When a group of Campers on Mission hear about a volunteer missions project, they typically load up their RVs and head to the job site.
Their destination is often a camp, church, children’s home or state fairgrounds, depending on the request and need.
“If you can think of a way to volunteer and spread the Word of the Lord, chances are Campers on Mission can do it,” said Walt Miller, president of Alabama COM from 2021 through April 2023.
After starting solely as an outreach campground ministry in the 1970s, COM has evolved into a group of evangelical Christians staying in campers while helping with missional activities across the United States, such as backyard Bible clubs, disaster relief and church planting.
“Our prime kind of project is construction. We do either church building or renovation or sprucing up — remodeling and so forth,” Miller said, explaining that the organizations are responsible for buying the project materials and often provide meals for COM workers. “We can build a church for about 50% of what it costs a contractor to build it.”
Miller was the project leader for Sykes Creek Baptist Church in Clio, Alabama. Church members joined COM to help renovate the church’s sagging roof and restructure its walls.
Several years later, Miller received a call that the church wanted to build five new Sunday School classrooms to accommodate its growing membership. When Miller initially volunteered, there were no kids in the church. Later, he got another follow-up call that 16 children in Bible school had made decisions for Christ.
Hundreds of projects like this have occurred through the volunteer work of 4,000 campers across 27 states, leading to countless gospel opportunities.
‘Do something’
Among these COM members are national coordinators Jerry and Renee McGovern, who lived in Missouri when they joined the cause in 2011. With Jerry being a former master plumber and Renee a “gypsy at heart,” Campers on Mission was a perfect fit.
“We knew there was a calling on us to do something,” Renee explained. “We knew it had to do with using our hands because we’re worker bees.”
The couple served COM full time for 12 years, staying in their RV while hopping from one missions site to another before settling down in Grand Ridge, Florida, in August 2021. One of their favorite projects was working on the Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, just six months after they joined COM.
After the outdoor theater shut down due to financial hardship, a local pastor asked the McGoverns to help bring it back to life because he’d seen how instrumental the play was in many salvation decisions. The couple agreed and created a new national project for COM, asking other states to volunteer.
Once they rounded up a group to help, the McGoverns started working on the theater, which was in poor shape since things hadn’t been shut down properly.
“Everything needed repairs,” Renee said. “[But] God gave us all the skills we needed [through] the electricians, the plumbers, the Sheetrockers, the roofers.”
While the main repairs are now complete for the theater, COM volunteers still work ahead of its show openings to help with regular maintenance. In large part to COM’s work, the play has almost paid off $3 million in debt.
“It’s just wonderful to see how beautiful it is now,” Renee said, sharing how the theater has expanded its landscape to include petting zoos and prayer areas. “It’s just so different from what it was back in 2012.”
Although repairing or adding buildings for the work of ministry is often one of COM’s main objectives, the McGoverns explained the true purpose behind the volunteer efforts.
“Whether we painted the door or worked on the landscaping or fixed the plumbing or painted the rooms or whatever, we still had a part in all the decisions [for Christ] that are going to be happening months down the road,” Renee said.
“That’s very fulfilling to see that we gave our time so others will accept Jesus, [or] make decisions for the Lord. Maybe they need to rededicate their lives. Maybe there’s something God’s calling them to do and they’ve been running. We just know, we might not be there at that meeting or that camp or that revival of that ministry, [but] we had a hand in it when we did anything to prepare that ministry for them to have those meetings.”
Joining Campers on Mission
While the McGoverns will easily tell you how much they’ve enjoyed serving the Lord through Campers on Mission, they waited 25 years to join the organization. The couple originally thought they had to be retired to serve with COM, which is a common misconception.
Actually, there are plenty of short-term missions opportunities for those looking to participate — and you aren’t required to have an RV.
“Many of the places where we volunteer at kids’ camps and centers and churches, they have places you can stay in if you don’t have an RV,” Renee said, adding that children are also welcome.
She doesn’t want others to miss out on the opportunity to serve with COM.
“You don’t have to wait 25 years to do missions work,” she said.
