BCM International

~ Reaching Children and Strengthening Churches Worldwide ~

A Farmer’s Daughter in Thailand

By Jeanette Windle with Barbara Van Valkenburg How did a farmer’s daughter from New York state end up in Thailand? By a long and circuitous route of faithful service in God’s kingdom. Barbara Van Valkenburg’s spiritual journey traces back to two women who invested...

Sri Lanka Flood Disaster

   The small island country of Sri Lanka, off the coast of India in the Indian Ocean, has been decimated by the worst flooding in 14 years caused by monsoon rains. The hardest hit district of Kalumatra is just south of the capital city, Colombo. BCM International has...

On the Road with God in Africa

By: Corrie Evans I am not a missionary, but I grew up in a missions-minded family. Whenever a missionary would visit our church, they would be our guests for Sunday dinner. We listened to their exciting stories and tried to imagine what it was like to be a missionary,...

Putting Hand to the Plow Without Looking Back

By: John Peter with Jeanette Windle BCM Africa director John Peter needs only to remember his own childhood to recognize the urgency of missions. Sometime back while speaking at a conference in Canada, he had the privilege of meeting the missionary lady who led him to...

A Welcome Blast from the Past

By: Joyce Murray with Jeanette Windle What is the impact of touching the life of one child with the gospel of Jesus Christ? BCM missionary Joyce Murray was enjoying the 80th Anniversary celebration banquet for Bible Centered Ministries, International when BCM...

“If I Perish, I Perish”

By: Lisa Biegert with Stephen and Jane King “How can I not go?  Just like Queen Esther, if I live, I live, but if I perish, I perish. I must do God’s work.” So writes “Aunty Aida”, a Nigerian Christian who teaches BCM’s children’s ministry training course In Step with...

El Niño Devastates BCM Peru

By: Lisa Biegert Over recent weeks, the weather phenomenon El Niño has unleashed across Peru the worst downpours and floods in two decades, leaving more than ten thousand homes destroyed and over half-a-million people displaced. On March 15, 2017, a river edging BCM...

BCM Peru – Flood Disaster

By: Lisa Biegert Over recent weeks, the weather phenomenon El Niño has unleashed across Peru the worst downpours and floods in two decades, leaving more than ten thousand homes destroyed and over half-a-million people displaced. On March 15, 2017, a river edging BCM...

From Peru to the Poconos

By Marion and Carlos Odicio with Jeanette Windle “When I came to this country, I brought all my saints [statuettes of various saints believed to answer prayer] with me in my suitcase,” shares one attendee of a Spanish-language Bible study taught by Carlos and Marion...

“Disciple or Die!”

By: Gerlyn de Jesus Director, BCM Philippines The second Asia Pacific Youth Congress (APYC2), held in Bali, Indonesia, from October 17-20, 2016, brought together youth leaders, mentors, and children’s ministry directors from twenty different nations across Asia and...

BCM Canada—75 Years of Reaching Children and Serving the Church

By: Lauri Barrette Each country served by BCM International faces its own unique challenges. Some countries have artillery pointing at their borders. Some missionaries face incarceration and great persecution for sharing their faith. In Canada, where BCM recently...

Sharing, Loving, and Caring in Cameroon

By: Lisa Biegert Much of the West Indies island chain’s population reached the Caribbean during the late 17th and 18th centuries on slave ships from West Africa, destined for labor in tobacco and sugar plantations. So how does a West Indies pastor’s wife end up back...

Bringing Home the Good News

By Lisa Biegert with Josphat and Emily Yego A two-acre plot in the outskirts of Kapsabet, a town in western Kenya, holds just two lonely buildings, one constructed of wood and iron sheets, the other just wood. These small buildings stand vacant all week until Sunday...

Bullets Still Can’t Stop God’s Word in Inner Philly

A BCM World article last summer shared the exciting summer Bible club outreach in some of Philadelphia’s more difficult neighborhoods (see Neither Rain nor Heat nor Flying Bullets, BCM World, Fall, 2015). A recent update from BCM missionary Lorraine Stirneman, who...

Sending New Workers into Ukraine’s Harvest

By: Joe Dukes, BCM VP of Personnel Amidst continued trauma of a border war that is now dragging into its third year, BCM Ukraine held its 2016 missionary candidate orientation in the capital city of Kiev with 12 new missionary candidates in attendance. The orientation...

Partnering for Children in Cuba

By: Shantal Artieda The church in Cuba is alive and vibrant!” expressed a previous BCM World article (Cuba: Wide Horizons in the Pearl of the Caribbean, BCM World, Spring, 2014), and a recent BCM Peru ministry team to Cuba can testify to that truth. BCM missionaries...

Raising Up NEXT-GEN Leaders in Poland

By John Abramovich with Jeanette Windle How to find godly, committed counselors and staff for the next generation of camp ministry? Simple for BCM Poland missionaries John and Dasia Abramovich. You raise them. BCM International partners in Poland with a children’s...

“Whoever Receives One Such Child in My Name . . .”

By Jeanette Windle with Ratovohery Jean Aimé BCM’s newest ministry field, Madagascar (see Sharing “FIHAVANANA” With Madagascar’s Most Vulnerable, BCM World, Summer, 2016) has used school-end vacation to expand their children’s outreach, holding five-day Bible clubs in...

Camp Sankanac Celebrates its Platinum Jubilee

By: Jeanette Windle Several hundred former and present campers, counselors, and staff filled Camp Sankanac grounds on Saturday, September 3, 2016, to celebrate 75 years of God’s working in the lives of children and adults through this ministry. Established in 1941,...

“Work Hard—Make it Good—Finish Strong”

By: Jeanette Windle with Sue Sanderson When the 2016 Michigan-Seven team touched down in Bolivia’s lowland city of Santa Cruz on June 19th, it was hardly a first visit for team leader Sue Sanderson. Sue has taught BCM Bible clubs and ministered at BCM affiliate camp...

Finding Refuge in His Everlasting Arms

By Rick Erb, BCM missionary Ukraine/Poland REFUGEE!  Recent global events have caused a tsunami of refugees to hit the shores of many countries, including my own birth nation, the United States.  Probably none of us wants or expects to be a refugee. But several months...

Volunteering for God-Venture in Romania

By: Jeanette Windle with Daniel Rusu “Me! Me! I’ll do it!” Volunteering for new adventures was nothing new for BCM Romania missionary Daniel Rusu, whether skydiving in his teens or a university major with few job opportunities—aircraft engineering. But when caught in...

Sharing “FIHAVANANA” With Madagascar’s Most Vulnerable

By Lisa Biegert The island nation of Madagascar, located off Africa’s southeastern coast, practices what is known locally as fihavanana, a term encompassing concepts of unity, brotherhood, and general peace. To the Malagasy [i.e., Madagascar ethnicity] people, this...

Massive Flooding in Sri Lanka

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Philippians 2:4 (ESV)   Dear Friends, Imagine fleeing your home with only the clothes on your back as the flood waters are rising. Thankful to be alive, you search for...

Kiev-BCM Director Dr. Igor Kotenko – BCM Ukraine

Director of BCM Ukraine Dr. Igor Kotenko came to know Christ as Savior in the early 1990s after spending half a week’s salary on a Bible. Read more of Igor and Oxana’s testimony here (Changing Ukraine, One Heart at a Time). Igor’s love for God and concern for his...