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Dave
Griffin with the Lord
Dave Griffin
October 5, 1930 - January 29, 2009
He was born in the Congo and spent his childhood in Paraguay. Who would have guessed that Dave Griffin would give the majority of his life in ministry to the people of Canada.
When he moved to North America at the age of 18, his career goal was to be either an engineer or a lawyer.
After spending time as a circuit preacher in the US, he felt God’s call to become a pastor. He then served as the intern pastor for a year at the Elendale Baptist Church (Now Cedar Grove Baptist).
At that time, the provincial director of CSSM BC stepped down. Dave saw the need and stepped into his place.
“I was just planning on doing this for a few years as an interim director” Dave recalled. The Lord had other plans. Dave would go on to serve faithfully in this roll for 44 years!
Dave was a man of passionate vision to see the work of CSSM grow. When Dave began, CSSM ministries in BC consisted of one Bible Camp at Ness Lake, and one church. By the end of his years of service, A total of nine Bible camps had been founded, six churches planted and a small Bible school established. In addition, dozens of towns had been reached each summer through a large team of VBS teachers traveling about the province.
One of Dave Griffin’s goals was to have a Bible Camp in BC every 300 miles.
God provided in all sorts of creative ways for new Bible Camps to be established. In 1960 Lake of the Trees Bible Camp began with a trek through the forest to a remote lake on crown land leased from the government. Tents were used as the first cabins.
In 1962, a couple retiring on Pender Island donated their farm to CSSM for the express use as a Bible camp. Though other organizations hesitated at the prospects of this location, Dave had the vision, saw the potential and establish Hope Bay Bible Camp.
When the Baptist union in the Okanagan were no longer able to maintain their camp location in Peachland, Dave heard about it and offered to take over the camp, leasing it at a very low price over many years. And so in 1980, Maple Springs Bible Camp came under the umbrella of CSSM.
As Dave sought to find new locations for yet more camps, God led him to more crown land to lease north of Vanderhoof where a Bible camp had previously existed. Echo Lake Bible Camp was reborn under CSSM in 1981.
During those
years, if you were to drop in to Dave and Alice’s home, you would find not only their own children, but foster children as well. They often chose children with special needs. Out of this personal ministry came a desire to establish a ministry under CSSM to bring the gospel to children and adults with special needs, called
Amasa.
And so in 1983, the first special needs campers were reached with the gospel as integrated campers at Hope Bay Bible Camp. This ministry grew to have it’s own weeks of camp, renting various camp facilities around the province.
In 1989, the Evangelical Free Church in Clearwater provided the next CSSM camp as we took over their Bible Camp facility.
Misty Isles Bible Camp in the Queen Charlottes was held in a public campground. It is currently run by the local church there in Sandspit.
With a passion to bring back outreach to the unreached towns of BC that once flourished under the VBS ministry, Dave asked Roland McQuade in 1997 to begin the Adventure Day Camps ministry.
Numerous world wide missionaries, many now retired, got their start in evangelism and ministry under Dave’s leadership.
After his retirement from CSSM in 2000 (pictured at right), Dave continued in his passion to bring the Word of God into the lives of people through Bible teaching at his church, hospital and prison visitation and sharing the gospel where ever he could. He mentored many younger men in their walk with the Lord and was ministering to people right up until his passing.
As pastor Kevin Cavanaugh (Cedar Grove Baptist) testified at Dave Griffin’s funeral, “When he died, He died in a full out sprint across the line. Dave Griffin left his family with a priceless spiritual legacy!”
For those that would like to give a gift in memory of Dave Griffin, please designate it for this purpose on the envelope provided (or for those online, mention this designation). We will forward to Alice Griffin and family word of these gifts designated for the ongoing work of the CSSM BC Branch.
(First printed in our FACES
of BC Newsletter, Spring 2009. To read the complete issue go to our Newsletter
page.)
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