More than 12,000 Pathfinders gathered in Mohuveto, in the Bena district, in Papua New Guinea, for a camporee of the Eastern Highlands Simbu Mission (EHSM) held from June 23 to 29, 2024. According to the Adventist News Network (ANN), the official news service of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the young people came from the provinces of Simbu and the Eastern Highlands and spent the week camping under the theme "Growing in Christ."
The highlight came on the final day: according to the ANN, 66 Pathfinders were led to a river for baptism, before thousands of people, including their own family members. The event is part of the Pathfinder structure of the South Pacific Division (SPD), which administers Adventist work in Oceania.
What the Mohuveto camporee was
A camporee is the largest campout of the Pathfinder program: for a few days, clubs from the same region pitch their tents side by side and live an intense routine of outdoor activities, worship services, drill, skill tests and ceremonies. Gathering more than 12,000 Pathfinders in a single field, as happened in Mohuveto, places this event among the great regional campouts of the movement in the world.
According to the Adventist News Network, the participants came from the provinces of Simbu and the Eastern Highlands, in the mountainous interior region of Papua New Guinea. The program, held from June 23 to 29, 2024, revolved around the theme "Growing in Christ," with the declared goal of drawing the young people closer to the Bible and encouraging them, in the words used by the organization, to be "rooted in Jesus."
For the reader who follows Pathfinders in Brazil, the mechanics are familiar: tents, uniform, activities by unit and a closing ceremony. What changes is the scale and the setting — an open field in the highlands of Oceania, thousands of kilometers from the South American Division (SAD), to which the Brazilian clubs belong.
66 baptisms in the river close the week
The outcome of the camporee was a collective baptism. According to the Adventist News Network, on the final day of the event 66 Pathfinders were accompanied to a river near the field, where they were baptized before thousands of spectators — among them family members of the young people and visitors from the churches of the region.
In the Adventist context, baptism by immersion marks a person's public decision to follow the faith and be received as a member of the church. That it happens during a camporee is no minor detail: it shows that the campout also functioned as a moment of spiritual decision, and not only as a week of camping and competitions.
The ANN itself records that the event drew, over the course of the days, visitors from the roughly one thousand churches organized in the EHSM territory, including people baptized in the great evangelistic campaign the country had experienced weeks earlier. The camporee, therefore, added to a moment of strong religious activity in Papua New Guinea.
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To situate the reader: the Adventist Church organizes its worldwide work into Divisions, large administrative blocks that bring together several countries. The Brazilian clubs are in the South American Division (SAD). Papua New Guinea, in turn, is in the South Pacific Division (SPD), which is responsible for Oceania — Australia, New Zealand and the island nations of the Pacific.
Within that structure, the Eastern Highlands Simbu Mission is a regional administration that cares for the churches and clubs of that part of the country. It is the one that organized the camporee. Each Division adapts the Pathfinder program to its own reality, but the core elements — classes by age, honors, uniform and campouts — are recognizable anywhere in the world.
Papua New Guinea has enormous relevance for the Adventist Church: it is one of the countries where the denomination grows the most, with a young population and a significant Adventist presence in the mountainous interior. A camporee with 12,000 Pathfinders in a single mission gives the measure of that weight.
The backdrop: a year of accelerated growth in the country
The June camporee was not an isolated event. It took place in the same year as "PNG for Christ," a major evangelistic initiative carried out in Papua New Guinea in the first half of 2024. According to the Adventist press, including the Adventist Review, the campaign brought together thousands of simultaneous programs in dozens of locations across the country and resulted in more than 260,000 baptisms in a few weeks.
It is in this scenario that the EHSM recorded, at its camporee, the participation of new members baptized in that campaign. The Pathfinder campout thus functioned as a natural continuation of that movement: after the decision of faith by adults and families, the focus turned toward grounding the young people.
The numbers should not be confused: the 66 baptisms cited by the ANN refer specifically to the Pathfinders during the camporee, and not to the national campaign. They are distinct events, linked by the same environment of growth experienced by the country throughout 2024.
Why a gathering in Oceania matters to the Brazilian Pathfinder
At first glance, a camporee in Papua New Guinea seems distant from the routine of a club in Brazil. But it helps to see something important: Pathfinders are a worldwide movement. The same uniform, the same logic of units and classes, the same ideals appear in fields as different as a Brazilian city and the highlands of Oceania.
Events like this also show the range of scales of the program. In Brazil, the SAD promotes everything from club campouts to camporees at the conference, union and division levels, some with tens of thousands of participants. Seeing a camporee of 12,000 Pathfinders in another Division gives a point of comparison and reinforces the international reach of the movement.
Finally, there is the element that gives meaning to it all: the spiritual goal. Whether in Mohuveto or in a Brazilian club, the aim of drawing children and teenagers closer to the faith is the same. The baptism of 66 young people at the close of the Papua New Guinea camporee is a local expression of a purpose that runs through the program in any country.