One Step At a Time - BCM Canada Turns Sixty-Five!

By: Lauri Barrette

“Father, I miss the Bible Clubs that I used to go to back in Erie, Pennsylvania,” pined the little daughter of Dr. Franklin Logsdon, recently moved to London, Ontario, to minister at Central Baptist Church. “I wish we could have Bible Clubs in Canada too.”

What father, if their child asks for a loaf of bread, would give them a stone instead? (Matt 7:9) Miss Bernice Jordan had led Bible clubs in Dr. Logsdon’s Erie church and was now a Bible Club Movement (BCM) field representative. He invited Miss Jordan to give a presentation on the Bible Club Movement. Newlywed school teachers, Ed and Vella Matthews, were so excited about what she shared, they began organizing London volunteers for the first Canadian Bible Clubs.

‘Where are you going to get that many kids?’

By the spring of 1942, nearly two thousand children, parents and volunteers packed a school auditorium for a rally. A police sergeant scoffed when asked to send two men to safeguard the crowd. “Where are you going to get that many kids in London?” But they came, and Bible Clubs continued to spread.

Meanwhile in Hamilton, Ontario, a young woman named Ethel Brazier was touched by the spiritual needs of children from the area. Encouraged by a small group of praying people, including child evangelist Jim Hutchinson and his wife Nellie, she became the first Canadian missionary. Bible Clubs were established in Hamilton and Caledonia. A school inspector was sitting at the back of a class while Ethel was teaching.

“This is an excellent program,” he commented. “Why are you not teaching in more of the schools?”

With the support of such officials, doors opened for Bible teaching in the schools, and the missionary staff in Ontario increased. One of these was Rev. Allan King, who went on to marry Miss Ethel Brazier. Even before he joined up, after-school clubs had started in Oshawa. Marie Armstrong held camps under canvas tents. Rev. and Mrs. Cecil Nelson moved to the Oshawa area and the Oshawa Committee was formed in 1953.

By March of that same year in the Hamilton area alone, approximately 2,500 in-school students and 335 after-school Bible Club members were being reached on a weekly basis by Rev. King, and new missionaries, Miss Emily Pettit and Miss Lorena Campbell. Rallies with special speakers such as Miss Jordan, Miss Traber and “Uncle” Jim Hutchinson culminated the school year. Vacation Bible Schools and camp ministry were a natural outflow to keep contact with the students and club members over the summer.

In April 1958, Dr. Wilford I. Waite shared about a property for sale near Brantford, Ontario. A dining hall, kitchen and at least ten cabins would have to be ready for that summer’s camps to be run there. A church in which “Uncle” Jim Hutchinson had ministered began building and invited others to help. Crystal Springs Camp was opened that summer.

Other camp properties were purchased in the following decade. Crusaders Bible Camp (now known as Mill Stream Bible Retreat Centre) in Omemee, Ontario, was opened in 1964, and Mount Traber Bible Camp in Cook’s Brook, Nova Scotia in 1965. was purchased.

‘I don’t know if I have the skills, but I’d love to teach!’

Even before this, God was preparing the heart of a young woman named Chloe Chamberlain, who would become BCM Canada’s National Executive Secretary for almost 40 years. As a child attending church in Niagara Falls, Chloe listened with interest when a visiting speaker, head of Christian Service Centres for military people during WWI, shared how he’d started teaching religious education around London, ON.

Chloe can remember thinking, “I don’t know if I have the skills, but I would love to teach religious education in schools.”

After graduating from London Bible Institute, Chloe boarded a Niagara Falls-bound train that would first stop in Hamilton. The car was empty except for one woman, Mrs. Vella Matthews. Chloe knew of Mrs. Matthews from London and peppered Vella with questions. When Mrs. Matthews mentioned that BCM taught religious education in the schools, Chloe could not help but think back to the man who had visited her church when she was a child. In God’s perfect plan, it was Rev. King who was meeting Vella at the train station in Hamilton. After being introduced, he offered Miss Chloe application papers to BCM.

