Due to the new "man and boy" project that we started in new malden last march, trevor quy, one of the oxygen trustees invited me on one of his "Dads and lads" weekends, firslty to help and lend a hand but also as a sort of ambassador for oxygen to have an experience and get a feel for what the weekend is like, in order to help future oxygen prospects of possible events for the New Malden work.
We drove down on the Friday evening to Dorset, got some fish and chips arrived at the camp site, set up tents and then went on a night walk by the coast. After several times nearly falling over as it was pitch black! This time was great to just chat and adjust to settle for people to catch up and for people to meet new people. The walk itself was stunning, we were right by the cliffs (very high!) you could actually see stars which weren’t polluted by the fog of London!
Saturday morning, the plan was mountain biking whilst geo cashing at the same time. For those who don’t know what Geo cashing is... geo cashing is basically all over the world people have hidden boxes and registered them online they can be in easy places...or even on the side of cliffs, in caves, or even underwater. Then people (ie us) go search for them, by map and GPS. Once you've found them there’s a boxful of toys so you take something and give something and sign your name. This was really great again because the views were just stunning, but it was great seeing the dads and their children working together reading the map arguing, debating which way then having a laugh after who was right who was wrong.
The next day was the raft building. Each team had 4 barrels, a few planks of wood and a fair bit of rope. Obviously again this was great for team building, but it was great and really interesting how much some of the dads actually got so involved competively to win! Once we got the rafts in the water the plan was to have a race, However this didnt really happen one of the rafts broke straight away so it was half sinking!
To see a weekend which is just designed for dads and their children to have time to together to just grow and spend time when quite often there isn’t time at home, was a huge privilege and for myself it really stuck out that there is something so sacred and special about the father and son relationship and that far more needs to be done in society to provide weekends like this, not just for a specific group but everyone.
What’s also worth mentioning is the "man and boy" bbq and treasure hunt we had at Christ church new malden just a few weeks ago. The event started by dads and lads going off in pairs into new malden answering questions that we had to search for within the high street. After the treasure hunt we came back to the church had some food and played a bit off cricket and just chilled.
Now the thing about this event was we invited the dads and lads we took to the outdoor centre in high ashurst but none could make it. Instead we got a new group of dads and lads from various churches. At first yeah this is quite frustrating. However this event gave us a chance to really set some foundation stones with this new group. Because of this we really are eager to match up the two groups (christians and none) and see where God takes it.
So the future now for New malden looks very bright with the "man and boy"work if people could really pray for up coming events and Nathan Larkin who will be taking on the task of leading it into 2010 and beyond. Please pray for the people we have made contact with, from the high ashurst day in march to the people we met at the man and boy bbq in ealry June that these dads and lads will mix and come together. Please pray that we would be able to maintain and continue to grow relationships. But that God would be at the ultimate dead centre of future events in our hearts ideas and motivations.
Cheers
Andy
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