Have you ever wondered who the first Brazilian Pathfinder was? Or why, on a Saturday morning, thousands of teenagers march in uniform in town squares from north to south of the country?
The answer begins far from here, in the United States, where the Club was officially established in 1950. But what happened when that idea crossed the ocean and set foot on Brazilian soil is a story all our own. A story of missionaries, of a small manual, and of boys tying knots under trees in the countryside of Santa Catarina.
This text tells that journey with verified dates. No legend, no exaggeration. Just the walk that put Brazil at the top of the world map of Pathfinders.
The idea that crossed the ocean
Before there was a club in Brazil, there was a decision made abroad. In 1950, the Seventh-day Adventist Church officially established the Pathfinder Club in the United States, within the youth department that here we called JMV — Young Volunteer Missionaries. It was the worldwide recognition of something that had already been tested for decades.
Brazil was not disconnected from this. The Adventist message had already arrived here at the end of the 19th century, and with it came the Sabbath School, the youth departments, and the desire to give teenagers something more than sermons: adventure, nature, and service. Only the format was missing.
That format arrived through the hands of missionaries and youth leaders who saw in the American model exactly what young people here needed. You will notice, throughout this story, that the Brazilian Pathfinder was never a copy. It was a translation — made with the manner, the climate, and the faith of this place.
1959: the first clubs set foot on Brazilian soil
Remember this year: 1959. It was then that the first Pathfinder Clubs in Brazil were born, practically at the same time in two distant points on the map.
In Santa Catarina, in the rural district of Lajeado Baixo, the Vigilantes club emerged, led by Haroldo Fuckner. In São Paulo, in the city of Ribeirão Preto, the Pioneiros club was born, starting with 23 children enrolled. They were small groups, without structure, often gathered outdoors. But there was everything a Club needs: a willing Director, a few curious teenagers, and the desire to grow together.
Notice something beautiful: the two clubs did not know about each other. There was no single order commanding a club be founded in such-and-such city. There were, in various corners, people reading the same proposal and saying 'let's try it here.' That is why we speak of a parallel birth — the movement sprang up in Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul almost at the same time.
The missionary and the small manual
Every seed needs someone to plant it. In Santa Catarina, much of the impulse came from a Canadian missionary, Henry R. Feyrabend, who arrived in Brazil in 1958. Between 1959 and 1960, he helped organize seven clubs in the region. It was people from abroad joining with people from here.
But what really unlocked the growth was simpler than a missionary: it was paper. In the late 1950s, Pastor Jairo T. Araújo, youth leader of the South American Division, prepared a small manual explaining, step by step, how to organize a Pathfinder Club. For the first time, a Brazilian Director had in hand, in his own language, the 'how to do it.'
This detail changes everything. Without a manual, each club invented its own rules and many died after a few months. With the manual, the model became repeatable: any church, in any city, could open the booklet and start. The South American Division then began to coordinate this growth, giving Brazil a backbone. It was the beginning of the leader training that sustains the club to this day — the same logic you find when a young person prepares in the Leadership Class.
Read alsoHow Adventism arrived in BrazilFrom the scarf to the first great Camporee
In the early years, many clubs operated without a complete uniform, without insignia, almost improvised. Official recognition came gradually. In Ribeirão Preto, for example, it was in 1961 that Pastor Wilson Sarli formalized the club by bringing the scarf, the insignia, the pledge, and the law of the Pathfinders. That scarf around the neck stopped being an ornament and became identity.
What was missing, however, was the moment when all these scattered clubs would look at each other face to face. That moment has a name: Camporee. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, regional gatherings emerged, and the great continental milestone arrived at the turn of 1983 to 1984, with the 1st Camporee of the South American Division, held in Foz do Iguaçu, in Paraná, organized by Pastor Cláudio Belz.
Imagine the scene: thousands of tents, flags from dozens of clubs, teenagers from different states discovering they were part of something enormous. The Camporee closed the pioneer phase and opened the phase of the multitude. From then on, the Brazilian Pathfinder was never again an isolated little group — it became an army of adventure.
Why Brazil became the largest in the world
Here is the question that may have brought you to this text: how did a country that only started in 1959 become the largest concentration of Pathfinders on the planet? Today Brazil gathers more than 9 thousand clubs and hundreds of thousands of Pathfinders — a number that has no parallel in any other country.
The answer has several layers. First, the culture of the Sabbath School: entire generations grew up going to church on Saturday, and the Club fit perfectly into that rhythm, so much so that many clubs meet exactly on the day the family is already together — if you want to understand that day, it's worth reading why Adventists keep the Sabbath.
Second, the strength of family and service. The Brazilian Pathfinder always united two things that captivate teenagers: camping, climbing, and tying knots on one side; helping others, collecting food, and serving the community on the other. Add to this a continent with a warm climate, abundant nature, and churches in almost every town, and you have the perfect soil. The movement grew because it answered a real question of young people: 'where do I belong?'
What remains of all this for you today
When you lace up your boot, put on your scarf, and enter your Unit, you are not starting something from scratch. You are picking up a baton that has passed from hand to hand since 1959. The Director who leads you learned from someone, who learned from someone, who one day read the small manual by Pastor Jairo Araújo.
This continuity is not just sentimentality. It is the heart of what the Club believes. The verse that sums up the intention of all those pioneers is in Proverbs 22:6: 'Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' The bet was simple: form a teenager well and you form a whole adult.
A word of honesty is worth it: a proverb is wisdom, not a magic contract. Not every young person who went through a club followed the same path, and that's okay. The Pathfinder never promised perfection. It offers a community, a direction, and a place where you are expected. That is what the pioneers started — and that is what continues in your hand.
An open home, including for those who come from outside
Maybe you are not an Adventist. Maybe you joined a club through a friend, out of curiosity, or because your neighborhood had one. Know that this door has always been open on purpose.
Since the first clubs of 1959, the Pathfinder welcomes children and teenagers from all families. The Adventist faith is presented clearly — the Sabbath, the Bible, hope in Jesus — but never forced upon anyone. The invitation is to walk together, not to sign off on anything. You are welcome just as you arrived.
That is why this history matters even for those on the outside. It is not about a church wanting numbers. It is about thousands of adults who decided, over more than six decades, to give teenagers a safe place to grow, make mistakes, camp, and dream. If you are part of this today, you are the next chapter.