A Pathfinder Family
Truly with God, nothing is impossible for Him, and He loves to shower us with blessings when we decide to trust Him and commit everything to Him. These are the precious lessons I’ve learned this year, directing the Maryville Mountaineers Pathfinder Club in Maryville, TN. It has been an awesome privilege and a very meaningful ministry for not only our church youth but others in our community. Nahum 1:7 says that “the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him.” I needed a stronghold, someone who is my Rock, in this ever-changing society and world, and I also desperately want to be known by my Creator, so as hard as it is sometimes to give up my control, I had to trust in Him in this area of my life, as well.
Some of you may be unfamiliar with Pathfinder Club. It is a global organization of young people, from 5th grade and up, sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, though anyone is welcome to join. We stress the importance of doing things together, which include worshiping and praying together, memorizing Scripture and studying the Bible, doing community service, learning about nature and outdoor skills, going camping, leading out worship services, and just bonding with each other and God. Our church also has an Adventurer Club, which is for 1st to 4th graders, and parents stay with their children during these meetings. They are both wonderful programs that our worldwide church makes available for our children and youth; here in the North American Division, you can visit [url=http://www.clubministries.org]http://www.clubministries.org[/url] to find out more information.
My club is part of the Georgia-Cumberland Conference (GCC), which is part of the Southern Union, and the GCC plans lots of fun and spiritual events throughout the year for our youth to meet at Cohutta Springs in Crandall, GA to grow together in our Christian walks. Both the Southern Union and the International Camporees occur every five years. The Southern Union Camporee will be held this October at Camp Kulaqua, FL, while the international one moved from Oshkosh, WI to Gillette, WY and will be in August 2024. They are both incredible opportunities where kids’ minds can broaden to the fact that there are other places, cultures, and people to meet and make new friends in this vast world. Needless to say, Pathfinder Club is an amazing organization!
But I would have never imagined myself to become a Pathfinder Director. I mean, I don’t really like tent camping, smelling like campfire all weekend long, having to go without a hot shower every single night, and don’t really have experience with lots of arts and crafts and outdoor adventures, for that matter! Public speaking is not my forte, and definitely the thought of making very important decisions for a big group of people gives me some anxiety! Depending on how many Pathfinders there are, instructors are needed to teach each grade level. Coming up with devotional talks, games, activities, and different honors to teach at each meeting takes a lot of prayer, organization, teamwork, time, and effort to run Pathfinders.
It all started when we moved here to Maryville, a small town at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, six years ago. My firstborn, Grace, was old enough to join the Pathfinder Club at our new church, and so, being the helicopter mom that I was, I decided to join as a staff member to help out. Five years later, and sleepless nights on campouts mixed with some cold showers, I found myself being nominated to become the next Pathfinder Director. “What an honor,” quickly turned into “Isn’t there somebody else?” I hadn’t even grown up as a Pathfinder. (I don’t think Guam had any Pathfinder Clubs; I wouldn’t know because I attended the Korean church.)
But you know, I’ve always had a heart for the youth, ever since my younger days on Guam. I think part of it was because God planted that desire in my heart, and the other reason was because I had some really nice tennis coaches growing up. Especially Alfred Feria, who taught me more than just tennis. He used to tell me repeatedly to never say, “I can’t.” Oh, I used to have excuses of why I couldn’t volley well at the net, that I had slow reflexes, or that I was just too slow at running to the ball—I was nicknamed “Speedracer” by the boys for a reason. But he was insistent that I always said, “I can.” He was a life coach, and besides my parents’ encouragements and wise counsel, his mentoring really stayed with me throughout my life. I wanted to also make a difference in the lives of these youth. They especially, in their childhood, need to know that there are people who care about them, especially in the church. So I prayed about it first because this wasn’t about me. It was about what God wanted my staff and me to do for His children and youth. We were going to be His vessels, His hands and feet. I was humbled that God could use me—an unlikely candidate for this position.
But I believe in God and what He can do. There are two Bible verses that I claimed from the moment I accepted the call. Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” and 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Because of my shortcomings and lack of ability in other areas, I had to depend wholly on God to help me direct my church Pathfinder Club. I trusted that He would empower me and my staff to do all the things that sometimes we tell ourselves we can’t. I told Him that He had to be the One to hold our hands and guide us through this journey because I knew that I couldn’t do it alone. And I also couldn’t have done it without my wonderful staff—they are my friends—we are a great team! Without God or them, we wouldn’t have had a club. It takes commitment and dedication to do God’s work.
Now that our year is almost over, I can’t thank God enough for being there every step of the way. After all the planning we did over the summer and attending the Adventist Youth Ministries Training (AYMT) in August, we started our year at the beginning of September, stressing the importance of doing things together—caring about each other, including everyone during activities because we are not just a club, but a Pathfinder FAMILY. I’ve prayed over so many things—because I needed heavenly wisdom more than earthly wisdom—about all the details that go into planning each meeting, how to encourage the youth to spend more time with God talking to Him and reading His Word, how to make Jesus real and alive to them, how to pay attention to the shyer ones, how to grow the natural leaders, how to manage behavior problems, how to communicate effectively among the staff and parents, and just plain old requests to keep the rain away during outdoor events.
