God's Great Outdoors

Guest (Male): All of our minds carry memories that remain with us for our entire lives. There are things that happen early in life that not only change our lives in our youth, but for an eternity. Camping ministries have been around for many years and they've had a huge impact on kids and adults alike. People of all ages have been served and reached through camping.

On today's program, Dean will visit with a friend that spent much of his childhood at the same camp that Dean grew up with. Both men and their families were touched by the outdoor experiences as well as those that cared for the campers year after year. We'll reminisce of the beauty of God's great outdoors and all that comes with it.

The place that is remembered is a showplace for an amazing creation, but more so for the creator. Let's join Dean and his guest as they walk down the trail to adventure at Lake Ellen Bible Camp in God's great outdoors.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure. We are home in the Upper Peninsula and we are with a good friend. A lot of times I say a great friend or a good friend without really having a lot of years, but Ed, you and I have known each other since you were born or shortly after that. For sure grade school.

Ed McBroom: I'm 45 now and I always remember coming home from church and my dad said, "Somebody's out in the field." We diverted and went out into the field and it was you out with one of your boys. Were you flying model airplanes?

Dean Hulce: I was flying a model airplane. I did ask him for permission.

Ed McBroom: Right, but I was a little boy. That's my first recollection of you. It's funny how your dad had always asked for permission. They said, "Just go." I always felt like I had to look over my shoulder for some reason. My dad keeps pretty tight watch over who's out there. He's not given us a bad time because we've leased it now for I think three years, going into our third year for the hunting. I kind of like when somebody's watching, to be honest with you, because I'd rather that than somebody running around around us.

Funny hunting story for my dad and our farm is that he was out coon hunting with a guy named Pat years ago. They were out and all of a sudden some lights started showing up on the other side of the field and a car drove into the hayfield. My dad raced down the field and then they started chasing him. He didn't know who it was. It turned out to be the DNR. Somebody had called and the DNR came out. He was just furious at these guys. He told them, "If you'd just called, you would have known we were out here legitimately hunting on my own land."

Dean Hulce: Your dad's mellowed a lot from back in those days too, but I think we all do. I hope I'm mellowing as I get older. We're here for a reason. We want to talk the outdoors, but we're reminiscing mostly about Lake Ellen Bible Camp. You're not a big outdoorsman. When you're outdoors, you're cutting corn or planting and whatever.

Ed McBroom: I've never been a big-time hunter. I enjoy going out and helping the guys like you and others who come out there. I love watching the success and getting to help cut one up or do a drive, but that's never been my big thing in life. I'm a musician and farmer and now politician. On a dairy farm, you're usually too busy. If it's right around daylight, you're in the barn. It's hard to find the time to go.

I certainly enjoy having the guys come out and do the hunting on the land. We've had some really fun times going out on a hunt with the guys. My kids are really into it these days, especially the first time my son got a turkey. He was just grinning ear to ear. He couldn't believe it.

Dean Hulce: Nobody turkey hunted the farm until the last week this year. We end up getting five birds in a week.

Ed McBroom: No kidding. There's abundant turkeys around the U.P. this year. I don't know what kind of hatch we had, but there are.

Dean Hulce: So with that, as we're talking about Lake Ellen, because you grew up there. First time you ever shot a rifle. We had someone that ran riflery and archery for years and years and it was Darwin Wilson. A lot of people just called him Grandpa Darwin. From the time I was little, he would take us.

Then you and I talked off the air about Jerry Kriegal. Jerry was a biology teacher and was actually the last 10 years of my dad's life was his best friend. They spent just countless hours in the woods trapping, fishing, and he watched over my dad until my dad passed. He'd take him out all the time. But he would take, and I said this before, he would take when we were little kids, he'd go turn a log over. Take us for a nature walk at Lake Ellen.

Ed McBroom: He'd turn a log over and tell you what was living underneath. The insects, the worms, how everything worked. You mentioned the bombardier beetle that he would explain how this couldn't happen in evolution but it can happen in creation.

Lake Ellen has just always had this big connection to the outdoors. That's part of its charm. The U.P. has that charm, but you go to Lake Ellen and it's like it's on steroids, on amplification. The whole week you're there, whether you're picking berries, whether you're, I learned the hard lesson that you don't break fern stems off in your hand. My hand was shredded and bleeding all over. The animal mounts there, the moose, caribou in the dining hall. Mr. Wilson took me fishing. Not just shooting my first time, but we went fishing every morning early when the fog was still out on the lake. Lake Ellen's just a great place for that outdoor adventure.

