Children's Summer Bible Camps

Brother Barnabas,

All the very best. I worked for years with the Bible Club Movement, and truly appreciate the fruit from Bible camps. I even have contact with a few campers from 44 years back, showing the long lasting effects of this vital contact with youth.

Cheers, and God bless,

Jim

 

Brother Barnabas, I would be glad to talk about some camp experiences.

My involvement with the Bible Club Movement out of Philadelphia and again in Oshawa, Ontario. In those days segregation was still in effect, and they operated two camps in Pennsylvania. The White camp was Sankanac and the Coloured camp was Streamside in the Poconos.

I went to the camp because I wanted some direct experience with children. I got leave from my church and applied to the BCM. I was approved, but ran into the first hitch. I was turned down because of US law regarding doing the job of an American. I didn't give up. I paid $1.00 a month for room and board and off I went. I was the Bible teacher for the month. The White camp was very tame. Most of the kids came from local Baptist churches.

I took swimming lessons there and became not too bad at swimming. At least my fear of water was overcome. Guess what? I was chosen to lead a five canoe trip down the Brandy Wine River, 42 miles over two days. We had golden opportunities to witness to the young men and two came to know Christ during the trip.

We came to a spot where there was a fast waterfall. Two lads fishing on the shore said we could take this offshoot and go past the falls. Ha. It was a stream leading to an old lumber mill. We pulled over to the side to think about our next move. One canoe was not tied securely and it started to float forward, with two boys in it. We ran alongside with a rope and secured it just before it entered the tumbled down building.
Looking inside the building, we culd see broken boards and huge nails all over the place. We portaged around and continued down the stream. We rest of the trip was uneventful, but the important thing is that our witness to calm and sensibility was important to the minds of those young boys. We can preach effectively with our demeanor.

I talk about Streamside in another post.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Streamside.

All the counsellors were White and the kids all Coloured, mainly out of Philly and picked up off the streets. We got some of the kids by bouncing a basketball down Race Street and asking kids if they wanted to go to camp free.

One of the counsellors was a future missionary to Italy and he was a college class wrestler. This one lad, about 15 at the time, pulled a knife on my friend and myself. It just so happens that both our names were Jim. We were beside the swimming pool, so we figured the best course of action was to throw that lad into the pool. Turned out he couldn't swim, so we jumped in and brought him to the poolside. The knife was gone and he had calmed down considerably. For the rest of camp we watched him carefully, but we did not ride his case. He came to us near the end of camp and wanted to know why we didn't have him arrested, and why we didn't punish him. We got to talk to him about the Love and Christ. Before long he got down on his knees and received Christ.

Lonnie, this was the lad, returned to Philadelphia and went on to complete high school and college and went on to teach English in high school. I still correspond with Lonnie to-day, after all these years. A wonderful, dedicated believer and himself working with youth in the heart of downtown Philly.

Never give up on kids. There is always hope, and if we believe in the power of the cross at all, preach it to the kids. They are our future, and they are worthwhile.

I went on from Philadelphia to do work with the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, but that is another story.

Cheers,

Jim