Pathfinder tour in Mexico ends with 164 baptisms

The Pathfinder evangelistic tour in Mexico that crossed the country's southeast from September 14 to 19, 2026, ended on World Pathfinder Day with 164 people baptized, according to leaders of the Southeast Mexican Union interviewed by IAD News, the news agency of the Inter-American Division (IAD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The route covered all seven local fields of the union, from Cancún to Villahermosa.

The work began months earlier: Pathfinders in the most advanced classes were prepared to study the Bible with club members who had not yet been baptized, and in some homes it was the parents who opened the lessons with their children.

📰What was the 2026 Pathfinder tour in Mexico?

According to IAD News, the tour lasted six days and stopped in cities across the seven local fields (conferences and missions) of the Southeast Mexican Union, among them Cancún and Chetumal, in Quintana Roo, Ciudad del Carmen, in Campeche, and Villahermosa, in Tabasco, where it ended on Saturday, September 19.

A caption on one of the agency's photos places the first stop in Cancún on September 15, with two Pathfinders baptized; the main text of the report gives the route as September 14 to 19. The gatherings brought Pathfinders and their families, club staff and church members together for worship services, baptisms and special activities. Víctor Martínez, youth ministries director of the union, highlighted the conversion stories shared along the way. In his view, the music, the testimonies and the Pathfinders' response to the sermons turned each stop into "an experience of worship."

📊How many Pathfinders were baptized in 2026?

The figures come from the Southeast Mexican Union itself and were published by IAD News without independent verification. The tour accounted for 164 baptisms, counting Pathfinders and family members. In the year-to-date report released on October 1, the union counted 660 Pathfinders baptized in 2026, compared with 391 in 2025.

Looking further back, the union credits club work with 2,368 baptisms since 2020. Today the territory has 361 Pathfinder Clubs and 6,715 members.

Source: Southeast Mexican Union, via IAD News (Oct. 1, 2026).

📖How did Pathfinders give Bible studies to fellow club members?

Preparation started long before the tour hit the road. According to IAD News, for months pastors, club leaders and families walked with children and teens through Bible studies, and Pathfinders in the Voyager and Guide classes were trained to share the Faith of Jesus Bible course with club members who had not yet been baptized. Inter-America's Spanish-speaking fields call these classes Viajero and Guía, and in Brazil they are the Excursionista class (age 14) and the Guia class (age 15). In some homes the parents themselves led the study, lesson by lesson with their children.

In Ciudad del Carmen, in the state of Campeche, Raquel Hernández of the Carmen I district said that invitations around the neighborhood and social media promotion of club activities had brought children from families of other faiths into the clubs. The children's Bible studies ended up opening the door to conversations with their parents.

👨‍👩‍👧Who was baptized on the tour?

Among the stories gathered by IAD News, several decisions involved parents and children at the same time. In Chetumal, it was a boy who asked to be baptized on the night the tour came through the city. His mother hesitated at first, unsure whether he was old enough for such a choice. Before the evening was over, she had decided to be baptized herself, and the two were baptized together. "People have always told me that God is with me; I want to be with Him," she said.

The last stop, in Villahermosa, had a similar ending. Two sisters in the club were driven to meetings by their father, who usually waited in the car. Worried about him, the girls asked the church's youth pastor how they could help and were told to keep praying. At the tour's closing program, the father came inside the church and answered the appeal: he was baptized with his two daughters and his wife, who had already completed their preparation. Because children and teenagers are involved, this story does not identify the families.

🗣️What did the leaders tell Counselors?

The tour's keynote speaker, Pastor Daniel Torreblanca, youth ministries director for the Inter-American Division, met with Pathfinders and families at several stops. According to IAD News, his message to leaders centered on example: the Counselor shows Christ through the way he or she lives and treats teenagers, and each Unit can work as a small family, with consistent spiritual mentoring.

Manolo Camacho, president of the South Quintana Roo Mission, sees the involvement of children and teens in mission as training for tomorrow's leadership: "God can use a child, an adolescent and young people in His mission," he said. Caring for faith before and after baptism is the subject of the guide to discipleship in the club.

Discipleship is a process of imitation.Daniel Torreblanca, youth ministries director for the Inter-American Division, quoted by IAD News, 2026

🏅Why did the tour honor leaders who start clubs?

Alongside the baptisms, the tour recognized people who found and sustain clubs. According to IAD News, 73 leaders received medals for planting new Pathfinder Clubs, and leaders from the East Tabasco Mission were honored for supporting the "Every Church, a Club" initiative (Cada iglesia, un club). "Our desire is for every church to have a club," Martínez said.

As he sees it, Pathfinder ministry works as "an agency of internal evangelism," making disciples within the church itself with the help of leaders and parents. The agency points to the Adonai Pathfinder Club at the Berea church, in the South Tabasco Conference: it started with 14 members, and five children are now preparing for baptism.

🙏What does the "Speak, Lord" theme have to do with the tour?

The tour was part of the World Pathfinder Day 2026 celebrations on September 19. The worldwide theme is "Speak, Lord" in English and "Habla, Señor" in Inter-America. In the official materials of the South American Division (SAD), it appears in Portuguese as "Fala, Senhor!", tied to 1 Samuel 3:10.

The verse recalls young Samuel, called by God while he lay in the temple. In the New King James Version, he answers: "Speak, for Your servant hears." Commenting on the 164 baptisms, Martínez struck the same note: "We recognize that Pathfinders are sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit."