Jerri's dying wish brought the light of Christ to the West Virginia hills
The story of Camp Jerri and the quiet faith that still bears fruit decades later.
God often chooses the unlikely to carry out his work. Not the famous, the powerful or the wealthy — but the quiet, the humble and the faithful.
This is the story of one such person: a 12-year-old girl named Jerri.
She wasn’t known beyond her small circle of family and friends. She never wrote a book, never made headlines, never lived to see adulthood. But she loved Jesus.
And just before cancer took her life — when her parents asked her what she would want if she could have anything in the world — Jerri surprised everyone with this simple request: “If I could wish for anything in the world, it would be that everyone in the world would be saved.”
That wish — spoken by Jerri two months before she died — didn’t fade away. Through her grandfather’s faith and generosity, a Christian camp — Camp Jerri — was created in West Virginia in her honor.
And through that camp, hundreds — maybe thousands — have come to know Christ.
Jerri never saw the impact of her words. But God has. And he is still answering her wish.
I learned about Jerri’s story from my friend Mike Reynolds shortly after the death earlier this year of Larry Reynolds, who was Mike’s brother and Jerri’s father. (Earlier this year I wrote about Mike and a special image he had created that was used on the front of Larry’s memorial service program).
Camp Jerri was founded more than 40 years ago, and over time, Mike had lost touch with it. He wasn’t even sure it still existed. So when he traveled to Huntington, West Virginia, for his brother’s funeral in February, he was surprised to learn the camp was not only still there — but thriving just a few miles south of town.
“I was just floored that it was still there,” Mike told me.
God prepared the land — and Grandpa Joe’s heart
The story of Camp Jerri started some 150 years ago when the Reynolds family bought about 50 acres of land near Huntington and built a house on it. Mike and Larry’s father, Joe, grew up in that house in the 1910s and 1920s.
When Joe’s father died, none of his half-dozen siblings wanted the land and the property taxes that came with it, so Joe took it over. For decades, it sat mostly unused, visited only by the occasional hunting party, slowly growing over into thick forest.
But all the while, God was preparing the land for his purpose.
He also was preparing Joe.
Mike says his father grew up in a non-Christian home, but Joe became a devout Christian in his 20s, and he passed on his faith to his children, Larry, Patty and Mike.
Larry then had three children — Larry Jr., Jerri and Mark.
This is how God works: He draws one man out of an unbelieving family, transforms his heart, and then uses his life to grow the kingdom — through children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and beyond.
It’s the very kind of legacy David praised when he wrote, “You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name. Prolong the life of the king; may his years endure to all generations” (Psalm 61:5–6).
Joe’s faith became just such a heritage — one that would reach far beyond his lifetime.
Jerri’s testimony
Jerri was Larry and Janice Reynolds’ middle child.
After Jerri died, Janice wrote her story in a gospel tract that the family has given out to thousands of people over the years.
The tract is written from Jerri’s perspective, and it describes her coming to faith, cancer diagnosis, and her wish.
“In November 1973, during meetings at our church, the Lord revealed to me that knowing Christ died does not save us, but receiving Him into our hearts does,” Jerri says in the tract.
“That night I came home and talked to my mother about it, and we knelt by my bed and I confessed to Christ that I was a sinner. I asked God to forgive me and to come into my heart and save me. The Lord saved me that very night.”
During a missionary conference in August 1974, Jerri publicly went forward to say she would serve the Lord with her life in whatever way he desired.
“Little did I know at that time the way I would serve him,” she said.
It was only a few months later, after suffering back pain while acting as a cheerleader for a local youth football team, did the family learn that Jerri had a rare and inoperable bone and muscle cancer.
“Knowing this, Daddy and Mommy asked me what I would want if I could have anything in the world,” Jerri said. “I thought for a few seconds and then I said, ‘If I could wish for anything in the world, it would be that everyone in the world would be saved.’”
“What she said was just out of the blue,” Mike told me. “God laid that on her heart. God had plans for her that we would never have chosen.”
Jerri died on March 26, 1975.
At the end of the tract, Larry and Janice wrote:
“Jerri served the Lord many ways during her illness. He used her as a witness to countless people — her family, friends, doctors and nurses. It is our feeling that God still wants to use her testimony. That is why we wrote this tract for you to read and be saved.”
Making Jerri’s wish come true
Inspired by his granddaughter’s wish, Joe Reynolds donated his 50-acre property to his church to create a Christian camp for children and teens.
But after a few years, the church returned the land, unable to fund the project. That’s when Abundant Life Baptist Church — just across the Ohio River in Proctorville, Ohio — stepped in. The church took ownership and brought Joe’s vision to life. Today, it still operates Camp Jerri.
A key reason Abundant Life succeeded where the first church could not was Eldon Randolph, a church member and construction company owner. Eldon poured both personal and business resources into building the camp’s chapel, dining hall, pool and cabins.
The chapel was named “Beulah Chapel” after Eldon’s wife, Beulah Randolph. Remarkably, Joe Reynolds’ wife was also named Beulah. And perhaps not coincidentally in God’s providence, “Beulah” appears in Isaiah 62:4:
“You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate… for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be called Beulah.”
More than 50 years after the Reynolds family gave up on that overgrown acreage, it was no longer “desolate.”
It had become a camp where, just last summer, more than 600 children came to have fun, grow in their faith — and for some, to surrender their lives to Christ.
More than 25 years ago, Joe Reynolds gave a talk about Camp Jerri, and said: “I pray to God that this property will always be used for girls and boys, women and men, to come and learn about Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our souls. Without him, we have nothing.”
Nothing is ever wasted with God
Jerri never saw the camp. She never knew how many children would one day laugh, learn, and meet Jesus on those 50 acres her grandfather gave away. But her quiet faith and simple wish set it all in motion.
That’s how God works. He uses the small to do something great. He takes a child’s dying wish and turns it into a living legacy. And through the faithful steps of ordinary people like Jerri, Joe and Eldon, he brings life where once there was only forest and silence.
Camp Jerri stands as a reminder that no act of faith — no matter how small or unseen — is ever wasted in the hands of God.