Waitts Lake Bible Camp - Loren Kropf 6-9-2024

Good afternoon. We'll switch gears a little bit to talking about the Waste Slate

Bible Camp. I don't have just a lot to say about some of the

past improvements we have made. I'm sure that could be talked about. Maybe

we could save that for next year, but I will just say a little

bit. One of the main things I would like to bring to us today

is our long term vision for the camp. This is something that has been

formed in the last eight days or so. We just had a meeting last

week or a yearly meeting at the camp. And by the way, if

you've only seen the Wastelke Bible Camp in February, please withhold a little judgment.

Okay, it looks so much, well, it looks better just because

it has been improved, but it also is a really nice time of year

right now to be there. I've said it's too bad we can't have Bible

school in June. It would just be amazing. The current board is Brent

Hoefer, Paul Behar, Nathan Behar, Jonathan Herb, ken Lee Miller,

Geene Hirsch, and myself. Thank you for your donations and your volunteer time.

There's there are more openings for both of those volunteer youth groups. Feel

free to contact TJ. Tim Stol's foos if you're interested in that. There

has been a lot of catch up on deferred maintenance in the last couple of

years. We've actually owned it for less than two years, and it was

actually two years ago that the Western Fellowship Ministry authorized pursuing the purchase of the

camp. So the work is definitely still in its beginnings. If you do

not get the newsletter and our please let one of the board know. So

here are some of the things that as we sat around as a board and

we thought about, well, okay, we have this big old thing and

we have Bible school there. What do we want this to look like in

twenty years And here's here are some of the things that we thought of.

And I think this is subject to change, but this is how we see

it at the moment, and I think you can have some input on that.

So talk to one of the board about that. If you have a

vision, a desire to maybe start a seminar or an event there, maybe

a family reunion. By the way, our vision is over all to serve

the Anabaptist community. And in light of that, if you do want to

have a family reunion there or something like that, please book ahead. We

do give you up to twenty four months to book ahead, and if you

don't do that, the slot may not be open. So we want to

service. We want to service events such as The first on our list is

Bible schools, and partly I think we feel that way because that's one of

the main reasons it was purchased. Our Bible school. Of course we want

to service them, and also there is another church group that wants to have

Bible school there as well, with some interesting future prospects there that are exciting

to us. We also desire to serve instructional events such as psl I and

if we want to go off the beaten path on WFTI, we could even

maybe figure that one out. But other constructional events, other seminars we do.

We are trying to develop possibly some sort of I don't know if you'd

call it a subcommittee, but maybe somebody else to kind of push that idea

of other seminars. You can name your subject matter and maybe it would work.

There's also some needs among the German German Baptist people that we might be

able to tap into but we want to over time to the move the needle

toward our people if we can, and if it continues to be blessed that

way. Our target group size for the camp there is to accommodate Bible schools

of up to seventy students, not one hundred and seventy, and to provide

for events of for around one hundred and fifty people, not five hundred and

fifty people. So if that makes any sense, we're not targeting groups of

one thousand, We're targeting groups of more like one fifty. That doesn't mean

that more people can't be there, just it's not. Our target area is

more seventy to one fifty. And we want to be able to lodge in

twenty years, to be able to lodge maybe fifty couples instead of I don't

know how many we can do now, but it's not fifty. That would

help with Bible school, it would help with things seminars, retreats, PSLI,

some of that stuff. It would help with that. To be able

to do that, we also long term desire to have a bigger chapel area,

an auditorium, multipurpose room with restrooms that will comfortably see one hundred and

fifty people, and also a better laundry facility to service the above group sizes.

Financially, we want to have the mortgage of Force completely paid off by

then, in twenty years or thirty hopefully before then, we want to be

able to have payroll and maintenance covered by rental income. So that means that

large improvements or maybe even medium sized improvements are not done. We're not operating

it as a business in that sense. We're not trying to make so much

profit. We can build another huge building or something that's going to need to

come from charitable donations. So what this means last lead, is that in

order to do this, we do need some physical infrastructure, such as classrooms

for Bible School. Currently, the Bible School is spending thousands of dollars per

year to rent classrooms in the range of I hope it's okay to say,

but ten thousand dollars a year to rent classrooms. Well, can the CAB

help with that? Could we do something about that? Well, yes we

can, assuming monetary support, of course, but that is one of our

first interests at this point. Along with that, better storage and warehouse facility

would be nice, and of course, if we're going to lodge fifty couples,

you kind of have to have a place to put them, so we

would need cabins or something that would fit on the what is it, one

hundred acres or something, but can't put cabins everywhere. Of course, we

would also envision maybe long term, in addition to the lodge. The lodge

is where most of the I think all of the students stay. Maybe eventually

an upgraded laundry facility, maybe a drive through unloading area, a reception area,

maybe a split level between the upper and lower story. There's things we

could do to that lodge to make it a nicer place. And then also

eventually maybe with family reunions in mind, and maybe I didn't mention that that

is one of our events that we want to service as well, and we

do service is family reunions. But a pavilion off the dining room or the

dining hall is a possibility. But some of that's kind of way out there

a little bit. But it was a really good exercise for us as a

board to just sit down and think, Okay, so what is our destination

here? Are we just stirring the pot or do we have a vision in

mind, so if you have any questions, comments, please let us know