Pathfinders
The Pathfinders are the worldwide active scout organization of the Free Church of the Seventh-day Adventists . In Switzerland and Austria it appears under the name Adventwacht (ADWA), in Germany under the name Christian Pathfinders and Pathfinders of the Advent Youth (CPA).
Surname
Until 1989 the CPA was called "Jungfreunde" in Germany. CPA stands for "Christian Boy Scouts and Boy Scouts of the Advent Youth" and indicates that they are part of the Advent Youth , ie the youth organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. ADWA, as the Austrian and Swiss branches of the Pathfinders are called, is the abbreviation for Adventwacht, whereby "Advent" stands for the second coming of Christ awaiting the Adventists , and "Wacht" for the group that the Adventists form as such to wait together.
history
History of the Pathfinders
The roots of the CPA go back to 1919, when Arthur Spaulding organized the Mission Scouts for his children and their friends. In the 1920s, Harriet Holt and C. Lester Bond developed the Junior Missionary Volunteers , the Missionary Volunteers Achievement Badges, and the Master Guide Leadership . The name Pathfinder was probably first used at the first JMV camp in Julian on the west coast of the USA in 1927 , when Arthur Spaulding was telling the story of John Fremont , the Pathfinder , around the campfire .
When the Southern California Association built a camp at Idyllwild in 1930, they named it JMV Pathfinder Camp . In the 1930s, John McKim, an Adventist Boy Scout leader, and Dr. Thereon Johnson founded a group for boys in Santa Ana they called the Pathfinders Club . This group did not exist long because the local church leadership was not behind it. Lawrence Skinner experimented with JMV groups in Hawaii , Southern California, and the North Pacific Association.
In 1946, John Hancock was elected Youth Secretary for the Southern California Association. He immediately founded the first association-sponsored pathfinder group ( Pathfinder Club ) in Riverside . He created the boy scout badge and put the JMV in a chasm . In 1947, Elder Skinner asked the Pacific Union youth secretary, JR Nelson, if the Union youth secretaries could help develop the Boy Scout groups, which he did afterward.
The organization grew rapidly until 1950. There was camp activity with Donald Parmer, and books were written by Lawrence Paulson. Henry Berg created the first pennant and the boy scout song. It turned out that the scout program was ready to be adopted by the general conference. It happened in 1950. LA Skinner, John Hancock, and Lee Carter wrote the first Scout Leader Handbook and a little book called How to Start a Scout Group .
History of the CPA in Germany
In 1948 the first boy scout group was founded in Solingen , where the first Adventist church was founded in the 19th century. Karl-Heinz Makebach directed the first scout activities. In 1951 the “Advent Boy Scout” group emerged with a khaki shirt and a yellow-striped blue scarf (later a brown-green scarf). But the time was not yet ripe for this work within the Adventist Church. The memories of National Socialism were still too awake to be able to process echoes, so that the Solingen group left the Association of Advent Youth in 1970 and joined the Swiss Boy Scouts Association as Free Boy Scouts, Count Count von Berg, and in 1972 the Association of Christian Scouts Pathfinder (VCP) North Rhine connects.
In parallel to the Solingen group, work with young friends is developing in the Adventist community. In 1957 the first young friends' leisure time is held in Freudenstadt . Between 1959 and 1960, the first groups of young friends were formed in Munich under Manfred Peters and in Augsburg under Gerhard Mögerlein. At this time, Eberhard Fischdick, head of the youth department of the then Central European Division (merged in the Euro-Africa Division in 1972) made contact with Adventist military chaplains of the US armed forces in Germany and became the first German master guide.
In 1962 a scout regulation and a membership book are introduced, but under the name "Young Friends". The work that had been done by individuals up to that point was organized in 1963 under the umbrella of the Advent Youth. The young friends receive the blue shirt with a yellow scarf, which is still used today. In 1964, the first course for young friends leaders of the West German Association (merged in 1992 into the North German Association, or NDV for short ) is held in Mühlenrahmede .
In 1977 the two German associations take part in the first international camp of the Euro-Africa Division in Malcesine / Italy.
Until then, the young friends see themselves more as a children's department of the Adventist church, comparable to the youth group work of the Christian Association of Young People (YMCA) and Protestant church congregations, recognizable, among other things, by the fact that the motto of the young friends With Jesus Christ happily and courageously ahead is almost identical to the the young crowd is ( courageously advance with Jesus Christ ).
