Kids are excited about meeting people from other countries. Teens are
eager to climb walls and clean parks. And their chaperones are glad most smartphones
will be off for a week.
The massive Seventh-day Adventist Pathfinder Camporee has begun here in
the U.S. state of Wisconsin, which plays host to an event bringing 44,000
people from across the United States, Canada, and Bermuda, and an additional
2,000 people from more than 50 other countries.
The event—the North American Division Pathfinder Camporee hosted by the
Center for Youth Evangelism—is held every five years. Organizer Ron Whitehead
says it takes four years to plan.
“I’ve never been so physically exhausted, but I’ve never been happier to
be this tired,” Whitehead said. “We really care about and value our young
people.”
This year’s Camporee—with the theme “Forever Faithful”—is being held at
the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture Campgrounds. This is the
fourth time organizers have held the event here, and the gathering increases
the city of Oshkosh’s population by approximately 70 percent.
From now until Sabbath, tens of thousands of Seventh-day Adventist youth
and their friends will participate in community service projects, attend
nightly spiritual programs, and earn “honor” patches for their service and
learning activities.
Some Pathfinders might as well receive an honor for just getting here. Eleven
members of clubs from the denomination’s Carolina Conference arrived after
biking the 830-mile trip. Other clubs have spent years fundraising with car
washes and bake sales to earn their entrance fee, travel funds, and supplies.
Now that most clubs are here, the walking has begun, and some of it is
through mud. The event is being held at a 500-acre campground, where dirt roads
turned muddy last night after wind and rain.
Still, most attendees are maintaining a positive attitude in spite of the
weather, which is predicted to improve for the rest of the week.
“It’s been kind of challenging. Our kitchen tent flew away,” said
15-year-old Terell Rhooms from the Frontiers Pathfinder Club at Hope Adventist
Church in Toronto, Canada. They’ve since tied it down, he said while waiting
for the exhibits in the airfield’s hangars to open. Rhooms said he’s heard
there is basketball, zip lining, and an obstacle course to anticipate during
the Camporee.
“I came because I heard it was fun,” Rhooms said. “Everyone said it was a
good experience, good memories, and you draw closer to God.”
Tiffany Fronda, 27, deputy director of the Challengers Pathfinder Club at
the Hindsdale, Illinois Filipino-American Adventist Church, said the weather
“wasn’t good, but “not bad” either. “We’ve [previously] had tornadoes, we’ve
had frigid temperatures, we’ve had super hot heat stroke weather. Now we get
the rain. All seasons.”
“But the Lord always comes through,” Fronda said, before adding: “At
least we don’t have to worry about a sandstorm,” which occurred at the 1994
Camporee in the state of Colorado.
Twelve-year-old Abigail Oré Calderon from Lima, Peru, who enjoys camping
and “adventures,” said, “Even though it was raining, I’m happy to be here.” She
and her group from the Orion Pathfinder Club at Villa Union Adventist Church
are being hosted by a club from the U.S.
That group, the Mentone Adventist Church in Mentone, California, went
online before the Camporee to choose an international group to host. Member
David Guajardo, 13, said he came because he enjoys camping, and his parents
encouraged him. “They said it would be a once in a lifetime experience,” he
said.
Several club leaders said the best part of experiencing the event is for
Pathfinders to simply interact with each other. Some are even making a rule that
cameras are the only electronics allowed. At the Milwaukee airport last night,
Pathfinder leader Lester Lorenson from Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, let
his Pathfinders play games on their phones while waiting for a van, but his
plan was for mobile devices to be shut off for the rest of the week.
“I want them to be a team,” Lorenson said. “When they’re playing games
they’re not talking to each other, experiencing things, exercising, teasing
each other—things kids do.”
The Camporee is scheduled to run through August 16. More photos of the
event may be seen in the Flickr albums from
ANN and
the
North American Division, as well as on
the
ANN Facebook page.
Sam
Leonor is the keynote speaker for the Forever Faithful International Pathfinder
Camporee in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, August 11-16. He serves as the campus pastor
for La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif., and enjoys ministry that focuses
on faith that engages culture deeply and emphasizes justice. Sam is married to
Shelley; they have a daughter, Alexandra, age 14, and a son, Micah, age 11.
Raised
in Central America, his parents worked with health care missions. Sam attended
Southern College, now Southern Adventist University, in Tenn., where he earned
a secondary education degree. He worked as a youth pastor in Asheville, North
Carolina, before attending Andrews University where he earned a Master of
Divinity.
Sam
had a chance to talk with NAD communication personnel at the Pathfinder
International Camporee.
I am
excited to be here at Oshkosh with my whole family. We have been planning this
for three years now. We have been excited for many things, most
importantly to meet people from across the country and across the world who
share the same values. My daughter is excited about meeting kids of about the
same age who are excited about the same things who have been working hard doing
bake sales, car washes, to get here. We are also excited about the theme of
this camporee. It is really important to us.
Small
things, food, it starts with small things. When you find yourself in a
strange place, God asks you to be faithful in the way you eat? But once you
demonstrate your faithfulness in a really small thing, like food, then God
gives you bigger things to be faithful with; like a message to a king who is
the one holding you captive? The next level is, are you going to be faithful to
be asked to worship, something that is unrelated to God? Bow down to an
image that has nothing to do with God. Are you going to be faithful in the end
when you are facing these hungry animals to devour you? There are different
levels of faithfulness. God rewards Daniel’s faithfulness and I am excited to talk
about that to Pathfinders.
Daniel
was my favorite story already, other than Jesus, of course. So when the
camporee committee first asked me to speak and then they told me what the theme
was—it was awesome.
I
have thought about this a lot. I thought about all the kids driving in, all the
miles they have traveled, the sacrifices they are making to be here. Some of
them have worked so hard to be here. They will do so much here. They will earn
honors, trade pins; they will eat delicious camp food. There are different
levels that I hope to accomplish. I would hope that these kids that are coming
make connections—lifelong connections—with other kids that are on the same
journey.
Second
level. I hope that they see scripture come to life in a way that they have
never, ever seen before. The dedication that everyone has put into this
camporee to make it all come alive is amazing, amazing to me.
The
last thing I hope, the highest level, is that the ones that are committed to
Jesus already will leave here affirmed, that their commitment, man it is
unshakeable. I hope that this is pivotal for the kids that have not yet made a decision
for Jesus. All the research, if I can talk about research for a moment, all the
research says that these are the kinds of places that 11-14 years olds make a
decision for God. If we can get them to make that decision here, that is my
hope.
I am
not going to talk about being expelled from my club early on. I loved
Pathfindering. I loved the activities, the honors, I wasn’t good at the
marching but everything else was awesome. But I got too old to finish the cycle
through to master guide. So I never became a master guide. In the last year, I
have been preparing myself to become a master guide, and this Sabbath, at
camporee; I am being invested as a master guide.
