp. 

New Staff!

It is so exciting to see how God works in the lives of people to bring them into His service. In the last few months we have had three new staff families join our on-camp team at THE OAKS.  

Paul and Carole Meitler, and their four girls (pictured below), moved on camp in May and are already in the full swing of responsibilities and involvement. They moved from their comfortable suburban neighborhood in Ventura County after Paul left his job in business management because he felt God calling their family into urban ministry. 

Mario and Heather Currado and their two children (pictured below)just moved to the camp last weekend, after a year of support-raising and waiting on God’s timing for their service here.  We met Mario and Heather four years ago at church, and soon after Mario involved himself helping in Outdoor Ed (one of his passions) and then working for our maintenance department part-time.  His involvement here led him and Heather to pursue full-time ministry at THE OAKS.  We are so thankful they are here and look forward to seeing how God will use them.

Ron and Jenn Besser (photo below) are friends of ours from waaaay back! Jared was Ron’s resident assistant at George Fox University when Ron was a freshman, and they stayed close friends during college.  Ron and Jenn both served at THE OAKS with us as summer staff during the summers of 2002 and 2003. They then came back to serve for four more summers in various positions.  After both completing seminary classes they are here for a year to volunteer; Jenn plans to complete an internship for her masters in counseling degree.  Its so much fun to have close friends share in this exciting ministry with us!

OUR FAMILY

Our boys are keeping us on our toes!  Micah just turned two last weekend! We had a tractor-themed party for him and he had a blast. Joey is almost nine months old and is such a sweet, cheerful little guy.  We are so thankful for this family God has given us!