Churches invited to apply

After a successful first road trip, Voyage mobile day camp leaders are mapping their route for next summer across Oklahoma.
They’d like to include your church in their travel itinerary.
The words of youngsters who attended this new Conference Camps program describe how much it meant to them.

Something new I learned was …

• There are nice people here
• You can have fun and learn about God
• Some people break rules, some don’t, but God has forgiveness
• How to make slime
• How to shoot archery and play new games
• David used God’s power to knock Goliath over

My favorite part of camp was …

• Everything
• Bubble soccer
• Playing with my new friends

Eight churches each hosted Voyage camp for a week in June and July. Some costs were covered by an Oklahoma Conference New People New Places grant.
A key goal for Voyage was to serve children of varied races and economic status. Neil Tate, the program’s director, shared data of success in that effort.
Of all campers, 83 percent qualified for free/reduced price public school lunches.
Minority-race youngsters totaled 53 percent of all participants. At Tulsa-St. Matthew’s UMC, 86 percent of the kids were non-white. At West Tulsa UMC, 72 percent; and at Heavener-Faithbridge UMC, 71 percent.
More insights came from local-church leaders.
Pastor Travis Muse of Ada-Asbury UMC said, “Given the size of our church, we would struggle to host any meaningful VBS-type program. Most of our younger members work, so recruiting small-group leaders becomes a challenge. I appreciate that the camp was pretty self-contained; that made it much more attractive to our church.”
Pastor Max Rudd of Lost Creek UMC was asked to name the best part of the camp, in his opinion.
“Oh, my! I don’t think I could pick just one part,” said Rev. Rudd. “Everything seemed to be excellent and top quality.”
Voyage mobile day camps are designed for ages 7-12. Local-church signup has opened for Summer 2018. Contact Tate, ntate@okumc.org or 405-530-2018.