For those attending D’sozo 2024 and the Barbara O’Neill meetings at the Denton Farmpark, in Denton, NC; the week started on Monday.
For those of us involved in the planning and organization, we began arriving at the Farmpark to set up about mid-morning Sunday. As the volunteers arrived, cleaning and set-up ensued. Garbage clean up, from a previous event, and leaf blowing of the open-air auditorium were the first things on the agenda, soon followed by AV set up, assembly of a tent for overflow seating, and setting up chairs inside the tent.
As set up was wrapping up, the first few campers began to trickle in for the Barbara O’Neill meeting the following evening. My family and I camped in our camper that evening, anticipating the following day.
The next day was filled with last minute preparations, and at three o’clock in the afternoon, gates opened and people began to stream in for the first evening. There was two and a half hours between gates opening and the first meeting, so people socialized, bought Barbara’s materials, got her autograph and so on, until 5:30 when the meeting started.
At that time Tristaun LeClair, a member of our planning committee and a personal friend of Barbara, gave the introduction and Barbara walked on stage to excited applause. The auditorium, which has a capacity of 1,600, was almost completely full and about 150 people were seated either in camp chairs along the sides or in the overflow tent. We had around 1,800 people registered per night, but undoubtedly some were not able to attend because of the effect of the hurricane. Besides a large black snake deciding to visit during Barbara’s second lecture of the evening, Monday night passed smoothly without any issues.
Tuesday and Wednesday were equally well attended and on Tuesday night, Brother Tristaun announced that we were having campmeeting starting on Thursday and anyone who wished to stay was welcome to attend.
During the whole week, with so many people, we knew there would be hungry ones, so we invited a local food truck to come and serve. Knowing the nature of our event, they created a whole new menu tailored to what Barbara teaches and, all in all, were very understanding of our needs, including shutting down right at sundown Friday evening.
Wednesday evening was the transition from Barbara only, to campmeeting and several Adventists came to camp that evening.
Thursday morning started with a small group of early risers for the morning prayer at 6:30 followed by the wonderful morning devotional by Michael Martin.
Later in the morning, Greg Vatistas began his series on Liberty of Conscience, looking into the founding documents of our nation and examining the original meanings and intents while connecting it to Bible Prophecy. This was followed by Larry Lesher’s first talk in which he went into the spiritual importance of gardening, and that while we should be preparing for the time of trouble, getting our hands in the soil should have an even higher motive than that. Among the attendees were at least three non-Adventist families who stayed from Barbara O’Neill.
Friday morning started with about the same number of people as the previous day, but as the day went on, more people began arriving to camp. This group swelled even more with another approximately five hundred people attending for the Barbara O’Neill meeting in the evening.
Sabbath, of course, was the big day! Another small group for worship in the morning, which grew to probably just under 100 for Conrad Vine’s Mission Emphasis, in which he interviewed a missionary couple who is soon heading to the eastern European nation of Georgia, and Greg Vatistas’ Sabbath School study. By the time of the worship service, the congregation had swelled to about 500 and my family and I began to spot some friends, that we hadn’t seen in a while, here and there. Dr. Vine’s message, “Silent Men”, was one that is desperately needed at this time in our world and in our church.
While not directly connected to the issue he is dealing with right now, the principle is one that definitely affects his current situation. If more men in our church would stand boldly in the face of persecution to speak the truth, they would not be able to single out people like Dr. Vine and shut them down and silence the truth so easily.
After an amazing haystack lunch, off to the side of the auditorium, we all made our way back to our seats to hear Vine’s second message of the day, “Wycliff, Luther, and Today.” This message dwelt much more directly on the issue at hand and Dr. Vine, with his famous charts, showed the parallels between the times of these two reformers and today and how each step led up to an eventual revolt against the establishment of the time. Dr. Vine made clear he was not calling for revolt, but rather a spiritual uprising in which each church member takes their own spiritual life seriously and does not allow their conscience to be dictated to. As this meeting began at 3:00, the people coming for the Barbara O’Neill meeting began to come in during this time and heard some of Dr. Vine’s presentation.
About 500 more people came for Barbara’s lecture and this was followed by the showing of a highlights video of the weekend, which will be posted in the comments as soon as it is up on YouTube.
A short break ensued, which was followed by a panel discussion including Micheal Martin (our devotional speaker), Larry Lesher, Greg Vatistas, Barbara O’Neill, and Conrad Vine. We did not livestream this meeting as some of the questions were sure to receive answers that would get that meeting pulled down from YouTube almost immediately, and unfortunately the recording of the meeting didn’t work, but it was an awesome discussion.
“We can’t do this anymore. We’re done. We’re coming out of Babylon.” They also expressed interest in beginning to keep the Sabbath! Praise the Lord!”
It was a wonderful time of spiritual refreshing for all involved, but the most amazing and important thing was the lives that were touched. There was a couple from Florida that had camped out for Barbara O’Neill that, when they heard about campmeeting, decided to stay the rest of the week. They are not Adventist, but were faithful attendees of every meeting except the morning devotional. My parents got to talk to them either Sabbath night or Sunday Morning and they told my parent that they absolutely loved it and are planning to come back next year and bring others with them.
There was another family, from South Carolina, who had also come for Barbara O’Neill, and had decided to stay for campmeeting that, after the panel discussion on Sabbath evening, began talking to Larry Lesher and asking some deep questions. He answered as best he could, then asked “Are you Adventists?” to which they replied “No, we’re Catholic.” With that bit of information he then backed up and gave them some more context to what he was saying. The next morning we found out from Larry that they had stayed up till 2:00 AM in the auditorium discussing the Great Controversy theme! At Greg’s final charge on Sunday morning there was only a handful of people, but this Roman Catholic family was among the small group listening. Greg went over some of the information he had covered during the week and then connected it to the Mark of the Beast issue and showed how the Catholic church changed the Sabbath to Sunday and gave the call to come out of Babylon. After the meeting concluded, this family walked up to Greg and said “We can’t do this anymore. We’re done. We’re coming out of Babylon.” They also expressed interest in beginning to keep the Sabbath! Praise the Lord!
God blessed our efforts immensely in this campmeeting! At times we felt like everything was going wrong, but He held us up and brought through and so many people have told us they were blessed by it. We praise the Lord and thank Him for the things he did there.
We also can’t wait to see what He will do next year. Next year’s D’sozo Camp is set for September 30 - October 4, 2025. Barbara O’Neill has agreed to come back and we have a whole list of Present Truth speakers we are considering for the other meetings. More information to follow!.
Please pray for all those who attended, both Adventist and Non-Adventist, that they may carry the blessings from this campmeeting with them throughout the next year and that those who made decisions for the right may hold to their convictions.
Please also pray for our planning committee that we may invite the speakers that have the messages God’s people need to hear and that next year’s campmeeting will be even more of blessing than this year’s.
We hope to see you all there next year!
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Micah Zummach