Dean Hulce: It's interesting because if you had one picture in your mind of something at Lake Ellen in the picture, what would it be?

Ed McBroom: For me, it's seeing that moose in the dining hall just immediately. But otherwise, it's the waterfront. The bell that called you to breakfast, that called you when it was time for certain things. The view of the bell with the lakefront behind it is something that's very special.

And probably as much as anything is the teaching, the draw to the Lord. You knew when you went there you were going to learn about God. I've counseled at other camps, some that are religious, some that weren't at all. But both as a camper for many years and then I was a staff counselor, there is just this constant, everything is about focusing the students on Christ. Everything all week long, whether it's the games, whether it's a softball game, a soccer game, whether it's fishing.

I remember Kent McElhaney taking kids out on the sailboat and that was evangelism happening out there. He had handpicked the kids he was going to take out on that sailboat and they were going to talk about Christ while they were out there. Kids would go on a nature walk and the counselor would take a hand-selected group. We would even sneak out at night. We thought the counselor was going to take us out and we had to avoid the Dean. It was all, I learned later, they had actually cleared it. But we'd go out there and we looked at the stars and we talked about Christ.

Every aspect of camp was always bringing home that view. It was to help the students who already knew Christ, like me, to become stronger and it was to evangelize the ones who didn't, who might never hear about him again. Lake Ellen might have been the only church they ever got exposed to. That para-church work, whether it's Lake Ellen, Child Evangelism Fellowship, a few other ministries, they're foundational to so many people who are in the church today. Where would they be if those hadn't been there?

Dean Hulce: When Lake Ellen closed a few years ago, there were people like you and me and others who were like, we've got to get it back open again because the churches here and across all Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, that Lake Ellen had this huge reach to. Where's the next generation going to be? It's not that there aren't still some other Bible camps, but they're packed or they're not very good. The sound camps are packed.

If you don't have your reservations in that day that they open registration within the first four or five hours, you're out of luck. You took one of the kids to Montana last year to get into a good camp. We have Adam that does the programming with me here, does the production work. He's in Minnesota driving his kids out there the last few summers. I think he said they're going back and forth six times this year, seven hours each way, and just to get them into a good camp.

Ed McBroom: And if you're going to have the camper kid invite his friends and neighbors, the kids who don't go to church, it needs to be closer by most of the time. I remember we took carloads and carloads. My parents always had carloads going to camp every time we went. The neighborhood kids went. If the parents couldn't afford to send them, either our church or sometimes my parents would just pay the bill.

That was a great thing. I just did a funeral a couple of years ago for someone that I grew up with and his brothers, who would be 70 years old now. One brother said, and I didn't know this, he said, "I can tell you right where I was and I can tell you when it was when I accepted Christ at Lake Ellen." He told me that now 50 plus years later. So it does make an impact.

Dean Hulce: But it's been closed. COVID and a few other circumstances really kind of just put the nail in the coffin. It's been difficult. The conference who owned the property sold the property to a local company who's logging it. They've done some forestry work, but they've also kept the campground in good condition. They are willing and even hopeful to see the camp return to its ministry work and have given us some pretty fair terms. Very reasonable, in fact, extremely patient.

We're looking to raise $100,000 here to make the down payment towards getting the property back and then be able to start doing work. Mel Zimmerman, who's been working with us on this project, who heard about the camp, long-time businessman, connections everywhere. He is tracking down numerous grants that can be used for the purchase, but can be used for operations. We have the hope that we'll be able to set up a good corpus to have a trust that the camp can operate on for the future.

Really exciting. It's really exciting. If we can just get to our amount here soon, we could start having some events even this fall. Start small, a few retreats, but then next summer be looking at reopening again. We're really excited. We're so close. We've got old email lists from when the camp was open. I found one from 2018. We're trying to reinvigorate things and get the message out, but how do I know I'm touching everybody? Email addresses fall apart, people have gotten rid of them, or they go right to spam is the worst thing.

Ed McBroom: I'm trying to do some of these. Other people on the new board that we've created are going around talking to radio, talking online, using Facebook to try and reach out to people who care about Lake Ellen, care about the future of the church and the U.P., Northern Wisconsin, all of these folks, and see if we can't get there. It's exciting.

I remember as a kid having buses come all the way from Northern Illinois and Green Bay and Milwaukee occasionally. There was a life there and there was a life there because Christ was forefront. We hope to get that back. We're going to take a quick break and let Adam come on. I think he's back home today from delivering kids to Minnesota. We'll have Adam come on and share how people can come alongside us at God's Great Outdoors. Then after we get back, we'll share how people can come alongside Lake Ellen Bible Camp. We'll be right back with God's Great Outdoors.

