My name is Dale DRAKE.
I first started coming to Finlay Park in either the late 80’s or very early 90’s – I don’t recall exactly. I started coming as a young teenager with my Putaruru youth group friends. I came for most holiday camps and later on, as I got older, the leader camps. A core group of my peers coalesced into lifelong friendships: already established relationships and newer ones, regularly refreshed at camps; I even met my wife at Finlay park.
I had many unique experiences at Finlay, many positive, and some less so. But that is the key you see: the resilience and the character that comes from facing those challenges in relationships forged at Finlay attest to its remarkable place in the history of my family. I was fortunate enough to come through camp at a time when risk was acceptable and life was less immediate, the woes of the world were less absorbing, and the lives of children weren’t digitised and carried in your back pocket.
Some of the memories I will carry through the rest of my life are: fighting to be the last man standing on the banana and the magic carpet; the madness of storming the heights; end of camp banquets; breaking out of cabins in the middle of the night, being captured by Ian and getting locked up in the implement shed with Johnny Ratahi, and then tunnelling out like a WW2 escape movie; food fights, water fights, and throwing girls in the pool (the first act of more than one marriage); paragliding behind a buggy; growing to a man.
I have known Jesus all my life in one way or another, but I struggled to understand that relationship through those formative camp years; I knew God as a long distance friend for many years later into my adult married life, someone who I was happy or angry with in equal measure. For me, Finlay Park is God’s spear won land, it is a place of personal peace because He struggled to meet with me there; when He eventually broke down the walls I put up between us, the foundation of my new relationship with Jesus was anchored in the Finlay crucible. My Finlay story was not perfect because those teenage years were turmoil, but when I look back at the Finlay years through my new prism, I understand now that He never promised me a perfect life, He promised me a life of perfect love, and that is the peace I have whenever I return to Finlay.
I am older now: some of the kids I grew up with at camp are some of the most important people in my life; some are all around the world, I hear whispers of their lives and I miss them; some of them have already gone to be with the Father and I will see them again.
Finlay has been a rich blessing, there are many people I would thank for that and Ian and Christine are at the very top of that list. The greatest joy for me is seeing my own children experiencing their own relationships there and their relationship with the Father.
Would I recommend Finlay Park – without hesitation.
Cheers,
Dale