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Located off of FM 1609, David and Kay Shifflett are in the beginning stages of the construction of their retreat, The 555.
David and Kay Shifflett are building facilities for a new multi-purpose retreat.
“We call it 555, because in Hebrew, that means ‘His grace is sufficient,’” David Shifflett said.
He said that the camp, which is being built on their property off FM 1609, will operate with elements of a youth camp, Christian retreat and marriage counseling retreat.
“We’re building five cabins for the Christian retreat and marriage counseling, and we’re building a big dormitory,” he said.
The youth camps will be separated by gender and limited to 20 students at a time.
“We’ll have boys one week and girls another week. We’re not going to have them mixed at all out there. When I went to youth camp when I was a kid, I saw what happened, and I don’t want to go down that road with them,” Shifflett laughed.
He said that they planned to have different kinds of gentle farm animals for people to care for and play with in addition to horses for riding. Schifflett also plans to create a ropes course, outdoor campground and a lake for fishing and boating, although that will not likely be available when the camp opens.
There will also be winter activities.
“We want the kids to be interested in coming out and going to the camp, but we want to introduce them to Jesus, too,” he said. “So that’s what the whole thing is all about. We want to reach people before they start making bad decisions.”
Although the purpose of camp is to introduce Christianity to campers, the lessons will be non-denominational.
“There will be no set religion, just the Scriptures in the Bible,” Shifflett said. “God has been real good to us. Snyder has been good to us, too, and we just want to give something back and make Snyder a better place to live. We want to make it where it’s available for anyone in the community who wants to use it.”
Shifflett said he doesn’t plan to charge for use of the facilities. He said he simply wishes to reach out to the community and doesn’t want funding to stand in the way of that.
He will direct the camp himself, and all other staff will be volunteers.
“The people who really need it are the low-income people who can’t afford to pay it, and those are the ones we really want to reach out to,” he said.
“We’re going to try to reach out to everyone like that. That doesn’t mean that we won’t accept gifts and offerings from people, but we’re not going to charge anybody for anything.”
Shifflett said that the only thing he might charge for is cleaning fees for those who do not clean up after themselves.
The camp facilities are on schedule to be completed this summer, but will not open until the fall or next spring.
“They make you wait three months after you get your permit to have a youth camp to open up,” he said. “We’re going to have everything pretty well finished, I think, this summer, but by the time we get everything inspected and get our permit, it’ll be in the school year.”
The couple is excited to use their gifts to help others.
“God is good all the time,” Shifflett said. “He has really blessed us, and we want to use that to bless the community.”