About 5,000 Pathfinders from more than twenty countries camped from April 13 to 19, 2025 in Glen City, on the outskirts of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, for the 4th Camporee of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID). Under the theme Saved to Serve, the week-long gathering was organized by the division's Adventist Youth Ministries and brought together delegations from within and beyond the African territory.
According to Echo Magazine, the official publication of the SID, and the division's Adventist Youth Ministries, the camporee was described as a week of worship, fellowship and service, with a program that ranged across honors, outdoor activities, drill and collective worship services.
What happened in Glen City
Between April 13 and 19, 2025, the Glen City campground, on the outskirts of Harare, turned into a small city of tents. According to the SID's Adventist Youth Ministries and Echo Magazine, about 5,000 Pathfinders took part in the division's 4th Camporee, a figure that makes the gathering one of the largest ever held by the movement in the region.
The official theme was Saved to Serve — a distillation of the Adventist idea that the experience of faith is completed in service to others. The program, the division reported, was spread across a week and combined worship services, moments of praise, honor workshops, physical and field activities, and the traditional drill presentations among the units.
The choice of Zimbabwe as host placed the country at the center of the Adventist youth calendar that April. The local press followed the arrival of the delegations, and the gathering mobilized camping, food and logistics infrastructure for thousands of participants over seven days.
What a camporee is
For those just arriving in the world of Pathfinders, the term is worth explaining. A camporee is the name given to the large camps that bring together several Pathfinder Clubs at the same time, almost always organized by a regional level of the Adventist Church — a conference, a union or, as in this case, an entire division.
It is at the camporee that clubs pitch their tents, compete in skills events such as knots, pioneering and first aid, take part in collective worship and march in drill, the coordinated marching that is one of the movement's visual hallmarks. The higher the organizing level, the bigger the event: a division camporee, like the SID's, brings together Pathfinders from several countries at once.
Pathfinders are the ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church aimed at boys and girls aged 10 to 15, with a focus on nature, Christian living, discipline and community service. The movement brings together about 2 million Pathfinders in clubs spread across the Adventist Church's thirteen world divisions, and gatherings like the one in Zimbabwe serve as high points of the calendar, when the local club discovers it is part of something much larger.
What the SID Division is
The acronym SID comes from Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division. Divisions are the large administrative regions into which the Adventist Church organizes the world — the same logic by which Brazil belongs to the South American Division (SAD).
Headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa, the SID coordinates the church across a stretch that includes countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana, Angola, Malawi, Namibia and island nations of the Indian Ocean, such as Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles. According to the division's own figures, the territory is home to more than 3.9 million Adventist members, which gives a sense of the base from which the camporee was convened.
Understanding that geography helps make sense of the figure of 5,000 participants: they did not come from a single city or country, but from dozens of fields spread across the southern part of the African continent and across Indian Ocean islands — in addition to the international guests who crossed the ocean to be there.
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The international character was one of the gathering's defining features. As reported by the SID's Adventist Youth Ministries, delegations from more than twenty countries took part, and the list of visitors reached beyond the borders of the division itself: among the groups from outside the African territory were representatives from Brazil, the Bahamas and Jamaica.
The Brazilian presence connects the event directly to the Portuguese-speaking audience. Although Brazil belongs to another division — the South American — the journey of Brazilian Pathfinders to Zimbabwe illustrates how the movement crosses continents: uniforms, scarves and flags of clubs from very different origins shared the same campground during the week.
For the local Pathfinders, receiving these groups carried added weight. The arrival of international delegations at an African camp is rare and turns the camporee into an experience of cultural exchange, as well as a spiritual one — something the organizers highlighted in presenting the event as a gathering of faith, service and friendship among peoples.
A week of worship and honors
The program followed the well-established format of the great camporees. According to the division, the seven days combined morning and evening worship services, preaching aimed at young audiences, collective praise and the completion of honor requirements — the badges Pathfinders earn by mastering a skill, from astronomy to first aid.
Outdoor and field activities, typical of the movement, took up much of the days, alongside the drill presentations, in which each unit demonstrates discipline and coordination. Saturday, the Adventists' day of religious observance, concentrated the main worship service of the week, bringing all the campers together in a single service.
The theme Saved to Serve was the guiding thread: the messages sought to link the personal experience of faith to a commitment to community service, one of the historic banners of the Pathfinders. More than a week of competitions, the organizers presented the camporee as a call to action toward the home communities of each club.
Behind the scenes and leadership
The gathering mobilized the senior leadership of the Adventist Church. According to SID records, Pastor Busi Khumalo, director of Youth Ministries at the General Conference — the church's world headquarters — was present, and the organization was led by the youth leadership of the division itself, under the SID presidency.
The arrival of the delegations even featured a formal reception. According to accounts published about the event, leaders and groups were received at Harare's international airport by an honor guard formed by uniformed Pathfinders from the city, a scene that set the ceremonious tone of the week that was beginning.
Behind the scenes, a camporee of this scale requires months of preparation: transportation, tent lodging, water, food and safety for thousands of children and teenagers. Carrying it out without major incidents, over seven days, is itself part of the result the organizers celebrated at the closing.
What the 4th SID Camporee leaves behind
Gatherings like the one in Glen City leave marks that go beyond the week of camping. For many of the 5,000 participants, it was the first time facing a crowd of Pathfinders from so many origins — concrete proof that the club around the corner is part of a worldwide movement.
The 4th Camporee also reinforced Zimbabwe and the SID Division on the map of major Adventist youth events, showing the capacity to host international delegations. And it consolidated, for a new generation, the motto that named the gathering: the idea that faith translates into service.
In Brazil, the experience speaks directly to the camporee tradition of the South American Division, which brings together tens of thousands of Pathfinders in its own gatherings. Seeing Brazilian peers in Zimbabwe is a reminder that, despite the distances, the uniform, the ideals and the song are the same — from Harare to any club in the country.