The Pathfinders in France

If you look for the Pathfinders in France, you will find a different name on the uniform: Explorateurs (French for "explorers"). That is what Jeunesse Adventiste (Adventist Youth), a ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Franco-Belgian Union, calls its section for ages 12 to 15, the one most like the Pathfinder Club you know. Records of Adventist evangelism in the country go back to the 1870s, and France hosted two gatherings that stayed in the memory of European Adventist youth: a youth congress in Paris in July 1951, with more than 5,000 participants, and a jamboree in a seaside pine forest in 1961.

This article traces the history of the Pathfinders in France, drawing on the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (ESDA) and the official records of Franco-Belgian Adventist youth.

📖How did the Seventh-day Adventist Church reach France?

Official Adventist work in Europe began in 1874 with John N. Andrews, the first missionary the denomination sent overseas. Before long, Daniel T. Bourdeau came to strengthen it. He came from a French-Canadian Baptist family in northern Vermont (United States) and was already preaching in French in Canada and across the American Midwest.

Bourdeau's first stay in Europe, which the Adventist Encyclopedia dates to 1875-1876, mixed writing with fieldwork: articles for the newly launched magazine Les Signes des Temps (The Signs of the Times) and evangelism in Switzerland and France. On his second, from 1883 to 1887, his campaigns produced new congregations in Switzerland, France, Italy and Romania.

The pioneer had no shortage of energy, or of impulsiveness. Ellen G. White valued the work he and his wife, Marion, did among the French in the American Midwest, and later wrote to him asking for patience, rest and gentleness in preaching, without stirring up antagonism with pastors of other churches. That advice fits any club leader who talks about faith with people who think differently.

I wish there were more Frenchmen who could labor where the Americans can do nothing.Ellen G. White, Letter 49, 1875, to George I. Butler, about the Bourdeaus

🏛️When was the Franco-Belgian Union founded?

At a meeting in Darmstadt, Germany, the European Division decided to split into four. One of the new divisions, the Southern European Division, dissolved the Latin Union and brought France and Belgium together in a structure of their own: the Franco-Belgian Union, organized on July 30, 1928, at the constituency meeting in Dammarie-les-Lys (Seine-et-Marne), and in effect from January 1, 1929.

The starting numbers were modest: 1,660 members, 50 of them church workers, in a territory of some 50 million people. On the other hand, the new union inherited two solid institutions: the Adventist Seminary at Collonges-sous-Salève, in Haute-Savoie, opened in 1921, and the Les Signes des Temps publishing house, based in Dammarie-les-Lys since 1922.

In 1931, Paris gained a building on Boulevard de l'Hôpital, in the 13th arrondissement, that housed both the local church and the administrative headquarters. Today the Franco-Belgian Union oversees the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Belgium, France (including Corsica), Luxembourg and Monaco through three conferences (Belgian-Luxembourg, North France and South France), and it belongs to the Inter-European Division (EUD).

Members and churches across the whole Franco-Belgian Union territory, not France alone. Source: Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (ESDA), entry Franco-Belgian Union Conference.

🕯️How did French Adventist youth organize before 1950?

Long before today's sections, young French Adventists gathered in the Missionary Volunteers (MV) movement, the same one you find at the roots of the Junior Missionary Volunteers. The Southern European Division held at least two MV congresses: in July 1935, with 425 participants, and in July 1938, on the campus of the seminary at Collonges-sous-Salève.

World War II broke that rhythm. The Union office stayed open until June 10, 1940, and the staff took refuge in Anduze, in the Gard. There were victims: Gabrielle Weidner, secretary to the Union president, was arrested in the middle of a worship service at the Adventist church in Paris on February 26, 1944, and died in a concentration camp; Pastor Paul Meyer, of Lyon, died in Dachau, where he had been deported.

Normal church life resumed with the general assembly of August 1946 in Paris. The following year, Les Signes des Temps launched the magazine Jeunesse (Youth); in 1958 the MV department took it over under Pastor Jean Surel, and it grew from 12 to 32 pages, running until 1969.

🗼What was the 1951 Paris youth congress?

From July 24 to 29, 1951, the Parc des Expositions at the Porte de Versailles, in Paris, welcomed more than 5,000 young Adventists. Two pastors led it: J. J. Aitken, MV director of the Southern European Division, and Paul Tièche, who held the same post in the Franco-Belgian Union.

The event's name changes with the source: MV World Congress in the Adventist Encyclopedia's entry on the Franco-Belgian Union, All-European Youth Congress in its entry on the East Nordic Union, and international congress in the Jeunesse Adventiste timeline. We follow the main entry (world youth congress), with the caveat that the sources describe a mostly European crowd.

