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PMC Evergreen Pathfinder Club
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| 8/30/2004 9 PM TO: All Evergreen Pathfinders, Staff and Parents, Our first club meeting will be on Weds., Sept. 1, 6:45-8:30pm in the Pathfinder Building for Grades 5-8. Grade 9 and 10 members, meet at 6pm in the Pioneer Memorial Church parking lot. Bring a parent to sign a permission slip at 6pm, for you to help with the Benton Harbor evangelism for the evening. You'll be back by 9pm. If you have not registered yet, come at 6:30 pm to be ready to start on time with the group. Parents will need to fill out registration forms (if you went to Camporee in August, you have done this already) and make payment at 8:30 pm before you leave. Glynis Bradfield Club Director Thu 8/19/2004 5:14 PM To: All Evergreens who went to Camporee, Staff and Parents Before we settle into school routines, now that my many loads of washing (including 10 dishwasher loads for all 130 plates, bowls, cups and mountains of silverware!!!) are done, allow me to share a few highlights from camp for those who might not hear the rest of the story…. We survived the unexpected cold without anyone getting sick. Praise the Lord! Even a smelly packing blanket was welcome to me during the evening meetings as the icy wind sliced through 32,000+ pathfinders and staff gathered for those wonderful meetings. There was plenty of good food, prepared by many willing helpers (thank you all, but especially Mr and Mrs Cress, Mr & Mrs Burt and our Puerto Rican friends), on time at every meal, even if it wasn’t always exactly what Mom cooked or the last camp’s favorite. With the food budget balance we will be able to replace 5 tents and replace the very ancient fridge and stove in the Pathfinder Building (with great discounts working with friends at Whirlpool). Thanks to Cami Cress for careful budgeting, and to large numbers for the savings possible. Pin trading reached feverish heights for many – including some of our own members, who preferred walking the miles of campgrounds (yes, it took 15 minutes by golf cart just to cross from our end northeast end to the south side) in search of pins of all sizes and shapes. Our PMC pin and the Michigan set of 10 were popular, the Michigan rainbow and Texas black both hot items. Trading pins provided many opportunities for pathfinders to meet and greet others from across North America and the 100 countries represented. Hosting 25 Puerto Ricans from the Mountain Warrior Club and West Puerto Rico was a special experience. They were so appreciative and generous in giving us pins, flags, t-shirts, hats, making a delicious supper, and inviting us all to their February Camporee – they guaranteed warmer weather too. They were so thankful for the tents and food, relieved to find such a warm welcome. Two families in their group were non-Adventist, and were very impressed by our warm welcome and the whole camp experience. Praise God for this opportuinty to be a positive witness. Unfortunately 70 from East Puerto Rico slept in the cold without tents, without breakfast or lunch the next morning before we found out about their plight over in the New York region of camp. We invited them all over for lunch while their accomodation was being sorted out. You didn’t have to speak Spanish to understand the BIG smiles and thanks they offered when a small group of staff available mid-afternoon hurriedly prepared more food – we fed 200 for lunch in total that day, and for those who helped, I believe this was one of the highlights of camp. I challenged our members and staff as we left to go to camp prepared to give and not just receive -- and certainly we were blessed in spirit by giving the little we had. In a camp of 32,000+ accidents and death are inevitable in normal statistics. Sadly, the Calgary, Alberta Club lost a staff member to a heart attack as they were pitching camp. On the same day this same club’s cook with most of their cooking equipment and food was turned back at the border with visa problems. A third staff member was knocked down by a taxi outside O’Hare (and helped by a Washington Club, arriving at camp with bruises but no broken bones). When we heard about this late on the first night, Ps Oliver Archer, Counselor Marc Engelmann and myself walked down to visit their Conference Youth Director and offered to lend cooking gear and even staff to help. They were thankful for stove, and we were happy to be able to help in a small way. There were so many activities and honors to choose from, that it was impossible to even get around to just take a look at them all. We required all our members to do at least one honor, and some were disappointed at not being able to get into their first or even second choices. I enjoyed African Lore taught by a Kenyan pathfinder leaders (by the way, there are 200,000 Pathfinders in Kenya, more than any other country), along with 3 or our African pathfinder girls. If you did an honor and have a certificate showing you completed it, but not the patch, please bring this to me and I will order the patch. I will not order patches without this, or at the very least, confirmation from the counselor who did the honor with you. If you did cacti, remember that we arranged for Dr Closser to give you a test, which we will arrange sometime this semester, so you are not done until this is completed. Our club’s decoration, 2 11 ft high obelisks painted with hieroglyphs by Marshall McVay (thanks!) were featured in one morning’s newspaper, photographed by many, and our 8 costumed members (trying hard to look Egyptian – thanks to Pam McVay for the sewing and bead work, with help from Kayleen, Lauren and Macey) will feature on the souvenir CD. On Sabbath morning our club's clean camp was honored with inspection that came no further than the obelisk entry. The Michigan area coordinator inspecting our camp thanked us for the orderly manner in which they had observed us keeping camp all week, an honor to share with all 130 club members, staff, volunteers staying with us, and our 25 Puerto Rican friends. Thank you for the team work! Sabbath morning services included two special events. Three of our club staff, Mrs Denise Smith, Miss Catherine Parris, and Mr Marc Engelmann, were invested as master guides during the church service, along with many others in the 35,000+ congregation. We are thankful for their enthusiastic leadership, and pray that they will continue to use their talents in youth ministry as God leads for year to come. Following the church service, we joined Michigan Conference clubs for a special pinning for all TLTs (Teen Leaders in Training). Our club pinned the following great team: Heather(4th year), Craig, Marshall, and David(3rd year), Jonathan, Sinclair, Garret, Jonathan, Cassie, and Nicole(2nd year), and our newest group, Dava, David, Dylan, Ivan, Johnny, Kayleen, Lauren and Marlissa. We have appreciated their team work this summer in preparing for camporee, going ahead to set up camp, helping with plans for the coming year, and we anticipate their full and energetic help through this year If you took pictures at camporee, either digital or prints, please bring the best to share with Mrs Smith at registration. She's putting together a collection for our club, for presentations and display in our building. Bring your pictures in an envelope with your name on and we’ll return them as soon as possible. If you’d like a copy of a CD (probably for around $2 each), let her know too. We’ll put several of the best pictures on our new website, including the best full group photo we took on Sabbath. Thanks to Ps Oliver Archer for his morning devotionals, and for being our pastor along with our club for this adventure! Thanks to every one of our pathfinders, and staff, for doing their best to work together for the best of all. Besides a few broken chairs (mostly the old stools which are falling apart), several losses of money and loss of sleep, I believe all will remember this experience for the rest of their life. The real news is the life experience and faith-building opportunity this camp was – for each a very personal and precious memory. Many did not have time to carefully think through the questions in the Camporee Journals. Find yours this Sabbath, and take an hour to quietly read the Bible chapters and think about the questions and what you learned at camp – I think you’ll be glad you did – share it with your parents for Friday evening worship, or at any other time they’re available. God bless – and remember, one great way to fan the flames of faith is by registering to continue pathfindering this year – we hope you all will. All who went to camporee just need to come in and pay – you have your uniform and have already completed the registration and insurance info form. 7pm Weds, Aug 25 in the Pathfinder Building. Glynis Bradfield Evergreen Pathfinder Club Director |