Guest (Male): For the last 26 years, God's Great Outdoors Trail to Adventure has been broadcast out to win men and women, boys and girls, to Jesus Christ. This is only possible by the generosity of our listeners. Thank you to all who have supported us in the past. God has blessed us because of you and we pray that you feel his blessings as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by Matthews Archery, the leader in the archery industry. Mission Archery with revolutionary crossbow technology. Three Rivers Archery, supplying everything you need to make your own traditional archery equipment. Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do. And Conviction Game Calls. At Conviction, we don't separate work from our faith. We believe that our faith should be evident in every aspect of our lives and the outdoors is one of the best places to share that.

God's Great Outdoors has produced many ministry tools, including tracks, DVDs, and books, to help you reach others for Jesus Christ. You can access these items, other God's Great Outdoors items, and so much more at our website, godsgreatoutdoors.org. That's godsgreatoutdoors.org.

Dean Hulce: Welcome back to God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure. We are with Ed McBroom. Ed has been a long-time friend, actually grew up with my son Ryan. Actually met my son at Lake Ellen originally and been friends ever since. We've seen Bible camp that made a difference in both of our lives, both of our families. Your dad and my dad were both on the board at Lake Ellen at one time. We both grew up there, we both counseled there. I spoke there several times. You've led the hymn sings and all the way down through our kids.

It's a special place. One of the things I wanted to mention quick because you've had so many experiences out there at eight years old and still I've snuck in there a couple of times just to see it the last couple of years. It's sad to see it closed. But one of the things I just remembered, you had a brother that passed away in a car accident a few years ago and it was impacted by the camp. But another one of your brothers came up to me and I had counseled him a long, long time ago, just out of high school.

He said, "Do you remember me?" And I said, "You look familiar." He gave me his name and he said, "You led me to the Lord in the cabin at Lake Ellen." And actually, I remembered then that there was actually two boys that came to Christ in the cabin where I was counseling that year. I was actually a little bit ashamed that I had forgotten it at that point, but it's a long time ago. Those things looking back, they've made such a huge impact on so many lives.

Ed McBroom: I look at the times where I was a camper and hope that I was a good testimony to some of the kids that I'm sure there were times I wasn't, but we were kids. Then when I was a counselor and we went to training week and just worked hard. We're going to be evangelizing these kids and we're going to have to do devotions couple of times a day and bring them to meetings and you got to get them there and just the whole week is really oriented around the ministry work.

The nature hikes, the fishing, everything else is fun, but even then you're trying to draw them back to the Christ message. The young men who were saved at my cabins through our work, for me, those are just wonderful memories of the time there and seeing God work.

Dean Hulce: We're looking now how do we reestablish the camp and the board that's been formed, that's our mission. We want to bring the camp back for evangelism, for discipleship, for strengthening the local church. Whether it's adults that come out to the camp for retreat or kids that come out for a week, it's a para-church thing. It's a support the local church, all the local churches in this region. If it weren't for Bible camps, where would a lot of churches be? You talk to so many people who got saved. How did they get saved?

Ed McBroom: Very few people just wandered into church one day. That doesn't happen anymore. I went to a Billy Graham Crusade or I went and saw Luis Palau or I went to a Bible camp or I was at VBS. These opportunities are really critical and I think for about the last 20 years they kind of had fallen a lot. The churches kind of changed their focus more to church planting and to long-term mission trips. Let's take the kids and go to Mexico or something.

I think there's a return maybe, I hope, I pray, back to the idea that there's value in going to camp. It's challenging. Families are different, structures, culture is different, but the camp model of getting the kids away from the noise, the phones, the internet, the TV, the screens, the friends and neighbors who distract you and have them isolated out in the woods. A place where some of them from the inner city have never even been and talk about Christ for a week. Get them plugged in. It's such an amazing place and God does amazing work there.

Dean Hulce: I just think that a lot of our listeners will have known of Lake Ellen. Those that are in the Upper Peninsula, Northeast Wisconsin, and some beyond that. But we have a lot of our listeners that were affected at a different camp. They came to Christ through a camp, their children came to Christ through a camp, or even sometimes their parents or they served at a camp. They're looking for a place where they can make a difference. This is a great place to do it.

I have to raise money to keep God's Great Outdoors on the air, but I do, we take a lot of ministries and we bring them on here to tell about their ministry. This is important. The amount of children and adults that can be reached through a Bible camp that's preaching a Gospel is phenomenal. We're not getting a lot of kids never step foot in church. Think about the kid down the street or your son or daughter's friend that doesn't go to church, but they'd be happy to go to camp.

