Father Son Retreat

Written by Cass Trumbo, Rogers Ozone Director.

Many years ago, my dad and I attended a father-son weekend through an area camp. It’s clouded now, but I know it was cold and the trees were bare. Whatever we were taught has long been forgotten. Both of us, though, still vividly remember running the high ropes course and crawling through a deep cave together. We remember these things easily because we’re both afraid of heights and small spaces. 

Last Friday we gather twenty-four dads and sons in the cold Crafts Center at the hibernating Camp War Eagle, and I made a plea from experience. “We designed this weekend to take you out of your comfort zone,” I said with fresh memories of my dad’s exasperated face, crawling on his stomach through muddy rock. “We’re asking that you leave your comfort zone willingly and find a bond through the common experience.” 

The dads on our trip did more than that. Over a twenty-four hour period, we put these dads and sons on top of our ropes course, deep into a bat-filled cave, and through many of the games that we teach children. Both generations performed wonderfully, throwing themselves at the chance to grow closer as a father and son.

That Friday night, we played Tanks and Commanders, Chair Basketball, Tallest Towers, and others that we often use to entertain kids. The dads not only took them seriously but also took them with a light heart, laughing and competing with the same energy. Most games forced dads and sons to combine strategies, whether building a skyscraper out of spaghetti or walking baseballs across the room with only lengths of twine. However, the real highlight was having sons talk their dads through a blindfolded dodgeball game. It was hilarious and it also exercised a great element of trust – but it was also hilarious.

CWE365 partnered with Mosaic Church to produce the retreat. Mosaic pastors taught a three-part curriculum on discipling your son for Christ and preparing to release him into the world as a man. Dads were able to have their morning coffee in a brand new community as they spoke about coaching their son to maturity – to be a man of valor, strength and honor.

Despite the cold weather, we put the pairs through their paces both on our high ropes course and zip line as well as our initiative games, where dads and sons had to solve seemingly impossible problems together, sharing ideas as equals.

At War Eagle Caverns, armed with kneepads and helmets, dads and sons crawled together into tiny holes and marveled at the thousands of sleeping bats. One dad actually had a bat hide inside his jacket. Recounting the entire weekend to my own dad, he seemed fixated on that one small part. “The cave,” he muttered, ten years after our own father-son experience, “I can’t believe I let you take me into that cave.”

At the end of the weekend, we had spent an intense 24 hours with eleven dads and eleven sons, not only providing intellectual material for relationship building but the pure, unadulterated, strange experience that is so often the catalyst for growing together. Fathers and stepfathers alike had the opportunity to speak love into their sons' lives, and we're grateful that they dedicated the weekend to doing so. We're also very much in debt to Mosaic Church for their teaching, as a serious anchor to our sometimes crazy program.