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Spirit Wind Ministries

Christian-based Camps & Retreat Centers

Southwestern Virginia

 

Following an orientation session for counselors preceding a summer camp in July of 1982, Gene Smith was on his way home.  He had taken his wife, Judy, and daughter, Bethany, to Camp Bethel to serve as counselors for a week of camp.  As he drove back home that evening, he pondered a testimony he’d heard about a young man’s flight from the Lord and back again through a camp experience.  This set the stage for the vision that God gave Gene for Spirit Wind Ministries – a ministry to be established primarily to “reach out to hurting people.”

 

Little by little, step-by-step, Spirit Wind Ministries slowly took shape. In 1985, Spirit Wind Ministries held its first retreat. Plans were started for a lodge, the first building at the Spirit Wind property.  The Alpha Lodge, the ministry’s first building, built largely from contributions and volunteer labor, took ten years to complete.  It opened in August of 1999, a beautiful 14-bedroom facility open to all denominations.  Ministers can come two days each month and stay free.  At various rented facilities, Spirit Wind has continued to hold summer camps for children and youth.  Summer of 2006 marked 17 years of a Spirit Wind Summer Camp, and hundreds of children and youth from every denomination have attended.  Young people who started out as campers are now returning as counselors.  Many of these have received a call to full-time Christian service at Spirit Wind Camp, prompting the formation of The Timothy Project, in which teens who know or believe they are called into ministry are mentored and trained at weekend retreats at the lodge.

          

Spirit Wind Ministries has played an important role in Church Alive International's life-changing Encounter Retreats, which are all held at Spirit Wind's Alpha Lodge.

 

 

Visit Spirit Wind Ministries' website.