From the very first meeting, God proved faithful to us. Who am I to question Him anyways? As part of our registration day, we were going to tie dye some shirts and bandanas and needed to do this part outdoors. I had prayed for a few weeks that we would have splendid weather that evening. It was raining at the beginning of our meeting. “Don’t worry, God knows what He’s doing. You can trust Him,” I heard myself saying. And sure enough, after having pizza together, and when it was time to go outside, it had stopped raining at our church with the sun’s rays shining through the clouds, right at the playground area, where we had planned to do the tie dyeing. There were still dark clouds all around us, so I knew that this was just God showing off to us that He can control even the weather, even today. He really knows what’s going on in our lives, even to the minutest detail like this. I took this sign as a token of Him being pleased with our ministry, and that this was part of His will and that He was going to bless our Pathfinder Club.
The same thing happened at our first regular meeting two weeks later when we needed to go over our fire building and the basic water safety honors at one of my staff members’ pool. It was a day that forecasted afternoon thunderstorms. I had prayed for a couple of weeks too, for it to be nice and sunny on this day. The sky appeared forbidding with dark clouds. Once more, “Don’t worry. God can do anything. Just trust Him.” And sure enough, we were able to enjoy our evening together. He really is amazing! Again—beautiful weather when we went on two camping trips, one in September to Cosby Campgrounds in the Great Smoky Mountains and in October near the Ocoee River. If you’re skeptical, you may say that it’s just coincidence. Or it could just be because Tennessee is the best state with the best weather! Or I’d like to just think that it’s because God was helping us. Even though I’m not a camping kind of girl, I agree that it is so important for our youth to unplug and fast from electronic devices in today’s age, and just slow down and enjoy face-to-face time outdoors in the fresh air and around campfires, cooking meals together and going on hikes. It's a great way to also connect with God, our Creator, who made all of nature so beautiful and in order.
Serving our community is also very important to our Pathfinder Club, so every year in the fall, we have collected non-perishable food items and have passed out food baskets to needy families in Blount County. Back in November, we partnered with the Blount County Foster Parent Association for the first time, to help grandparents who are taking care of their grandchildren. What a blessing it was to meet them and become aware of the needs in our community. We also were deeply impressed with another local ministry, Family Promise of Blount County, who helps homeless families get back onto their feet. We set up an Angel Tree at our church and collected gifts for a homeless family—a mother and her two young sons. We had someone come to our Christmas meeting and talk to us about the homelessness in our county and helped wrap gifts for more families. We are happy when we serve others and take our time to make others happy; it is one of the many loving actions Jesus taught us to do.
We began the year with 15 Pathfinders—more than half of them were children of the staff, and we tried to be cautious as we were still in the middle of the Covid pandemic. We grew to 24 Pathfinders today, because of our prayers and submission to God to direct our paths. With an expanding club, we needed to raise funds to offset all the expenses and prayed about what we could do to grow as a club together, but to also give an opportunity to our church members to participate in an event where we could practice teamwork and spend time together towards a common goal. It’s vital for the Pathfinders to also connect with the Church Family and make memories together; it’s a picture of church unity. We also wanted to reach out to our local community, and God answered with a terrific idea! Because our church is diverse and has many great cooks, (I love our potlucks!) we were led to host an international food festival. We offered various vegetarian ethnic foods from 18 countries: Guam, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Philippines, USA, Lakota Indian tribe, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Greece, Denmark, and Ukraine!
The food festival was a blast! I had asked the Daily Times to put an announcement into their free news brief section more than a month before to invite the community. A week or two before the event in February, I received a phone call from them, and they asked me for more information about Pathfinders and if we had any pictures to share. Long story short, our Pathfinder Club and information about the food festival got the front page in the “Faith” section of the newspaper. This is how God works—always with pleasant surprises! It was free advertisement, and the event was a huge success with about half of the attendees being visitors from the surrounding region! I think we had more community people there than we have at our biggest church event, which is our annual Health Fair. It felt like we were bursting at the seams in our Positive Lifestyle Center, which is our multi-purpose building. We made more than double how much we usually do with other fundraisers. So, God really showered us with blessings that evening. We had guests ask us if we do this monthly, but we’ll keep it annual, and next year, we’re planning to do it outdoors in the spring, so that we can accommodate more company.
As I write this article, my staff and I are busy preparing for the spring camporee at Cohutta Springs next weekend, which I mentioned about in the beginning of the article—tasks like checking to see if we have all the poles to assemble our gigantic party canopy tent, filling up the propane tanks for cooking, and packing all the first aid kit and fire extinguishers. We’ll have some new Pathfinders go with us who’ve never camped with us before; by the way, a group of adventuresome Pathfinders even went backpacking in March on a cold, windy weekend—very character developing! We also only have two more regular meetings left; we’re wrapping up on all the class work and honors we need to complete for the Investiture Achievement Ceremony, going to be held on the first Sabbath of May at our last Pathfinder Sabbath. These are the Sabbaths when the Pathfinders have the privilege to lead out our church worship service. We’ve memorized verses and learned some Scripture songs together. My desire is for the youth to realize and experience for themselves, how much God loves them and that they can do anything through Him, as long as it’s within His will.
What a whirlwind of a year it was, and as much as we’d all like a break, I feel a little sad that we have to take a summer break. It was a lot of work, but I will miss seeing the children’s faces. I hope that they felt loved by the staff and me. More importantly, I hope that they drew closer to the Lord. I definitely nestled closer to my Savior, as I felt like He carried me numerous times this past year, especially when I gave my first sermon, “Almost Home,” on our first Pathfinder Sabbath. I was so nervous and had to practice it repeatedly. I had to rely so heavily on Him; He surely is my strength and my power to do the things that appeared as mountains before me at the beginning of the Pathfinder year. But when you trust in God and have faith in Him, we can definitely move these mountains together. Proverbs 3:5-6 has been in my heart since my high school days, and it absolutely came alive this past year: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Thank you, Lord! Praise God!