There's something special about Samy

By Doug Koop
ChristianWeek

WINKLER, MB -- Ray Wieler is a man with a mission. Literally.

The former director of Winkler Bible Camp is as surprised as anyone else to be the founder and president of a ministry committed to evangelizing and training young people -- in India, which is a long way from rural Manitoba. Nor did he expect to be heading an organization that is providing a camp experience for some 15,000 young people in 2005, only its third year of operation.

It began innocently enough, with a long distance phone call from 22-year-old Antony Samy in Tamil Nadu (a populous province in southeastern India). Samy was offering to volunteer as a counselor at the Bible camp in southern Manitoba. Wieler politely explained the process, including the costs and difficulties of travel and obtaining proper documentation. And figured that would be the end of that.

Wrong. A few weeks later he received another call from Samy, who had made it as far as New York and was on his way to Winkler. His church sponsored him and he managed to jump through all the hoops; he was determined to be a camp counselor.

Wieler picked him up at the Winnipeg airport, wondering how he could properly train and use a volunteer who spoke fractured English and knew nothing about Canadian culture.

And so it happened that in the summer of 2002 Samy began as a junior counselor with a few responsibilities in a cabin of boys. But it took hardly a week before it was clear to all that there was something special about Samy. "He was dynamic, a wonderful reflection of Christ," says Wieler.

Within the year a vision for Christian camping in India was beginning to grip the young man -- a dream of extending gospel camp experiences to more than a million children. Wieler encouraged the vision and offered his support.

Samy returned to India in 2003 and organized day camps that attracted 507 campers. In 2004, more than 3,000 took part. This year it expanded to 15,000 and the desire is to reach 40,000 campers in 2006.

"Most of the children we work with come from the lowest estate -- the Dalits, or the 'untouchables,'" explains Wieler. "We touch them with the love of Christ."

Here in Canada, Wieler has established India Bible Camp Ministries as a fundraising and training resource for the burgeoning work in India. He describes the mission as "a soul-saving, disciple-making, leader-training ministry" that works with churches "to help them fulfill the Great Commission in their communities."

Established churches in India recruit the children and provide follow-up. The camps themselves are very teaching intensive. "In Canada we have to do a lot of entertaining to open up children's hearts to hear the gospel for just a short time," says Wieler. "In India, simply for and adult to show he cares -- especially among Dalits -- is enough. Two or four hour Bible studies with children are not a problem."

Wieler believes Christians in Canada need to be doing more mission both at home and abroad. The need and the opportunity to help establish Christian camping in India was a call he could not ignore, and the experience deepened his own understanding of God's desire to work through people to accomplish things beyond their imagining.

Now he wishes that tens of thousands of Canadian Christians in business and other professions would be encouraged and enabled to unleash their resources and passion for witness as well. "The church is full of geldings," he says. "I want to point the stallions in the right direction and let them run."