On Sept 10th 1956, Chloe attended her first Hamilton Bible Club Committee Meeting as a new missionary. Over an eleven-year period, Chloe’s ministry expanded to include forty-two Bible classes and after-school clubs a week. This open door was afforded by Ontario legislation requiring every child receive one half hour per week of Judeo-Christian teaching. Not only did the children benefit from this teaching, but the classroom teacher as well as he or she was required to remain in the room.

In 1967, under BCM president Oscar Hirt, successor to founder Miss Bessie Traber, Miss Chloe Chamberlain was unanimously voted in as National Executive Secretary of BCM Canada. Ten years later, the Bible Club Movement of Canada became federally incorporated, and a National Office was established in Hamilton, ON.

From Ontario to the far corners of the earth.

The Lord was opening doors all over Ontario. Miss Emily Pettit answered the call in 1961 to move to the Leamington area. In 1972, missionaries Marilyn White and Kathy Shaw would also take up the torch in that expanding field. In 1973, Isabelle Leaitch became the first missionary to teach in the public schools in the Kingston area. Mary den Boer joined her five years later. Marion Jean Grant came on board in 1974 and began teaching in the Midland Schools. In the 1980’s these last three missionaries answered the call to go overseas—Isabelle to Spain, Mary to Holland, Marion Jean to Pakistan.

In 1977, Pam Rowntree and Lois Seibert began their work in Essex- Kent (Leamington) while soon after, Sally Klassen, Ron Benoit and Bill Ricketts began teaching in the schools in Lincoln and Haldimand Counties. By 1982, schools opened up in the Grey-Owen Sound area, and Pam Rowntree began teaching weekly classes to grades 1-8. At this time also, BCM Canada purchased Emmanuel Bookshop from Mr. and Mrs. Pyke. Miss Murlene Wilhelm agreed to come on as a missionary manager of this store that had already been selling BCM curriculum for quite some time.

Missionary work in Nova Scotia and Ontario was flourishing. In 1972 opportunities opened up in Western Canada when the Canadian Sunday School Mission, which had been using BCM curriculum, gave their club ministry in Alberta to BCM. In November, Vi Cooper from London moved to Calgary to develop the Bible Club ministry in Western Canada and establish the BCM Western Branch office. For two years, Vi had a weekly children’s TV program in Lethbridge involving local Bible Club children. At Prairie Bible Institute she also conducted a weekly credited training course for students. More workers were needed and Miss Carolyn Crawford, left the Oshawa area ministries to serve in Calgary as a full-time missionary. Gaetan McDuff, a retiree from the military, also joined up with BCM and started Bible Clubs in a complex designed for people with special needs in the West.

The work of BCM in Ontario was greatly impacted in 1990 when the Minister of Education closed public schools to the instruction of religious education during school hours, though after-school clubs were allowed to continue in some areas. What was meant to impede the Lord’s work only served to precipitate a series of new ministries, including Teacher Training, Call A Story, Mailbox Bible Club, street evangelism, ministry to people with disabilities and to seniors in nursing homes, to Haitians in Quebec, to the Filipinos in the Toronto and Calgary areas. A name change then from “Bible Club Movement” to “BCM (Bible Centered Ministries) International (Canada) Inc.” was indeed representational of the mission’s new direction.

‘Faith does not need to see the end. Rather it is one step at a time.’

The story is not over. BCM founder Miss Traber once looked Miss Chamberlain in the eye and asked, “So, what has the Lord been speaking to you about in regards to Canada?” Miss Chamberlain, who has now celebrated over 50 years of ministry, replied, “That one day the work might be found in every province and territory.”

Her friend and co-worker, Miss Bernice Jordan, once penned these words. “One never knows where God will lead when we take the first faltering step of obedience. It is only later, looking back, that the sure design of what may have seemed pattern-less at the time can be traced. But faith does not need to see the end. Rather, it is one step at a time, or it would not be faith.”

We who serve with BCM Canada give praise to the Lord for how He has led us so far. We don’t know where He will lead us next but we only ask that we too will have just enough faith for the next step. As did Miss Traber, we too will “Commit our way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He will bring it to pass.” (Psalm 37:5)