SOME 5,000 members of the Seventh-Day Adventists (SDA) church over the weekend celebrated the 65th Anniversary of Pathfinding in Guyana.

The celebration saw members countrywide gathering at the National Park on Saturday where over 3,000 Master-guides, Pathfinders and Adventurers were invested. The investiture programme was aimed at recognising those who have completed their pathfinder classwork; inspire others to become involved and to inform the church and community what the Pathfinder Club is all about.

Then, on Sunday, youths who moved one rank higher in their respective clubs marched through the streets of Georgetown in celebration of the milestone, bearing the theme ‘Created with a Purpose.’

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle on Sunday, Youth Director Pastor Marvyn Smith, stated that the adventure, pathfinder and master-guide clubs of the church form a crucial part of youth development. “[The] Pathfinder Club is a club that seeks to develop and to promote balanced development in young people,” Pastor Smith explained.

“For the last 65 years we have been impacting communities, interacting with young people, training them and we have seen the product of this investment in youth. We moved from numbers like 100 and 200 at our large gatherings and investitures and yesterday [Saturday], we invested 3,015 young people and that is exponential growth in my estimate,” he further explained.

Pastor Smith said one of the biggest pillars of pathfinding is service, which enables youths to be involved in community outreaches, clean-up exercises, food distribution and other community-related interactions.

Meanwhile, the many honours displayed on the sashes of the youths were designed to give them exposure to vocational skills in areas such as health, science, computer science and technology, aviation, music, the bible and the environment.

“[It’s organised so that] young people get an idea as to their liking and skills from very early and the intent is to align them in a career path,” Pastor Smith explained.

Following Sunday’s parade, the youths all reassembled at the National Park where they participated in drill displays.

Speaking to the theme of the celebration, President of the Guyana Conference of SDA, Pastor Exton Clarke stated: “Purpose determines how people live in society; how they respond to needs; how they respond to challenges and what influences their actions and activities. We are of the conviction that our young people, as long as they are connected with God, he plants that purpose in their lives…the pathfinder programme helps to inspire young people to realise that purpose.”
There are over four million Adventist youths across the world involved in pathfinding with the first club on record beginning in the 1920s in North America.