Prayer Letter (February 2012)

February, 2012

Dear Oakes Family and Friends,

Happy New Year! A lot has happened since the last prayer letter!

To keep it short ... December started by finishing off our Discipleship camps, we then had a Team Reunion and finished off the year by celebrating the incarnation of our Saviour (i.e. Christmas)! We starting up the New Year with our annual review process (improving all things Oakes), and we have since had an Open Day and completed two specialist camps - our Music & Dance weekend and our first ever Dads & Lads weekend.  I wasn't too involved in either of these, but they both seemed very successful!

As usual, I'm going to spend the rest of this letter dipping into aspects of The Oakes from the perspective of my own role as Media and Network guy. For a broader picture, try the prayer points, below.

Over the last year (on and off) I've been working on upgrading the infrastructure of the website - a lot of the work has been done behind the scenes. However, in the process I've splattered the site with some more colour and also added the first of some planned features to improve the overall usefulness of the site. This first new feature is the ability to complete an Oakes team application form online. Hopefully this will ease the process for today's web-savvy generation - no need to print or post anything anymore!

As you may have gathered from previous letters, working on the website is possibly the best part of my job. Not only do I enjoy it but it is crucially important - more so than most people realise! On an average day the website may receive visits from up to 100 visitors - that's kind of like having an Open Day every day! Of these 100 visitors about 20% will view the Camp Dates page, 15% will log in to the Interact area (usually campers and team), 10% will read the About Us page, 10% will read the Team Blog, and I could go on ... but I won't.

Please pray for the website as it continues to be developed. Pray that it would continue to become more useful, that the Interact community would grow and thrive (as an extension of our camp ministry) and that it would be a light to all those who come across it (Matt 5:16).

Thank you once again for your faithfulness in prayer - it is a huge blessing to know we're not alone in the work of The Oakes!

In Christ,

Luke

Camps

Praise for:

  • A positive and productive review process during January
  • The Music and Dance weekend
  • Dads and Lads camp – quality time for Christian men to spend with their sons
  • Olympic summer theme well developed already

Pray for:

  • The two school groups coming on camp
  • Camps spaces to be filled, particularly the February half-term camp
  • CU weekend

Upcoming Camps:

Date Group Age Programmer Speaker
1 - 3 February Village Primary, Derby Y5 (9-10s) Craig Mez
6 - 8 February Deepcar St. Johns, Sheffield Y4 (8-9s) Dan / Paul Andy
14 - 17 February Half Term 10-14s Clare Mez
24 - 26 February CU Weekend 14-18s Andy Dan

Team

Praise for:

  • The Christmas Break
  • Jenie Neuenschwander’s return to The Oakes after support raising in the States
  • An enjoyable time for the team at the Youthworker conference

Pray for:

  • Applications for next year’s team and summer team
  • Financial support for team, particularly long term staff
  • Wisdom when dealing with school groups

Practical Needs

Praise for:

  • Ben Asbery returning to assist with house and grounds maintenance work for two months
  • The provision of a drill and new metal saw that will improve working capacity
  • The new wood store that has been built for storing timber

Pray for:

  • A new conservation officer willing to work with us to enable us to move forward with projects
  • A good, reputable metal working company to restore the main gates
  • Safe and successful construction of the new target shelter for archery.
  • A new team car

Raising Support & Awareness

Praise for:

  • A very well-attended Open Day
  • New groups wanting to book
  • Faithful and regular supporters
  • The new Oakes website ‘facelift’

Pray for:

  • Pray that through the next Oakes mailing more people will hear about the ministry of The Oakes
  • Pray that Open Day visitors will be challenged and encouraged by all that God has done at The Oakes, and for useful contacts for the future
  • Two projects we want to start this year, which need funding (Main Gates and The Lodge)
  • The website as it continues to be developed (see the prayer letter, above, for more info)