Oshkosh: Pathfinder Camporee recap

This is a report on what the Pathfinder Camporee was like for me, and my adventures there in Oshkosh from Tuesday, August 11 to Sunday, August 16.

And after reading the rest of this blog post, be sure to check out the blog post preceding this one; it contains updates on my road traveling from Oshkosh all the way to Denver.


Here is a map of the Camporee campgrounds belonging to the Experimental Aviation Association in Oshkosh, Wisconsin:

The campgrounds are very large; walking from my campsite to the hangars where the daytime activities is pretty long, like 15 minutes. No I’m serious that is a long walk, doing that multiple times during the day. I like to call the area where the 4 hangars are “downtown”. You can buy ice, food, other concessions, as well as watch the BMX show, earn Pathfinder honors, view exhibits, and the like. The campgrounds are also labeled with street numbers, you know like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and street names like Lindbergh Ave, or Stits St. My club campsite was at 17th and Stits. I became well acquainted with the site by the end of the week.
So here we go, Tuesday: After going downtown in the morning to check out the events for the week, I began my TLT (Teen Leadership Training) volunteer work at about noon. My first job was working at the food court area. I picked up trash (some friends from school thought that was hilarious, I was not the least bit embarrassed) , cleaned tables, packed ice (very cool on a hot day), and helped out at a concession stand.
Some Italians came up to the stand and were quite interesting. The lady that gave them their cotton candy said that what most Americans know about Italians comes from “The Godfather”. Apparently the Italians said they didn’t know what that was.
My volunteer shift ended at 5 PM, and I walked back to the site. The opening evening program began at 7:30 PM.
This is a picture of the main stage that evening.

Each evening, all 35,000+ Pathfinders came together at the assembly grounds for the evening program, which consisted of pictures of what happened during the day, singing songs, watching special music features from Pathfinders all over, and eventually a theater production of the story of Esther, produced by Sitler and Strong. (I’ll give a theater analysis and review of it later)
Wednesday: My volunteer shift for that day began at 8 AM and it was at the EAA museum.

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It is a very beautiful amazing and full museum, with many airplanes, replicas, and information. I think its World War II exhibit is impressive.
And like I said earlier, it’s a mighty long walk to “downtown”. Here are some pictures of walking down to the assembly area Wednesday evening.

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Thursday: Once again my volunteer shift started at 8 AM and ended at 1 PM. This time I
worked at a Pathfinder honor booth.
That is what the inside of the hangars look like. I made a great friend there while volunteering named Ciera from Michigan. This was my third time to volunteer, and I was pinned with my “TLT Volunteer” badge/pin, thus official. After volunteering, I took an honor class in Literature Evangelism, which was pretty cool. Hope to start colporteuring soon. Then walked over to Hangar A where they sell shirts, pins, and souvenirs, and have Adventist booths. I bought some cool pins, and I talked to some guys at the Adventist Colleges and Universities booth.
Later that day in the afternoon was our Union’s parade (the North Pacific Union) where all the Pathfinders from that Union there at the Camporee march through the “downtown” area.
I think supposedly Worthington-Kellogg was trying to advertise vegetarianism with these chicks.

There’s a lot of photos in this album so take a look.

