Kevin Riordan: A symbol of Moses comes to Camden County

Rich and Michele Mendelson were among the first in line for the Tabernacle Experience, an Old Testament-inspired exhibit that's drawing the faithful and the curious to a grassy field in Winslow Township.

"It was spiritual," Rich, a truck driver, says.

"Enlightening," adds his wife, who teaches at a day care.

Adjectives like those are why Debra Groller, a nondenominational Christian minister from Deptford, felt called to host this unusual attraction through Sunday at Camp Haluwasa, a Christian facility on Ehrke Road.

Groller, whom everyone calls "Pastor Debbie," describes the tabernacle as a replica of what Moses built at God's direction at the foot of Mount Sinai in 1400 B.C. Her Debra Groller Ministries (dgmevents.com) has raised more than $30,000 to bring it to South Jersey.

Admission is free.

"The magnitude of this is quite amazing," says Groller, 55, a mother and grandmother who 10 years ago retired from critical-care nursing to become a preacher.

"The land has been [temporarily] donated to us by Haluwasa, and we have local businesses that have given . . . and we have about 300 volunteers," she says. "This has been an effort of kindness by so many people."

The personable pastor and I chat beneath one of a half-dozen white canopies set up near the fence that surrounds the wood-framed, tentlike structure of the tabernacle.

It was trucked from South Carolina in sections, and volunteers assembled it on site Thursday and Friday.

The concept of a traveling tabernacle was originated by Jeanne Whittaker of Capo Beach Calvary Church in Capistrano, Calif., in 1996, following her visit to Israel.

"Everything is built according to dimensions given to us in Scripture," Whittaker tells me by phone from California.

The tabernacle's 2008 visit to the First Presbyterian Church in Florence, S.C., inspired the men of that congregation to partner with Capo Beach and build a second replica to serve the East Coast.

Believers like Groller say the future life of Christ is symbolized by the tabernacle. Its single entrance suggests there is only one way to God, she says.

"I hope the person walking through will see the beautiful representation of Jesus Christ . . . in the Old Testament," Groller adds.

Outside the tabernacle fence, I join about a dozen other people wearing MP3 players around their necks. We sit on folding chairs, listen to an introduction, and wait for a recorded signal (the sound of a shofar) for the start of our tours, which are timed by activation of the player.

As instrumental music plays and a low-key narrator intones, I walk inside the fence.

Several exhibits, including an "Altar of Burnt Offering" and a "Bronze Laver" for hand-washing, engage visitors at the tabernacle entrance.

Inside, the solemn atmosphere reminds me of a boyhood trip to a Catholic shrine or an adult visit to a low-tech historical exhibit.

No flashing lights or digital screens, no dioramas or people in costume, and, despite any modern evangelical interpretations, no Christian iconography or otherwise anachronistic elements are visible.

The centerpiece is a facsimile of the Ark of the Covenant, which the Book of Exodus describes as having held the tablets on which Moses received the Ten Commandments.

As they stand before the polished container, a woman embraces a little girl. I chat with them afterward.

"I loved it," says Kelly Cooper of Hammonton, who invited her neighbor Emma Kelly, 10, to come along; the two were brought by John Ingemi, also of Hammonton.

"It was a very cleansing experience," says Cooper, who is disabled and was recently baptized at Calvary Chapel, a nondenominational Christian church in Hammonton.

"I've done it my way for so long, and it got me absolutely nowhere," she adds. "I felt it was time for me to let God reenter my life. And today was, how can I put it? Inspiring."