More than 4,000 Pathfinders from 195 clubs in Fiji and Rotuma gathered in Vatula, in the locality of Burelevu, in the district of Ra, for the 11th Fiji Mission Camporee. The gathering was themed "Courage to Conquer" (Coragem para Vencer) and, according to Adventist Record, the official publication of the Adventist Church in the South Pacific, it ended with 138 Pathfinders baptized.
The spiritual outcome was the highlight of the event. According to Adventist Record, 173 young people responded to the appeal made during the program, and of those, 138 went down into the waters of baptism. Throughout the camporee, 34 leaders were invested as Master Guides and ten people received the South Pacific Division's Long Service Award (SPD).
A camporee that gathered nearly the whole island
Gathering 4,000 Pathfinders in a single camp is a striking number for any country — and, in the case of Fiji, an archipelago in the South Pacific with just over 900,000 inhabitants, it says a great deal about the reach of the Pathfinder Club there. The participants came from 195 clubs spread across Fiji and Rotuma, a volcanic island to the north of the archipelago.
The gathering took place in Vatula, in the locality of Burelevu, within the district of Ra, one of Fiji's administrative divisions. It was the 11th edition of the Fiji Mission Camporee, the periodic gathering that brings the clubs from across the whole field together in one place.
For the Pathfinder reader in Brazil, the logic is the same as that of our camporees: a large camp organized by a church field, with Pathfinders from many clubs living together for a few days a routine of spirituality, outdoor activities and team life. The scale, the scenery and the language change; the essence of the program is the one that Pathfinders anywhere recognize.
138 baptisms and 173 decisions
The spiritual outcome of the camporee was reported by Adventist Record. According to the publication, 173 young people responded to the appeal made during the program, expressing the desire to follow Jesus. Of those, 138 Pathfinders were baptized while still at the gathering.
A baptism is the act by which, in the Adventist tradition, a person publicly takes on their decision of faith. Seeing more than a hundred Pathfinders make that decision at a single event is the kind of result that organizers usually point to as the true goal of a camporee — above any recreational activity.
One of the leaders present, Kesaia Vasutoga, summed up the weekend's experience in a phrase quoted by Adventist Record: "Truly, self was conquered and Christ reigned". She herself was invested as a Master Guide during the camporee.
34 new Master Guides and ten honorees
Besides the baptisms, the camporee marked the investiture of 34 leaders as Master Guides. The investiture is the ceremony in which the church formally recognizes that a person has completed the requirements of a class. The Master Guide, in the worldwide Pathfinder system, is the main class of adult leadership — the equivalent of Guia Maior in Portuguese — and requires completing a set of leadership, honor and service requirements.
At the same event, ten people received the South Pacific Division's Long Service Award, a distinction granted to those who accumulate years of dedication to the Pathfinder Ministry. It is the recognition of a journey, and not of a completed class.
The two gestures — investing new leaders and honoring the veterans — usually go hand in hand at camporees, and they show how the club depends both on those arriving into leadership and on those who have sustained the work for decades.
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The camporee was promoted by the Fiji Mission, a local field linked to the Trans Pacific Union Mission (TPUM), which in turn is part of the South Pacific Division of the Adventist Church. In the church's worldwide structure, a Division is the largest regional body; the South Pacific one covers Australia, New Zealand and a group of Pacific island nations, among them Fiji.
According to Adventist Record, the official opening was carried out by the TPUM president, Pastor Maveni Kaufononga. The main programs were handled by Pastor Faafetai Matai, TPUM Youth director, and by Dr. Nick Kross, Youth director of the South Pacific Division.
The local organization of the event was credited to Pastor Fifita Vatulesi, whose work leading the camporee's logistics was publicly highlighted by the Fiji Mission leadership.
More than a campout
Between one program and the next, the Pathfinders split up among the activities typical of a large camp. Adventist Record mentions water sports, course and trail challenges and a valley of challenges, as well as service projects for the local community, such as painting and assistance efforts.
That arrangement — devotional in the morning, field activity in the afternoon, social action as a backdrop — is the hallmark of camporees anywhere in the world. The idea is that the Pathfinder should not merely camp, but put into practice the skills they train in the club throughout the year: teamwork, physical endurance, care for others and spiritual discipline.
The service projects aimed at neighboring communities, cited by Adventist Record, reinforce that point. Instead of a camp closed in on itself, the camporee left something for the surrounding area — a principle that the Pathfinder Ministry repeats in its guidelines and that appears, in different forms, both in Fiji and in Brazilian clubs.
From 'conquer' to 'go'
At the closing, the Fiji Mission president, Pastor Luke Narabe, proposed to the participants an unfolding of the theme. If the camporee had spoken of "Courage to Conquer", the final challenge, according to Adventist Record, was for "Courage to Go" (Coragem para Ir) — a call for the Pathfinders to take back to their clubs and communities what they had experienced at the camp.
It is a closing consistent with the spirit of the movement: the camporee is not an end in itself, but a starting point. For the more than 4,000 Pathfinders who returned from Vatula to their islands, and for the 138 newly baptized, the decision made at the camp is the beginning of a path that continues in the club, week after week.
For the Brazilian Pathfinder following from afar, what remains is the portrait of a movement that speaks the same language across different oceans: uniforms, whistles, campfires, investitures and appeals that repeat, with their own accent, from Fijian Ra to the Brazilian countryside.