news article
NOMADS lend helping hands at Asbury Retreat Center
October 30, 2023 / By Rev. Sue Russell, Asbury Retreat Center Director
Nomads On a Mission Active in Divine Service, more commonly referred to as NOMADS, recently spent three weeks at Asbury Retreat Center. The NOMADS are volunteers with the mission of rebuilding lives, homes, and facilities with God’s love and their hands. Volunteers from across New York and Pennsylvania spent Oct. 2-19 at Asbury. The retired, or close to retired participants, enjoy traveling across the United States in an RV, using their skills in service to others and sharing their Christian faith.
Asbury applied and was accepted as a project site with the NOMADS. The projects at Asbury included remodeling the back entry way of the recently purchased Wesley Meeting House. This will allow guests to pull right up to the building and enter safely without using stairs. NOMAD volunteers also built a canoe rack and benches, pressure washed buildings, painted, created a stone walkway to the prayer labyrinth, and trimmed the interior ceiling where skylights were removed in the Sylor Retreat House.
NOMADS have a history of volunteering at Upper New York Camp & Retreat sites. NOMADS projects include working at Methodist-related agencies such as churches, camps, homeless shelters, children’s homes, homes of those in need, and mission and disaster agencies doing remodeling, maintenance, repairs, new construction, office work, painting, gardening, and more.
The NOMADS provide valuable labor allowing sites to tackle some maintenance issues at a lower cost. What a wonderful opportunity to make new Christian friends from around the connection and have our camp and retreat sites look and operate better.