Powerful Agents for God's Kingdom

Birch Bay Ranch was an important part of my Christian development.  For one thing, it helped introduce me to Jesus.  My family is not Christian, and it was my love of horses that first drew me out to camp––and camp eventually led me to Jesus.  Later on, I became staff for several years.

I remember campfires on the beach.

I remember helping a frightened child onto a horse.

I remember praying with students who had never prayed before.

I remember standing in the towers, asking campers to challenge what they think they could do, to take a step of faith.

I remember explaining the simple story of God's love and seeing the eyes of the kids and teens light up with wonder.

I remember learning how to be a servant.

The fact is, we focus on how valuable camp is for outreach: for telling young people about the amazing news of Jesus' freely offered salvation.  This is the heart of the camp and always should be.  But Birch Bay is also a valuable asset in raising up leaders in and for the church.  The leadership there do an incredible job mentoring and cultivating leadership skills amongst the staff.  I learned more about hard work, responsibility, leadership, and overcoming challenges in one summer there than in all the rest of my church involvement combined.  I learned, for example, that being a leader meant doing the dishes and washing toilets as well as hanging out on the ropes course or directing a play at campfire.

The lessons I learned at Birch Bay have gone on to serve me well in my later work as a pastor and now as a Christian academic in Britain.  It would be a tragedy to lose a place that not only shares the gospel with people who would otherwise never hear it (like myself) but where those people can go on to be discipled and transformed into powerful agents for God's kingdom.

With my love and gratefulness for Birch Bay and its staff and campers,

Bethany Sollereder