86-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 22, 2000
Chelsea Guadagno, Morgan Conover, Madison Guadagno, and Tyler Conover, of
Toms River, N.J, make friends with a horse while at the camp. Their parents were on site
helping with the music for the week.
Three Springs Farm Provides Valuable Space For Teens
CAROLYN MOYER
Bradford Co. Correspondent
NAUVOO (Tioga County)
Peaceful calm in the center of
teenage busyness is how one
could describe the camp at Three
Springs Farm where teenagers
can come to retreat from the ev
eryday pressures of their worlds,
participate in Bible studies, and
make new friends.
The farm is carved out of a
25-acre piece of rural Tioga
County with a large mansion at
its focal point. At first glance, the
mansion rising up from the
freshly mowed farm fields and
horse pasture, seems out of
place, almost like it was built for
another time. In fact, it was built
from 1914 to 1917 to house two
families. But today, Jeff Rush
uses every inch of the property,
including the house and several
outbuildings, for his ministry.
“This is something my wife
and I always dreamed about
doing before we were married,”
said Rush. “We worked with
teenagers in our church as volun
teer youth leaders. We loved
working with kids and realized
the value of getting kids out of
their normal environment into a
rural area where there’s a lot of
the distractions taken away.”
Rush, although a native of
Blooming Glen, Bucks County,
knew about this area through his
father’s job with Hatfield. When
he was young, he remembers
coming up to the area and he
continued his trips after getting
married to Deanne, who was
from nearby Dublin.
“When we were only married
a year, I was up here hunting in
1983, and just happened to drive
by the property, which was obvi
ously abandoned. The grass was
high and windows were broken
out. I’m convinced that it was
the Lord starting to click some
thoughts saying that this was a
great place to do what we want
ed to do,” said Rush.
So, he made an appointment
with Abe Clemens, who -owned
the property, and told him about
his plans. After several weeks,
Clemens gave the nod, and
Three Springs Ministries was
bom.
“(The property) needed a lot
of work to get it to the point
where we could use it. Initially
we were just looking at using the
house,” said Rush.
When the house was ready,
the doors were opened for the
first groups of people.
“Really our first small retreat
groups that we had would have
been in the fall of 1984. That’s
when we began with groups of
15-24 on weekends,” said Rush.
The first weeklong camp was
in the summer of 1985, which
had three campers making the
trip to the farm.
Now almost every weekend
from September through May
and the week-long summer
camps are filled to capacity.
Youth groups, family groups,
and even senior citizen Sunday
School classes are among fre
quent visitors to the camp.
“Probably about 75 percent of
the whole ministry that we do in
the course of a year is to teenag
ers. That’s by design,” said Rush.
Three Springs Ministries had a
long term lease agreement with
the Clemens family, to use the
facility, but recently they were
happy to receive the deed to the
property.
“The Clemens family deeded
over to the ministry 25 acres.
Over the years we’ve put a lot of
sweat equity as well as money
into the place and we had a long
term lease agreement, but Mr.
Clemens is now 85 years old and
he wanted to make sure things
continued. He was thrilled to see
what was happening. There are
about 2,000 kids going through
here each year,” explained Rush.
Three Springs is starting a
year-long program for college
age interns, adding to an already
busy schedule.
As the number of campers in
creased, so did the need for more
usable -space*'so the* workers
began renovating the outbuild
ings, trying to keep as much
original detail as possible.
The first floor of the mansion
is now devoted entirely to dining
and kitchen areas. Currently
they can seat 65-70 diners at a
time. The second story and the
recently remodeled third floor
provides sleeping areas.
“There are seven bedrooms on
the second floor. In the house
alone, we can sleep 55 people,”
said Rush.
In 1995, workers tore apart a
100-year-old horse bam and used
Campers enjoy a game of football in the field in front of the mansion that was the
original building for the camp. Over the years, the workers have remodeled the man
sion and outbuildings to accommodate their needs.
Behind the main house stand several outbuildings including a small barn they call
“the stable”, which not too many years ago housed live pigs and now serves as housing
for campers. The remodeled barn, right, holds 23 horses that are used for trail rides
jhWUflljQlit thftSMWWIf r•' ■ m r Jfr'i'r t*r't »» * * * , »•»>,
Three Springe Farm provides a sanctuary for teens
and adults alike. Jeff Rush, camp manager, and his wife,
Deanne, started Three Springs Ministries in the fail of
1984, fulfilling a lifelong dream of working with teens.
the timbers to construct a build
ing simply called, “the bam.”
The first floor offers ample space
for worship and other organized
activities in an auditorium, while
the second floor houses a large
game room and snack bar area.
On the third floor loft, campers
can curl up in a corner with a
book or find a comfortable spot
to chat with friends. Another
building that now sleeps 11
campers has a kitchen space and
living area, which was once a
hog stable.
“We tell the kids when they
come that they’ll be staying in
the pig stable, but that does not
give them permission to act like
pigs!” Rush said with a laugh.
“But needless to say, sometimes
they don’t need permission!” Yet
another outbuilding that was
once the summer kitchen still
sports the large stone fireplace in
the center. Today they call it the
summerhouse and 12 campers
can sleep in the building.
Backpack weeks, horse back
weeks, mountain bike camps,
(Turn to Page B 7)