Farm center serves as mission station

Each summer, the 40-acre Campbell Farm serves as a mission station and hospitality center for week-long youth groups from across the United States.

Youth who come engage in missions on the Yakama Reservation, and in Yakima and Wapato.

From June through mid-August, church groups book the small conference and retreat center, which is an outreach of the Presbytery of Central Washington.

After morning devotions each day, youth go out to do service projects: building ramps or repairing homes through Volunteer Chore Service, building homes with Habitat for Humanity, helping sort or glean food for Northwest Harvest Food Bank, helping at the Union Gospel Mission homeless shelter, meeting elders through the Yakama Indian Nation Area Agency on Aging or working with local school children in Wapato Parks and Recreation programs.

Carman Pimms, director, coordinates service activities that allow the youth to be “missionaries,” sharing Christ’s love in a cross-cultural community of Yakama, Hispanics and Anglos.

The youth also have time to explore and learn about the area’s cultures and sights, visiting the Yakama Nation Museum, hiking to Boulder Cave, floating on the Yakima River and swimming in a local pool.

Carman, who has been at Campbell Farm nine years, sees growth in the young people who come.

The 2010 theme, “Who Me?” will help them explore God’s call for them and how they can prepare for their calls in life, she said.

“We want them to realize they can serve, even in little ways,” she said.  “Some return as leaders.”

In addition to youth mission groups, community women have gathered at the farm for three years, gaining leadership skills and access to resources—clothing, food and transportation.

Up to 50 children come to the farm for lunch Mondays and Tuesdays, and dinner Thursdays, supported by a hunger grant from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and local sponsors.

After school Thursdays and Fridays, Campbell Farm offers a youth program for devotions, crafts and leadership skills.  A core group of 26 come.  In the summer, more than 40 come when migrants are in the area.

For information, call 509-877-6413 or email campbellfarm3@hotmail.com.

Copyright ©June 2010 - The Fig Tree