Church donates to retreat

The board of directors of a long-closed Methodist church in House recently donated more than $47,000 of the church's remaining funds to a camp and retreat in northern New Mexico that needed it.

Shug Block, a member of the church's board, said it gave a $47,900 check derived its leftover funds to Sacramento Camp and Conference Center near Cloudcroft.

House United Methodist Church was built in 1938. Block's father, Olin McCullough, laid the building's red tile, and her brother mixed the cement for the foundation.

Attendance at the church dwindled over the years, and it closed in 2013.

"Ten faithful members kept the doors open in the hope it would be used by the community," Block wrote in a short history of the church. "It was in 2019 the land and building were given to the House Baptist Church."

Block said the board looked for a place to distribute the church's remaining funds. It chose Sacramento Camp, which began in 1931 as an outreach ministry of the United Methodist Church but now is open to all faiths. She said the camp is used as a retreat for pastors and even military groups from across the state.

"It's really used for people from kindergarten to adults," Block said. "That's why they were able to keep that camp afloat - opening it up to all sorts of faiths."

Sacramento Camp will use the church's funds for a badly needed upgrade of its water system, which was installed in the 1930s and faces imminent failure.

Block said she and the other board members didn't know of the camp's dire water situation when they donated the money.

She recalled Sacramento Camp Executive Director Bill McCuaig's reaction to the church's gift: "It's answer to prayers. I never had such a gift, especially when we really needed it."

Block added: "We knew the money would be used well, but we didn't know about the camp's emergency at the time."

She said McCuaig told her the $47,900 should cover most of the water system repairs, along with volunteer help.