Camp Bellevue

14/05/2026

At the end of March, we hosted a retreat for homeschool teens. This is the same group that our boys participate in every other week during the school year. We love having this group and seeing all their creative ideas for games and activities. Over the years, we’ve helped them with obstacle courses, trebuchets, a Mystery Dinner, and campfire meals. This year, we got to stage an arrest!

The theme was “The Persecuted Church,” and during the opening session, Rusty, Seyber, and Seyber’s brother played a little trick on the kids. Seyber is retired military and his brother is in the police force, so they dressed in their uniforms and came in and told the kids that Christians could no longer meet publicly or carry Bibles openly in Ecuador. They “arrested” the speaker and Rusty went around and confiscated all the kids’ Bibles. Of course none of this was actually true, it was all pre-arranged and meant to give the kids a little taste of what it’s like to practice your faith in a country where Christians are persecuted. We have a hard time really understanding what that’s like, especially if we’ve always known religious freedom.

09/05/2026

Camp Bellevue is a lovely place for a wedding!

We are first and foremost a camp, not an official wedding venue, and as such, we can’t offer all the fancy and elegant trappings, but if you’re looking for rustic and simple, we can do that! We’ve hosted the occasional wedding over the years, and it’s always a joy to offer this space as an affordable option to young couples just starting out. Interested in what having your wedding or anniversary celebration at Camp Bellevue would entail? Just reach out with any questions.

And a hearty congratulations to Catalina and Jhonatan who tied the knot at the camp at the end of March!

24/04/2026

Thank you to the group of pharmacy students and their professors from William Carey University who spent their spring break in early March helping us with a medical campaign. They saw over 400 patients in 5 days at 2 different locations, and did a simple kids program in both places as well!

And also — a big thank you to our local volunteers (not pictured unfortunately), who helped us make this week possible! Doctors, translators, a naturopath, an EMT, even a couple of medical students came alongside the U.S. team to complement their efforts. You are all an essential part of our medical missions. We couldn’t do it without you!

To see more photos of this week, please check out our Instagram page (link in the comments below).

Interested in being part of our next medical mission May 31-June 4? Contact us today!

17/04/2026

In early February, we hosted our annual Women's Spiritual Retreat with nearly 50 participants. This weekend has become one of the highlights of my year as we "serve the servants," creating a space for women in ministry to come away, be fed spiritually, and hopefully return feeling renewed and refreshed. Our theme this year was "God is our Refuge" from Psalm 62. Julie and I tag-teamed the speaking, delivering 4 lessons on communing with God through the Psalms. There were also beautiful times of worship all together, time interacting with the material in small groups, and most importantly, times of silence and solitude. God always meets with us powerfully during these weekends -- it's truly a privilege to bear witness how he is working in the lives and hearts of these women.

15/04/2026

Time for some updates on our goings-on at the camp over the past 3 months!

First up, a big "thank you" to the students from Alliance Academy International in Quito for spending a week with us at the end of January! This group of high school students came with the dual purpose of service and cultural learning / exposure. They worked with the kids in our After School Program, did some clean-up and maintenance on a section of the prayer trail, sanded and treated picnic tables, went on home visits, had a tour of a rose plantation, and hiked at Cuicocha Lake.

Thanks, AAI, for choosing us to be one of the hosts for the ImpactED experiences this year. We hope you'll come again!

06/03/2026

Medical clinics begin this Sunday afternoon.

Brigada Médica en Campamento Bellevue! Solo 3 días, empezando Domingo en la tarde.

23/01/2026

Are you a doctor, nurse, or other medical professional with a heart to serve those in the developing world? If so, we invite you to consider joining us at Camp Bellevue for one of our upcoming medical missions. Please share this post and help us spread the word!

02/12/2025

It’s Giving Tuesday, and we didn’t want to let the day go by without letting you know of an opportunity to bless Camp Bellevue with a year-end gift. As many of you know, we are now registered as a 501c3 nonprofit organization in the U.S. and have begun raising money for an endowment fund to provide for the future financial stability and security of the camp.

When you give anytime between now and December 15th, God will multiply your offering through the generosity of an anonymous donor who has agreed to match every dollar given! Help the camp continue to shine a light in Ecuador tomorrow by giving today.

There are a lot of worthy causes out there, but we would be honored if you would consider including Camp Bellevue in any year-end gifts you intend to make.

13/11/2025

September newsletter from the Campbell family

27/09/2025

Kitchen Team, Summer 2025: This hard-working group kept the camp kitchen humming along for the week of our big youth camp in August. But they also helped out for several other weeks over the summer as well. Some are permanent camp staff. Others were temporary hires for our busiest time of year. Others were volunteers. And all of them worked hard and were such a blessing to Camp Bellevue and all those who came and went through the summer!

Over the years, I have modified the kitchen schedule for our camp weeks, trying out different things and asking for feedback. We have moved from having a smaller team where everyone works 12-hour shifts (brutal!) to a little bit larger team where everyone works 10-hour shifts (manageable). The last couple of years, we’ve had a large enough team that I was able to divide everyone into three groups who work 8-hour shifts; and then a few, like me, worked a split shift, coming in for a few hours to help with breakfast each morning and then coming back in the evenings to serve and clean up dinner. This is the sweet spot, I think. We all reached the end of the week feeling less worn down and ragged. “Many hands make light work,” as they say. I don’t know that I would ever call food prep for 200 plus “light work,” but the “many hands” did keep us all from feeling too overwhelmed.

22/09/2025

We were thrilled to host our very first group from Oregon this year, teens and a few adults from the Newberg Church of Christ! They came during the week of Kids Camp, and as we have never had a U.S team during Kids Camp before, figuring out how to plug them in was challenging. But honestly, now that the week is over, I don’t know how we would have survived without them! They helped in so many small and big ways — setting up the dining hall before meals, helping with dish-washing after meals, keeping the water jugs full, helping set up and run the dinosaur obstacle course, prepping materials for the Dino escape room, performing in the daily skits, helping with games and crafts after the Bible lessons, teaching kick-ball, helping in the art room. Basically anything we needed done throughout the week, they were quick to jump in and help. Probably my favorite thing they did was introduce us (and our Ecuadorian team of leaders and volunteers) to a few simple skits and silly songs to incorporate into our campfire time. They even helped Rusty with the fire pit devos each night and taught the kids some silly songs that I’m sure will become part of our camp lexicon in future years! Thank you, Newberg, for your joyful enthusiasm and your servant hearts during our last camp of the summer. We hope you’ll come again!