Ask a Pathfinder where the movement's history happened and they'll name the United States. Few know that one of the most important chapters unfolded on the other side of the world: in Australia.
It was there that Ellen White — one of the founders of the Adventist Church — lived for nine years, helped build a school that still exists today, and completed one of the most widely read books in Adventism. And it was in that same region that, decades later, the Pathfinder clubs were born — the cousins of Brazil's Desbravadores in the South Pacific Division.
This article brings that legacy together in one place, with every date checked against official sources. Data verified on 07/23/2026.
What does Australia have to do with the Pathfinders?
You might associate the South Pacific Division only with distant maps. But it's the 'sister division' of our South American Division (the DSA): another large administrative region of the worldwide Adventist Church, bringing together Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
The name of the clubs over there is Pathfinders — in English, something like 'those who find the way'. It's the same movement that in Brazil we call Desbravadores. Same idea, same essence, different names.
Before the clubs, however, came the church. And the history of Australian Adventism holds names that every Pathfinder has heard — starting with Ellen White. Let's take it step by step, from the beginning.
How did Adventism reach Australia?
Adventism reached Australia in 1885. In June of that year, a group of missionaries coming from the United States landed in the country; Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, was chosen as the base for the work.
The group included Pastor Stephen Haskell, the family of John Corliss, the family of Mendel Israel, the printer Henry Scott, and the colporteur William Arnold. A colporteur is the name given to someone who spreads the gospel by selling books door to door — a hallmark of Adventism since its beginnings.
The work grew quickly. In January 1886 the region's first Adventist periodical appeared, the Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, published in Melbourne. And, at that same start of 1886, the first Adventist church in Australia was organized in the North Fitzroy neighborhood, in the same city.
In 1894 the local churches came together in a regional organization, the Australasian Union Conference. After several name changes over the century, it would come to be called the South Pacific Division in 1985 — the same type of administrative region that, in Brazil, is the South American Division.
Why did Ellen White spend nine years in Australia?
In 1891, Ellen White crossed the ocean bound for Australia. She was already in her 60s and imagined staying two years at most. She stayed nine — from 1891 to 1900.
If the name isn't familiar, here's the essential part. Ellen White was one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and is recognized by Adventists as the one who exercised the gift of prophecy in the movement. Her writings on education, health, and Christian living shape the Adventist way of doing things to this day — including among the Pathfinders. If you want to go deeper into the educational side, see the legacy of Ellen White in education.
In Australia, she lived much of the time in a house called Sunnyside, in Cooranbong, in rural New South Wales. From there she wrote thousands of pages of letters and articles that crossed the sea to guide leaders around the world. And it was there that two projects that mark her forever took shape: a school and a book.
Read alsoWho was Ellen White?What was born out of Avondale?
Ellen White was convinced that the church in Australia needed a school of its own to train its young people. In 1894, she went personally to see a piece of land on the banks of Dora Creek, in Cooranbong.
The school — which had begun back in Melbourne, in 1892 — moved to that rural site and was opened on April 28, 1897 by the pioneers Stephen Haskell and Ellen White. It is Avondale, which exists to this day as Avondale University and is considered the birthplace of Adventist education in the region.
The Cooranbong area became a hub. And it was in 1898 that the Sanitarium Health Food Company was born in Melbourne — the health food company of the Adventist Church in Australia, which years later would set up a factory there near Avondale. It remains going strong to this day and owns brands that are household names in the country. Education and health, the two pillars Ellen White so strongly championed, took shape almost at the same time.
Where was 'The Desire of Ages' written?
The second project was a book that may well be on your church's shelf: The Desire of Ages (translated in Portuguese as 'O Desejado de Todas as Nações').
It is the best known of Ellen White's works on the life of Jesus — a devotional reading that follows the Gospel from the birth to the resurrection. Much of it was written precisely during the Australian years, amid letters, travels, and the founding of Avondale. The book was published in 1898.
Consider the scale of that. One of the most beloved books in worldwide Adventism came from the desk of a writer who lived in rural Australia. When a Brazilian Pathfinder reads 'The Desire of Ages', they are reading a direct fruit of the Australian period.
Ellen White returned to the United States in September 1900, closing out the nine years that she herself came to regard as one of the most fruitful chapters of her own life.
When did the clubs emerge in the South Pacific Division?
And the clubs? Here the timeline takes a leap. While Ellen White was founding schools in the 1890s, the Pathfinder Club as we know it didn't even exist yet — it only took organized shape around 1950, starting in the United States.
In the South Pacific Division, the oldest record is from 1952: in the official list of the Adventist Church in Australia, the Wahroonga Pathfinder club, in New South Wales, appears as the oldest in the region.
From there the movement spread across Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. Australia's first major Pathfinder camporee took place in Victoria, in 1959. And in 2020, Adventists around the world — including in Australia — celebrated the 70 years of the Pathfinder ministry, which was born in the United States in 1950.
| Year | Milestone in Australia / South Pacific Division |
|---|---|
| 1885 | Arrival of the first missionaries in Melbourne |
| 1886 | First Adventist church, in North Fitzroy |
| 1891–1900 | Ellen White lives in Australia |
| 1897 | Opening of Avondale, in Cooranbong |
| 1898 | 'The Desire of Ages' and the founding of Sanitarium |
| 1952 | Wahroonga Pathfinder club, the oldest in the region |
What does this legacy teach the Brazilian Pathfinder?
Why does this history from the other side of the world matter to you, who gather in a club in Brazil?
Because it shows that Adventism and its clubs were born from the same trunk. The school Ellen White helped open, the book she completed in Cooranbong, and the values of education and health she championed are the same ones that sustain the Pathfinder method in any country. The language changes, the map changes; the root is one and the same.
The next time you open 'The Desire of Ages', remember that those pages came from Australia. And the next time you hear about the South Pacific Division, you already know: there too there are clubs, uniforms, and camps. They are the Pathfinders — the Desbravadores who speak English.