When you think of a strong Adventist country in Asia, you might not think of South Korea first. But you should. The message arrived there more than 120 years ago, created schools before it created large churches, and reached young people so early that the Junior Manual was already circulating in Korean in 1925 — in the same group as the first Asian translations.
This page is not about a single event. It is the national history: how the message entered, who brought it, how the work with children and young people (the MV and the JMV, direct grandparents of the Pathfinder Club) took root there, and why today South Korea appears as a natural host for major camporees in the region.
It is also the first Asian page in our history series. Every name, date, and number below comes from an official Adventist source — the Church's Encyclopedia (ESDA), the Yearbook, and the Church's news agencies. Data verified on 07/22/2026.
How did the Adventist message reach Korea?
The story did not begin with a foreign missionary. It began with two Koreans.
In 1904, Son Heung-jo and Lee Eung-hyun were baptized in Kobe, Japan, and became the first Korean Adventists. Back on the peninsula, Son Heung-jo went on to organize the work, in partnership with Lim Gi-ban. In other words: the seed entered through the initiative of local people, not from outside.
Foreign reinforcement came soon after. In 1905, William Smith arrived as the first missionary. In 1906 he established the base in Soonan, in the province of South Pyongan, with a clear plan: to open a school to train workers. Shortly after came Mimi Scharffenberg, the first female missionary, who helped found the training school in Soonan.
The organization came in short, firm steps. The Korean Mission was organized in October 1908, and in 1909 the headquarters moved to Seoul — which opened the way for the message to descend to the central-south of the peninsula. The first two ordained Korean pastors were Lee Keun-ok and Jeong Mun-gook; the latter led the Church in the country for about two decades.
Keep that detail in mind: in less than ten years, the movement went from two baptisms abroad to an organized mission, with headquarters, a school, and native leadership. It is a rapid foundation — and it explains a lot of what came afterward.
Why did a school come before the large churches?
Because, in the Adventist way of planting the message, school and church go hand in hand. And in Korea the school came very early.
On October 10, 1906, the Euimyung School was born in Soonan, intended to train workers of the gospel. Classes began on December 9, 1907, with 11 students — five boys and six girls. A tiny beginning. But that little school in Soonan is the seed of what today is Sahmyook University, in Seoul.
And here comes a fact that surprises those who do not know Adventist Korea: Sahmyook is, today, the largest university owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the world. It is not the oldest nor the most famous abroad — it is the largest. An institution that began with eleven children in a province that today lies in North Korea.
Why does this matter to a Pathfinder? Because the same logic that sustains the club — building character and service from an early age, with discipline and purpose — was the logic that made the Korean Church invest in education before anything else. It is no coincidence that the work with youth flourished so quickly there.
Is it true that the Junior Manual came out in Korean as early as 1925?
It is. And this is, perhaps, the most beautiful fact on this page for those who love Pathfinders.
Before the word "Pathfinders" existed, there was the Church's youth work, with two names you need to know: MV and JMV. The MV — Missionary Volunteers — was the youth society organized in 1907, under the direction of Milton E. Kern. In 1909, the Church requested a similar program for younger children: the JMV was born, the Junior Missionary Volunteer, the "Junior MV." It is from that trunk that, later, the clubs we now call Pathfinders sprang.
The manual of that junior work — the Junior Manual, written by Harriet Maxson Holton — was approved in 1923, at the Missionary Volunteers convention in Colorado Springs. And it is here that Korea appears in the global story: as early as 1925, condensed editions of that manual were published in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Malay. That is, when the youth program was still in its infancy worldwide, Korean was among the first Asian languages to receive it.
Note the magnitude of this. It was not an old, consolidated material being translated decades later. It was a new manual, two years old, already reaching Korean young people. The Church in Korea did not wait to mature before investing in youth — it invested almost at the same time as the rest of the world.
