Our Father’s Children
History
Darren & Melinda’s Story
It is hard to remember what life was like before Our Father’s Children.
When our church children’s minister approached us in 1997 about directing a summer camp for kids in foster care, we definitely had some doubts and hesitations. Do we have the time? Where do you even have camp? Who would come alongside us to serve? How do you fund-raise for something like this? However, after a lot of conversation and prayer, we attended Director’s Training in 1998. At that time, we thought we would only direct camp for 5 years, but God had other ideas.
In December of 2004, Melinda left her teaching position. In May of 2006, Darren left his corporate job. God led these big steps in our lives and provided everything we needed: financing, steadfast volunteers, prayer warriors, and the passion to continue serving our campers.
We can now look back over 25 years of serving and loving abused and neglected children of North Texas. It is impossible to express what this ministry means to us and how it has so radically changed our lives. This mission remains our passion: it’s what we think about, pray for, plan for, dream about every single day. God has very clearly shown us both that this ministry is in His plan for us! Our hope is that it will continue for years to come, and the impact to the kids we serve will be life changing and life giving.
Timeline
June 1999
The first RFK Camp!
We launched our first ever Royal Family Kids camp in east Texas. We served 72 kids that year – over 25 years ago
December 2003
Formed Non-Profit
We officially formed Our Father’s Children in 2003 in hopes of serving more kids
February 2004
First weekend retreat
We held our very first retreat, Onward & Upward, in 2004 and served 39 teens
July 2006
Second RFK Camp
We added our 2nd summer of RFK in 2006 and served 81 campers
May 2007
1st Summit Retreat
We held our 1st high school retreat in 2007 and served 14 teens
October 2012
Camp Akiva
We officially purchase Camp Akiva in 2012; God provided the perfect space for us
August 2016
3rd RFK Camp
We added our 3rd summer session of RFK in 2016 and served 62 campers
April / Nov 2021
1st RISE Retreat
We held our first gender-specific retreats, service 19 boys in April & 19 girls in November
2022
422 in 2022
Still recovering from the pandemic, we served 422 campers across all programs in 2022
Current
Our Team
We currently have 9 full time staff; 4 at our NRH office and 5 at Camp Akiva
Read our stories
Our camps and retreats are filled with stories. Stories of hope, fun and the love of God.