Five-star love despite basic amenities

Wrapping the present (Photo: Gill Kimber/CMS)

Geoff and Gill Kimber visit a Lord’s Army camp in Romania.  Gill describes what they found.

As we drive further into the lush Romanian countryside, the road deteriorates until we turn off altogether on to a dirt track that appears to lead nowhere.   However, as we crest a rise in the path, ahead of us we can see a house, a barn, a tent, and children playing.  We’ve arrived at the camp at Babutiu, near Cluj.

Nicu and Aurelia Pavel and Emy (Photo: Gill Kimber/CMS)

We don’t even reach the site before Aurelia and Nicu Pavel meet us on the track and envelop us in welcoming hugs.  Nicu is an Orthodox priest.  He and Aurelia have been running summer camps for Lord’s Army children and young people for many years.

We join everyone for lunch in the dining-room.   Four Lord’s Army women cook for 125 people each day in a small kitchen with minimal facilities.  Children sit wherever there’s space — inside and outside.

They sleep in the same way, the Pavels tell us.  More than 20 children, who weren’t expected, also turned up for the camp.  Most sleep on mattresses on the floor.   The only way to give everyone a place to bed down was by putting mattresses together and getting the children to lie across them, cheek by jowl.

It’s obviously not a five-star-hotel situation.  Water is intermittent and showers rely on an ingenious arrangement with hosepipes.  Apart from a table-tennis table outside and an uneven field in which to play football, there are no sports or games facilities.

It began to rain while we were there: the children were all brought inside, but there were no board games or other resources for them to use.  Despite this, nobody ever says they are bored, and they turn up enthusiastically year after year.

Our turn to wash up (Photo: Gill Kimber/CMS)

Each morning, after breakfast, there are times of group prayer followed by teaching.  The afternoons are free.   Organised activities start again in the evening.

Each year, young people commit themselves to the Lord.  Many go on to become the next generation of Lord’s Army leaders.

The Lord’s Army is the renewal wing of the Orthodox Church in Romania.  Iosif Trifa, an Orthodox priest, started it in the 1930s.

Iosif was grieved that a lifetime of ministry in his parish had not resulted in changed lives in his congregation.   After a night of prayer, he issued a call to recommitment to Jesus the Crucified, to study and love of the Scriptures, to open prayer, to fresh songs and to holy living.

The movement grew rapidly, but was persecuted under Communism and many of the leaders and members were put into prison, fined and beaten or tortured.  Undaunted, they continued to meet together under cover of darkness to preach, teach, pray and encourage each other.

The Lord’s Army today comprises thousands of people of all ages, including young Christians with hearts committed to the Lord.  They face many challenges, but continue to form bible-study groups and prayer groups, get involved in mission and evangelism, and encourage and teach the next generation.   They are part of the spiritual future of Romania.

Our contribution to the camp was to get the children to think about God’s gifts.  We put them into groups and each group chose one of their number to be ‘a gift’.  They wrapped their particular candidates up as presents and told everyone else why they had chosen that particular boy or girl.   The others then demonstrated their own appreciation of the ‘gifts’.

“You not only have gifts,” we say, “you are a gift...from the Lord.”

Geoff and Gill Kimber are CMS mission partners building interdenominational friendships through the Cross of Nails reconciliation project in Romania.

CMS gives an annual grant of between £2,000 and £3,000 to support the Lord’s Army summer camps.