According to the Adventist Encyclopedia, the Paris congress spread a spirit of revival that reached the East Nordic Union (Sweden and Finland), where Swedish youth had had their own camp at Västeräng since 1944. That other end of the story is told in Pathfinders in Scandinavia.

The congress took place one year after the General Conference made the Pathfinder Club official worldwide, a milestone you can read about in 1950, the year the Pathfinders became official.

⛺What was the 1961 Les Aresquiers Jamboree?

Ten years after Paris, it was the coast's turn. In 1961, Pastor Paul Steiner, MV director of the Southern European Division, organized a European MV Jamboree in the seaside pine woods of Les Aresquiers, at Vic-la-Gardiole (Hérault). Jamboree is the word Scouting uses for large international camps.

The land, rented by the Franco-Belgian Union, became the base for the Union's MV camps for almost two decades. The official timeline of Franco-Belgian Adventist youth gives 1979 as the year the camps at Les Aresquiers came to an end.

The mountains joined the map in 1963. Then a pastor in Grenoble, Paul Tièche bought and equipped the chalet at Alpe du Grand Serre, in Le Villard (Isère), which was used for skiing in winter, first mountain outings in summer and leadership training. With an official capacity of 30 people, the chalet was sold in 2005.

🧭What is the French equivalent of the Pathfinders?

In the Franco-Belgian Union, Adventist youth are grouped into sections by age, and the one closest to the Pathfinder Club is called Explorateurs (explorers). According to the official Jeunesse Adventiste website, an Explorateur is 12 to 15 years old and has written permission from his or her parents, a uniform and a personal commitment. The motto comes from 2 Corinthians 5:14, which in the New King James Version begins: "For the love of Christ compels us."

The Explorateurs work with four reference points: God, others, myself and nature. The official site also offers spécialisations sheets, similar to the Honors used in Brazil, on topics such as amphibians, fossils, community service and disaster response.

Today's design has roots in the 1960s. In 1963, Pastor Jean Surel created the Tisons (French for "firebrands"), a Scout-style children's program later adopted by many French-speaking territories. In the 1980s, the Union ran summer camps for Tisons (ages 7 to 11) and Explorateurs (ages 12 to 15), and in 1992 a dedicated cycle of manuals for the Explorateurs appeared.

The Tisons name lasted 60 years: in 2023 the Aventurier section (French for "adventurer") took its place. At the top of the ladder sits the Chef-Guide qualification, the final training stage for a JA youth leader (animateur). The requirements include building a raised fire table in froissartage, a French Scouting technique that joins timber with fitted joints and wooden pegs, no nails, and running a construction workshop with lashings (brelage) or joints, a skill you can practice with the guide to knots and lashings for Pathfinders.

Jeunesse Adventiste sections in the Franco-Belgian Union. Sources: jeunesse.adventiste.org and ESDA.

🏕️Where are Explorateur camporees held in France?

Two years after the camps at Les Aresquiers ended, the youth of southern France got a new address. In 1981, the South France Conference bought the Moulin de l'Ayrolle (the Ayrolle Mill) property in Saint-Félix-de-Pallières, in the Gard, near Anduze, for summer camps. According to the Adventist Encyclopedia, the site went on to host international camporees for Explorateurs aged 12 to 16.

According to the official timeline of Franco-Belgian Adventist youth, the 4th EUD Camporee (EUD being the abbreviation of the former Euro-Africa Division, today the Inter-European Division) took place there in 1981, and the 5th, in 1986, brought together 715 young people. In 2016, the Moulin hosted the Union's first joint camporee with the federation of French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino (FSRT); the third edition, in 2025, had Daniel as its theme, as the coverage of the 2025 Franco-Belgian Union camporee shows.

Outside the Gard, France hosted the 10th EUD Camporee in 2007, at Fontainebleau. The most recent, the 14th, took place in Germany in 2023 and is covered in the 14th Inter-European Division Camporee at Friedensau; for 2028, the same timeline already lists the 15th, in Spain.

🌍What can your club learn from Pathfinder history in France?

The French story shows a movement that changed its name without losing the thread: the Missionary Volunteers of the 1950s now go by Jeunesse Adventiste, and the camps moved from the beach at Les Aresquiers to the inland Gard.

For readers in Brazil, two lessons stand out. A movement's history rarely depends on a single hero: every decade brings a new name, from Daniel Bourdeau to Jean Surel. And permanent campsites build memory: Les Aresquiers lasted almost 20 years, and the Moulin de l'Ayrolle has already passed 40.

The timeline below gathers the confirmed milestones and works as an outline for a club meeting.