The Greatest Secret

You know the greatest secret that this universe has to offer.

You know the greatest secret that this universe has to offer.

You know it, but I will go ahead and remind you. It is this: You are known- beyond the point of intimacy, beyond those skeletons that fill your walk-in closet, even beyond those things that you can't stand about yourself so you've suppressed those pieces of you behind everything else just so you can bear to look yourself in the mirror each day- you are known beyond all of this. You are known, and you are loved.

You are loved with a love that abides eternally. You have been freed from petty attempts at trying to earn salvation. You are loved, you are loved, you are loved. I cannot say those words enough times or with enough power, that their true severity would be understood by our human minds and human hearts, but you are loved.

As Jesus died on the cross, He bore the full weight of every specific, individual sin that we have ever committed. And you can bet that He did not ignore a single one. Every sin, every time we pushed God out of our conscience just to have a little fun, every dark thought that we indulged in for just a moment, and even those soul-crushing decisions that we have begun to define ourselves by. Jesus was crushed by those same weights. Oh, how He must know you!

In the garden that night before He went to the cross, He was given a taste of what was to come. He was given full understanding of that burden He must bear. He was given full knowledge of who you are. He saw the full map of your heart. And He still went. And His grace abounds.

This love is what you have been looking for all of your life. And nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. He will never leave you; He will never forsake you.

You are known, and you are loved.

You know the greatest secret that this universe has to offer.

How will you respond?

-Tyler Jewess, Base Camp Staff 

40 Years in a Nutshell

Our 40 year reunion gave us a great opportunity to reflect on our exciting history.  Here's a brief look at where Beyond came from and where we are going.

Beyond Malibu began in the early 1970s when Barney Dobson, a Vancouver, B.C. Young Life leader, caught a vision for taking kids into the mountains surrounding Young Life’s Malibu Club in the Princess Louisa Inlet.  Barney wanted to take kids “beyond” the normal camp setting.  In 1970, the Beyond experiment began when three groups each climbed what would eventually become the One Eye Route.  Those first three trips were a great success. So the following summer Beyond kicked off its inaugural season.

That first summer in 1971 Beyond set up a base camp on the Jervis Inlet at the mouth of Potato Creek.  They had a small staff of pioneers, enough to lead just one trip each week during the summer, so some trips had as many as 20 campers.  In 1972, Beyond more than doubled its staff and with it the number of trips into the mountains.  This growth allowed Beyond to shrink the size of the groups and begin to customize trips to the unique dynamics of each group.
That same summer, 1972, Beyond left Potato Creek and transformed an old logging camp in the heart of the Princess Louisa Inlet into its new base camp.  Today, nearly forty years later, that same small strip of land continues to serve as the home base for Beyond’s mountain ministry. But a lot has changed since 1972.  In 1998, after leasing the property for twenty-six years, Young Life purchased that old logging camp.  Since then we have remodeled the barn, torn down and rebuilt the red house and the long house, added five new buildings including the sauna and the luggage shelter, dug too many biffs to count, and completed three of seven campsite structures.

And Beyond continues to grow.  In 1998 Beyond added a sea kayaking program and with it a new base of operations in Egmont.  Today, Beyond has as many as eight mountain trips and two sea kayaking trips exploring the mountains and inlets of British Columbia’s wild coastline each week.  With improvements in the Princess Louisa base camp came the opportunity, beginning in 2008, for some midweek base camp service trips and rustic camp experiences for Capernaum (Young Life’s ministry to special needs populations), college, and adult Young Life groups.  In the next few years we hope to increase the size of our staff and the number of our trips, purchase a new water taxi to better facilitate transportation in and out of the inlet, build four more campsite structures, extend the roof of the barn, and so much more.  The history of Beyond is most easily tracked through these tangible growths and changes.  But the real history exists in the lives that have been moved and utterly transformed by God’s presence in these mountains and on these waters.  Come be a part of Beyond’s history.