An honest note of precision: the name "Pathfinders" would only appear much later, and the clubs in the format you know were organized from 1950 onward. So, in 1925, there were no "Pathfinders" in Korea in the sense of a club. There was the JMV — the program that is the direct grandfather of the club. The distinction matters, and we respect it.
Read alsoPathfinders TimelineThe story began in the north. How did it become 'South Korea'?
This is the part that confuses many people, and it is worth explaining calmly.
Note the places: Soonan, province of South Pyongan. That territory, where the message was born and where the first school stood, today lies in North Korea. The cradle of Korean Adventism is, geographically, on the other side of the border.
The peninsula was divided after the Second World War, and the Korean War (1950–1953) sealed that separation. On the northern side, organized religious activity was virtually extinguished. On the southern side, the Church reorganized, grew, and concentrated its institutions — Sahmyook University, for example, is today in Seoul, no longer in Soonan.
That is why, when we speak of the "Adventist history in South Korea," we speak of a message that entered through the north, crossed the country's division, and flourished in the south. It is a continuity, not a fresh start. The roots are in Soonan; the fruits, today, are above all in Seoul and in the rest of South Korean territory.
How strong is the Adventist presence in South Korea today?
Strong enough to be a reference in Asia. Let's get to the official numbers.
The Adventist administration in the country is the Korean Union (Korean Union Conference), headquartered in Seoul. It brings together five conferences and one mission. The 2020 data give the scale of the thing:
| Indicator (Korean Union, 2020) | Number |
|---|---|
| Members | 260,729 |
| Churches | 699 |
| Pastors | 846 |
| Teachers | 412 |
| Fields (conferences + mission) | 5 conferences + 1 mission |
To compare from afar: it is more than a quarter of a million members in a country roughly the size of a medium-sized Brazilian state. Add to that the world's largest Adventist university, a network of schools and hospitals, and a youth tradition that, as you saw, is almost as old as the worldwide program itself.
This helps explain why South Korea is not just a country with Adventists. It is a country with Adventist structure — the physical, human, and financial base that makes it possible to host an event the size of an international camporee.
Why did South Korea become a host for major camporees?
Put together everything you have read — the old message, the educational structure, the youth organized from an early age — and the result is natural: South Korea became a preferred stage for gathering Pathfinders from the region.
The region here is the Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD), which groups countries such as Korea, Japan, Mongolia, mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In 2012, South Korea hosted the first NSD Pathfinder camporee, gathering about 4,500 participants from several of those countries, on the campus of Sahmyook University, in Seoul. It was a milestone: the first time the entire division came together at a camporee.
Eleven years later, Korea hosted again. In August 2023, the regional camporee returned to Sahmyook, from August 1 to 5, with the theme "Focus on the Vision." More than 2,300 Pathfinders and leaders from 14 countries took part, with about 120 booth activities — from archery to knots and lashings, along with climbing, zip lining, and technology workshops. We covered that event in detail in the NSD 2023 camporee report.
It is not that Korea "wins" the camporee by lottery. It is that it has what a camporee requires: a large, prepared campus (Sahmyook), a numerous local church to welcome and serve, and a Pathfinder culture mature enough to organize everything. Hosting is the fruit of history — not the other way around.
What does the Korean journey teach the Brazilian Pathfinder?
Three lessons, and none of them is about Korea. They are about the club.
First: starting small is not starting weak. Eleven children in Soonan became the world's largest Adventist university. No club is born large. Yours does not need to be either.
Second: investing early in youth pays off decades later. The Korean Church brought the Junior Manual to children almost at the same time as the rest of the world, in 1925. A century later, it reaps international camporees. Today's work with juniors is tomorrow's leader.
Third: the message crosses borders, wars, and maps. The Korean root remained on the far side of a closed border, and even so the fruit sprang up on this side. It is the same spirit that makes a club in a small neighborhood in Brazil raise people who will serve all over the world.
If you want to keep going along this trail, it is worth getting to know also the worldwide origin of the Pathfinders and how the MV and the JMV became the club you know. Korea is one chapter of that larger story — and one of the most beautiful.