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Friday: I had the day off from volunteering, so I kinda relaxed. Went “downtown” again and did more Adventist shopping, buying more stuff like an ADRA shirt, and more pins, and I talked to the Adventist Colleges and Universities people some more. The club counselors (Auntie Eva and Auntie Lillian) were a bit jealous of my pin collection and I had some people to find anyways, so we all went out to look for my friends to pin trade with. I met up with my friend Ciera who I met while volunteering and traded with her. She accidently thought Auntie Eva and Auntie Lilian were teenagers, which made them happy. Now my mom has a former classmate who lives in England and their club came to the Camporee. We traded with them and talked a bit, and I made some friends. That was really cool. English people. Seriously. Auntie Eva and Auntie Lilian were satisfied with pins from England so they left back for the campsite. There was a still a friend I had to meet – she’s a pen pal I made from Maryland. After walking around a lot, I found her club and, yeah, it turns out she was really cool. She introduced me to her friends and they were all pretty fun people. We talked a little bit, then I left for dinner at my club campsite. I still had one more friend to find, from a long time ago, but it would be well worth it.
The evening program for Friday night was wonderful. I just absolutely love Friday evening vespers. When it came time to sing songs, the praise team told us to just sit down and imagine we were in the world’s largest living room and we were joining together as family. With the nighttime sky as our ceiling and our kindness to each other keeping us warm, we could all feel God’s presence there. I wandered around the campsite with a couple friends that night after the program, saying ‘happy Sabbath’ to random people, because I absolutely loved being there with fellow Adventist believers and just loved how we could truly act like a family of God.
Sabbath: Once you volunteer three shifts as a TLT, you don’t have to work anymore, but I chose to add ‘distributing water bottles during the Sabbath morning program’, because after all, Pathfinders is about serving for Jesus and that was my way to contribute. I thoroughly enjoyed volunteering that Sabbath morning, greeting ‘happy Sabbath’ to people, but most of all, I was blessed with words of power from Pathfinder leaders all over the world, and they told us something like “Everywhere you look in media, Myspace, television, everything, people underneath are crying out ‘Give me Jesus.’” But most of all, I was blessed with a challenge from James Black, a North American Division Pathfinder leader. He spoke straight and to the point, that “We must descend from the mountaintop to the valleys – to present a living Jesus to a dying world.”
After the Sabbath morning service, my mom sent me to go look for one of her friends from New Jersey. Now what’s cool about this Camporee is that you can say like “Can you tell me how to get to the New Jersey Conference? … New Jersey isn’t in the Atlantic Union? … So how do I get to the Allegheny Conference? … Lindbergh St.? … Thanks, and your from the Bermuda Conference? …” I found my mom’s friend and gave her some Washington Conference pins, but I still had a friend to find, and that was Michael. It’s been about ten years since I last saw him, and that was like the summer before third grade when he moved. On Friday evening I went down to the Columbia Union to try to find Michael, but with no avail. I looked all over the Potomac Conference but couldn’t find him. But on Sabbath morning, I checked my email and got a message from him telling me where his club was, he even gave me the street number! That made things a whole lot easier and I went looking for him after I visited New Jersey Conference. It turns out Michael’s club was in the Chesapeake Conference. (I’ve heard the Chesapeake and Potomac Conferences are rivals) Boy was I glad to see him. Ten years. Wow. And he was a head taller than me! but still a really great nice guy. It was really good to see him again. And in Adventist tradition, I said if we don’t see each other next time, we’ll see each other in heaven. It’s sort of bittersweet to say goodbye this way, not knowing when next time will be, but knowing that heaven will sure be a far better reunion.
Walking back to the club camp site, I decided to wander through the Atlantic Union, which is the East coast basically. By blessing (not chance) I found out my two home churches in New York had Pathfinder clubs here at the Camporee. Bayanihan Filipino Church and Jackson Heights Church. I didn’t know the guys at Jackson Heights, but from the Bayanihan Filipino Pathfinder Club, I found a friend, Jeryll recognized me and gave me a big hug. She’s a bit younger than me, but I did know her sister when I lived in New York.
Later that afternoon, I witnessed my brother and several hundred other Pathfinders get baptized.
That evening was the last program of the Camporee. We stood up and waved our cells and glow-sticks in the air as we sang, we laughed at pictures, we cheered when Esther saved her people from genocide, and we enjoyed the spectacular fireworks show put on for us.

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This was when things got depressing. Buses were loading and taking Pathfinders back home to Alabama, Texas, Pennsylvania, and throughout America. As I walked back away from the assembly area with the large mass of people on the streets, a group of black women who spoke French (I’m guessing they were Quebecois) were behind me and singing what sounded like a French version of “Auld Lang Syne”. And I couldn’t help myself, I just started singing along with them “Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…” like we were at some soccer game or a pub or something. That was pretty cool and kinda funny. One of them told me “Nice :)”. Later some Canadian girl gave me a Canadian flag, so I attached it to my shirt and wore it around. Just before I got to my campsite, I knew there was a hill in the Pacific Union that you can walk up and see a large portion of the Camporee. I went up there, and it was beautifully amazing, or amazingly beautiful.


I thought about the Israelites camping out in the wilderness, all together. I thought about all of us Adventists out in Wisconsin as a family and how we’re not quarreling because we’re together for less than a week. The Israelites were together more than 40 years, and you know what happened to them.
I just absolutely loved these people, my brethren and I couldn’t say goodbye to them forever - I just have to see them in heaven. To not see a brother or a sister in heaven would hurt so much, nevertheless I hold onto “the Blessed hope” – that my Jesus is coming back to take His people home. We as a church are on the verge of the Promised Land and we can’t delay any longer. I want to go home.