At Camp, Pathfinders Are on a Mission

April 4, 2023 | Trelawny, Jamaica | Libna Stevens, Inter-American Division News

With thousands of pathfinders settling into camp life in Trelawny, Jamaica, before Inter-America’s 5^th Pathfinder Camporee officially starts, many are on a mission to accomplish something.

Self-declared extrovert Daktari Doman, 15, from Kingston, Jamaica, has no time to lose. He represents more than 5,200 from Jamaica who registered for the camporee. For two days he has been making the rounds at camp with several goals. “I want to meet one person from each of the countries represented here,” he says. For that he’s been practicing his Spanish and sharpening his French. He has a lot to cover, he says. His eyes widened when he’s told there are 51 countries represented at camp.   He identifies perfectly with his club’s name “Astronauts Pathfinders.”

Daktari is soaking in every encounter like he’s in slow motion in outer space. He’s on a mission to add to his collection of pins from different countries. He has a bag full of different souvenirs such as baseball caps and wrist bands he is trading for pins, he says.

Daktari has no time to lose as he approaches a someone from the North Mexican Union camp and strikes up a conversation in Spanish. He wants to trade his cap for some pins. He negotiates a deal – his hat for four pins. Daktari and his friend Kijani Evering move on and ask anyone they encounter what they can trade in for a wrist band that says Jamaica. “This is not overwhelming for me at all, I love meeting people and because it’s a fun experience for me,” says Daktari.

This week will see Daktari dive into several honors he wants to have under his belt: cultural diversity, semaphore, respiratory, felt craft and others, he says. “I’m not that great at sports, but my focus will be on drills and marches,” says Daktari. Fancy drill is what he’s all about. It’s not basic drill, but Fancy drill, where you move with the rhythm of the drums, marching with choreographed turns and slight swings in each step in a synchronized way, he explains.  Before you know it, he’s off to meet another person.

Magdalina Dorlis, 15, of St. Maarten, has her specific interests during her Pathfinder experience. She wants to make as many friends as possible. It’s about learning different perspectives from other Pathfinders outside the string of islands she’s surrounded by back home. “I like listening to sermons, watching some online and learning how to be an effective speaker,” says Magdalina, who has been preaching from the pulpit since she was an Explorer at her club. She has participated in speech competitions and recently won an event in which she competed against other district winners from the public sector. Her winning speech was about the end of times and how society is seeing wrong doings as right, and right things are bad, she says.

Magdalina is looking forward to soaking in every spiritual message the camporee event will bring, she says. She is among a delegation of 400 in the North Caribbean conference, part of the 1,200-member delegation from the Caribbean Union.  She, along with her fellow campers, have learned for the first time how to set up a tent. She wants to continue learning survival skills. “Everything feels so good here,” says Magdalena. “I feel a sense of belonging and I know I would not have as many friends, and learn so much about Jesus if I wasn’t part of my [pathfinder] club.”

The sense of belonging is very comforting to Shekhinah Mathias, 15, who is from Guadeloupe. She and 89 fellow pathfinders in her delegation of 156 are feeling right at home playing games together, doing some honors and just relaxing around camp. She has been part of the different clubs at church since she was very young. It’s been nothing but fun and building a closer relationship with her friends and meeting new ones, she says. Most of her friends are classmates as well as pathfinders from her club back home.

“Being part of Pathfinders is always freeing for me, because we can be more ourselves without having parents telling us ‘don’t do this and don’t do that’”, she says as she laughs at herself. One of the things she likes to do with her friends is distribute literature and do community service such as distributing food and clothes in needy communities.

Shekhinah looks forward to taking part in community impact while in Jamaica and taking part in the scavenger hunt survival skills, and doing security, ecology, recycling, and prayer honors during the week. She invites her neighbors and friends to become part of her club. “I explain to them it’s not just for Adventists but anyone that would like to learn new skills and do good and be involved in fun activities,” she says.

Being involved and witnessing to others is what Pathfinder clubs are all about, says Nahomie Daub, chaplain of Pathfinders in Guadeloupe. “We want to grow the clubs while sharing the love of Jesus.”

To watch the opening ceremony of Inter-America Division’s 5^th Pathfinder Camporee, on Apr. 4, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. Jamaica Time or 7:30 p.m. Miami Time, visit webcast.interamerica.org