Why House of Grace?

The camp is very appropriately named as it's purpose truly is about sharing God's Grace with those who need it most.  Casa Harului was set up with the vision to give poor children and disabled people, two of Romania's most poorly treated social groups, and give them relief from the daily hardships they face.  For children who live in poverty, that's relief from living in cramped conditions, sometimes with no hot water, or electricity, very little food, few or no toys, little education, lack of attention and care, poor hygeine, and the list is endless really.  For disabled people, a week in the rural and beautiful location of the camp is one that they look forward to for 51 weeks a year whilst often living in isolation, with few friends or visitors, no opportunity to work, no support for daily living, not to mention the public perception of being cursed, less than human, worthy of being beaten up or spat on, again the list is endless.

With everything in the camp from its physical building to its daily operation is done with the focus being on showing Grace to these people in service to God.  The camp is very much a Christian camp with a strong emphasis on Bible Teaching and Pastoral Care.  Everyone who comes to Casa Harului learns that despite their condition or status and the fact that the world around them despises them, God certainly doesn't and he wants to reach out to them with his truly amazing Grace.  Each week of camp welcomes around 60-70 people and costs around £3000 per week to run.  This money is raised in a small part by what little participants can pay themselves, but mainly through fundraising which is almost entirely from outside Romania.  A combination of a team of Romanian Leaders as well as a Mission Team (often from the UK) make up the 30 or so leaders of each week of camps from June to September every year.  The aim of most foreign mission teams is to raise the funds to sponsor their week of camps.  The camp programmes obviously vary depending on whether the group is children from the city slums, orphanage groups, disabled children, or disabled adults.  For childrens camps, the main activities are bible studies and many sports and physical activities, whereas a disabled camp programme will be more geared towards bible studies and one-to-one and group support for disabled people and particular their carers.

Whilst the camp (and the same is true for Bethlehem Christian Centre) are reliant on and extremely grateful for foreign financial and practical support, they are moving forward in a number of ways towards sustainability projects to become more and more self sufficient in future years.  For Casa Harului they are growing more and more of their own fruit and vegetables, they own a commercial farm and cheese factory, also the just off-site chalets for private rental along with another private house will generate some income to suppor the camps activities in the future.  Similar projects are being developed for the Bethlehem Christian Centre such as a transport service, training facility and shop where disadvantaged people can learn a trade and gain employment too.

Here are some more pictures of the camp and some of the people who have the opportunity or need to spend a week there.