The House built on the Rock
In 1994, few seminary students, with minimal resources, but with much zeal, wanted to do something for the Lord. Among other things, they started to organize camps for orphans and poor gypsy children. These camps took place in Transylvania, in a place called the Carver Rock, at the farm of the grandparents of one of these students.
In the first year, the “sleeping room” for the boys was in the haystack, the barn for the animals. A military tent served as kitchen, lecture hall and sleeping for the girls. In the next few years, few small tents were added to the accommodation, and the camps kept going year after year.
As the years passed, the interest grew, different groups were targeted with these camps: families, youth, children, students, and elderly people. In the beginning, it was a tool to evangelize non-Christians, later were added teaching and training camps for believers. In this way, this camp and conference ministry became one of the backbones of the church planting ministry, a ministry of the newly started Reformed Presbyterian Church of Central and Eastern Europe.
As the number of the attendants grew and the age groups became more extended, the need for a building became more accentuated. After a few years of prayer and sharing our needs, the Lord provided the finances for building a wooden house for the camps. We started to use this new facility in the year 2000. In this setting, we already had bathrooms, running water, and we were able to receive, lodge, and feed up to 50 people in six rooms. On the ground floor, we have a kitchen and a lecture hall, which serves as the dining room too. Later we were able to add a smaller house, with two rooms, and started to use the attic of the larger house for sleeping by laying mattresses on the floor. Now the camp can be used for around 60 people. Few times we pushed till 70 or even 80 people, but that is very uncomfortable, even in Eastern Europe.
Soon the number of camps and conferences increased to 10 – 12 in a year. We hold yearly evangelizing camps for children, for teenagers, for youth over, for adults, and for the elderly. We organize teaching and training camps for young believers, for married couples, families, elderly, pastors, and pastors’ families as well. We have a few hundred attendants each year. In addition to the summer camps, we hold regular Ester and Reformation conferences and some youth conferences in spring and autumn, including a particular new year’s conference. During the years, we organized several homeschooling conferences, conferences on Biblical creationism, woman conference, and lately theological conferences for pastors from and outside of our denomination.
In the beginning, this house was a big step from the tent ministry toward a more comfortable setting. After twenty years of use, it’s time to do some renovations and modifications to it. When we built the house, in some places, cheap materials were used. In this way, we tried to fit into our tight budget, but by now, things started to worn out. After twenty years of use, we learned that we could optimize the space better, especially when we have large groups.
Some of these improvements we try to do by our own resources and strength, but others are above our actual possibilities. We would like to ask you to join us in this ministry by praying for it and if the Lord moves you by contributing financially to its costs.
May God bless this project and those who will come to learn of the Lords love for them.