Camping ministry has been part of Mennonite Brethren life in BC since the 1950s, when Rev. Abe H. Wieler started dreaming about what it could look like. That dream turned into five camps scattered across the province, from island shorelines to Cariboo lakes. We became the BCMB Bible Camp Society in 2018, and our job has stayed the same since: helping these camps share evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development with the kids who show up each summer.
We don’t run the day-to-day at any of our camps, and we don’t recruit campers either. Each camp handles that on its own, and does it well. Our part is raising funds, spreading the word, and making sure each camp has what it needs to keep welcoming kids summer after summer. We’ve never thought of camp as entertainment. To us, it’s time spent investing in kids who’ll carry that experience with them long after camp ends.
They show up in how we steward every gift, how we support each camp, and how we treat the families and volunteers who make summer possible.
Every one of our camps started small, usually with one person or family who decided to do something about it.
Before there was a single cabin, Rev. Abe H. Wieler had an idea: get Mennonite Brethren kids outside to meet Jesus. It took most of a decade for that idea to turn into something real.
A newly formed Camp Society bought 60 acres above Cultus Lake and opened Columbia Bible Camp in 1958. The camp became Stillwood Camp and Conference Centre in 2000, and grew again the following year when donors helped purchase two neighbouring farms. Today the property covers 100 acres south of Chilliwack.
George and Erna Martens moved to Grand Forks to reach local kids for God, starting with boys-only campouts at Christina Lake. George was hoping to find around five acres for a permanent site. In 1962, he found 164 acres just north of town for $3,500, and the camp paid it off within the year.
A donor named Mr. Dobel gave 72 acres to the BCMB Conference, and Gardom Lake Bible Camp grew from there. Neighbouring churches helped out in the early days, and eventually Mennonite Brethren congregations took the lead, building a camp between Salmon Arm and Enderby where kids could grow in every part of their lives.
Jim and Sharon Potter, along with a small group from the Likely Chapel, started camping on the shores of Faux Bay on Quesnel Lake. The site later moved a few hundred metres east, where it still sits today on 7 acres leased from the Ministry of Lands. BCMB Camps and Cariboo Bethel Church took over the camp in 2006 and renamed it Camp Likely.
Camp Bob started out as Campfire Ministries, an outreach of Black Creek Community Church on Vancouver Island. For its first few summers it ran as a day camp, moving between locations, until a 2002 lease with the Ministry of Forests gave it a permanent home on 65 acres at Roberts Lake, just north of Campbell River.
The organization once known as the BCMB Camping Ministries Committee became the BCMB Bible Camp Society in November 2018. Same mission, new name: supporting these camps as they minister to campers and guests, to the praise and glory of God.
A kid you’ll never meet might remember this summer for the rest of their life, and your gift is part of why.
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