When you take them to camp and you teach them about Christ, you're changing generations because it does, we've seen that happen in our lives. I think as we're sitting here talking, I think of all the kids that came from our neighborhood. Kingsford area used to send hundreds of kids a year up there. At one point, I think we had 14 kids from our neighborhood that went up and most of them were unchurched. We want to get back to that because we want to make a difference.

This is about camping, but if it's not about reaching people for Christ, then we're wasting our time. That's why the new board has really, as we worked on reestablishing a constitution and a mission statement, we tried to highlight some of these things in there to really emphasize our faith. That's why we've said the name is going to be Lake Ellen Bible Camp. It had over the years gone through several metamorphoses and ended up just being Lake Ellen Camp. We want to make sure the word Bible is in there and we want to establish that we're following the Bible.

This is what the Bible teaches about family, it's what it teaches about church, but most of all, we're following the Word of God and we're not ashamed of that because some of the camps that are religious in nature, Christian camping, have kind of wandered into some very poor areas. They've left the Bible and some of those camps are failing too because they've left the Bible and we don't want to be having people worry about that.

Ed McBroom: Folks go and look at lakeellenbiblecamp.com and you can see our mission statement, you can see our constitution that we've adopted. Check up on us and make sure that this meets what you believe you want your children and what church ought to be doing. It's important to us and it's important to us to see for churches to see that we want to support them. We don't want to be a camp that operates without the churches' involvement. We want the churches involved.

It was always built that way. It was built that way. Para-churches came together to build it. Started off with just the U.P. Baptist Church Association and then Wisconsin and it grew from there and we just want to reach out again and make those churches part of it and not have that rub before where Lake Ellen had kind of just said, "Hey, we can run, we don't, we'll go find students to work here from a thousand miles away." We want to be part of this local regional community. It really is a community thing, for sure.

You can go to lakeellenbiblecamp.com and actually see some pictures of the camp as well and past camps. It is a special place. The waterfront is like no other camp I've been at and the feeling, again, we grew up there so it was easy to reminisce about the great times. There is, people come from the outside, I've brought people up there just to drive in and see it and they say there's something special here.

Dean Hulce: I think God's hand of blessing has touched that place for a long time. It's very special. Miracles have happened there. I've had a few happen to me where I've got injured and went to the hospital to get stitches and had a chance to talk about Christ at the hospital with some nurse or traveling doctor. God's ministry has been strong there and we want to see it come back. I hope that this is especially hitting some of those folks who know Lake Ellen already but have lost touch of it, lost contact.

If you grew up there, if you know that camp, feel free to go on Facebook, drop a note, but encourage others to come alongside because we do have listeners that could make a huge difference in what needs to be done there. There's a need and I hope our listeners come along and join in that need and take care of that because again, Matthew 28 tells us to go into all the world. To all the world centers around Lake Ellen for a lot of years. That was the sign hanging on the archway. It's still there when you leave Lake Ellen. Go ye into all the world.

Come alongside Lake Ellen and if you need the information, go to the website for God's Great Outdoors, godsgreatoutdoors.org, and I'll be glad to give you the information if I can help direct you in any way. Please do that and get ahold of me. Ed, thanks for joining us.

Ed McBroom: Been my honor, Dean. I love this program and it's been a real blessing to see you take over from Jerry and continue this ministry.

Dean Hulce: It's been great to have you and I look forward to going back up to Lake Ellen again, maybe for hymn singing, a men's retreat or something. Thank you to our listeners for joining us. Join us every week as we travel down the trail to adventure in God's great outdoors.

Guest (Male): We hope that today's program brought back memories to you that came from great times in your youth. We hope you all carry some memories of times in God's great outdoors and the one that created it. Statistically, the most likely time for kids to make a choice to accept the gift of salvation is between the ages of 5 and 13. The chances go down dramatically and they remain low for all other ages.

Today it is getting harder all the time to engage with young people in a spiritual relationship. Camping ministries make it possible to bring children and all people together for a time of meeting Christ in God's great outdoors. We hope that all of our listeners have had the opportunity to attend a Bible camp at some time in their life. Speaking from experience, it could be one of the highest points of your life.

If you haven't had the chance, find a camp and no matter your age, find a time to attend. If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear the extended podcast version, you can find it by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. This program is provided by and can be contacted at God's Great Outdoors, P.O. Box 414, Powers, Michigan 49874 or on the website, godsgreatoutdoors.org. We thank you for joining us this week to learn about a great outdoors ministry opportunity. We look forward to walking together next week on the Trail to Adventure in God's great outdoors.