In 1983 Toni Oblaski took up the idea of scouting in the Advent youth in Darmstadt -Zentrum. On the 16th floor of a skyscraper in Darmstadt- Kranichstein , together with his wife Ulla Oblaski and in collaboration with Manfred Meier from Munich-Waldperlach, he is developing a new concept for young friends, which puts the scouting idea in the foreground and is also open to children -adventist or non-religious environment. As an outward sign of the new work approach, the young friends group Darmstadt-Zentrum and the young friends group Munich-Waldperlach adopted the name “Christian Boy Scouts and Boy Scouts of Advent Youth” (CPA) in 1986. Working groups were set up at the association level to critically examine their ideas. In 1992 the term “young friends” was officially replaced nationwide by “CPA”.
organization
According to its own information, the organization comprises over 2.6 million Adventist Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts in more than 90,000 local groups. The individual group is referred to as a local group or tribe , less often as a troop . The administrative structure of the Pathfinders is linked to that of the Adventist churches, so the tribes of a federal state or several federal states form an association, several associations of a state form an association or a union (exception in Europe: Germany is divided into a southern German and a northern German association) and the associations / unions form a total of 13 divisions (Germany, Austria and Switzerland belong to the Euro-Africa division).
Christian Boy Scouts of the Advent Youth (Germany)
The German CPA includes around 600 small groups with - according to their own statements - around 4,500 members. The CPA is a member of the Christian Scouts Forum (FCP).
Each association has its own statutes, which regulate, among other things, the right to vote and stand for election as well as the management structures.
Tribes are organized in small groups, mostly separated according to age. The following age limits apply:
- 8–11 years: young scouts
- 12–15 years: Boy Scouts
- 16–27 years: Scout
- Degree badge
| designation | colour | Minimum age |
|---|---|---|
| fellow | (blue) | from 8 years |
| Trapper | (red) | from 10 years on |
| Scouts | (yellow) | from 12 years |
| ranger | (Red Blue) | 14 years and older |
| Guide | (blue yellow) | from 16 years |
| Master Guide | (blue-yellow-red) | from 18 years |
Advent Watch (Switzerland)
The Advent watch in German-speaking Switzerland includes 16 local groups. The ADWA Switzerland program is aimed at children and young people between the ages of 7 and 16, a distinction being made between three age groups, which are further subdivided into:
- Jungwächter (8 to 11 years old)
- Guardian (12 to 16 years)
- Head (from 17 years)
The adult leaders are supported by so-called helpers from the age of 14. Special training courses apply as prerequisites.
Organizationally, the respective ADWA department is located in the Advent Youth of the local congregation or the district. These, in turn, are part of the “German-Swiss Association” based in Zurich . The association belongs together with other youth departments to the “Euro-Africa Division” based in Bern. Together with other departments of the “Adventist Youth”, this forms the “General Conference” in the USA .
Advent Watch (Austria)
1967 , which is recorded as the founding year of the Boy Scouts in the Adventist Churches in Austria, does not represent the actual beginning of the work, because already at the end of the 1950s some Adventists in Vienna implement the Boy Scout program with the children of their churches. Due to the resistance against everything that somehow reminds of the terrible events of the Second World War through uniforms , these initiatives were partially discontinued.
At the beginning of the 1960s there were further initiatives under the then youth secretary of the Austrian Union, Josef Stöger. The founding father, the youth secretary Walter Schultschik, chose the name Adventwacht in 1967 in cooperation with the Swiss program .
The association currently has 450 boy and girl scouts who are divided into 25 local groups.
In Austria, the Bible-oriented adventure program is aimed at children and young people between the ages of 6 and 16.
Advent Young Guard (in English “Adventurers”): approx. 7-10 years
| School level | Degree badge |
|---|---|
| 1st - 4th grade elementary school | 1st - 4th star |
Advent Guardians (in English “Pathfinders”): approx. 11-16 years
| School level | Degree badge |
|---|---|
| 1st grade secondary school / high school | Friend |
| 2nd grade secondary school / high school | Companion |
| 3rd grade Hauptschule / Gymnasium | Explorer |
| 4th grade Hauptschule / Gymnasium | ranger |
| 5th grade Hauptschule / Gymnasium | Voyager |
| 6th grade Hauptschule / Gymnasium | Guide |
Head : from 17 years
Scout work
Due to its American origins, the scouting work is still strongly influenced by scoutists . In Germany, however, many Bund elements were also adopted. Law and promise are just as much a part of the CPA work as the small group principle. A sample order exists in the form of degree and achievement badges, which can be acquired in the various age groups through exams.
As a Christian scout organization, the topic of personal belief is not excluded. Jesus Christ and belief in him is a compass needle and navigational device for the daily activities of a CPA scout. Nonetheless, the CPA is also open to children from non-Adventist parents; an Adventist belief is not a condition for participating in CPA events. He shapes them, however, so z. B. by opening each group lesson with a (short) prayer and holding services in camps.
Camporees
International scout meetings , so-called camporées (singular camporée ), which correspond to the jamborees of the World Scout Association, are regularly recurring highlights of the scout life and represent an important component of this scouting movement.
Camp and star walks
Every year, there are camps across Germany and star hikes on the Whitsun weekend.
A camp with nationwide importance is the "Easter Camp Friedensau " (short: OLaF ) in Saxony-Anhalt with at least 300 participants annually, which has been taking place over the Easter weekend (Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday) . Further scout camps are organized by the supraregional associations, the so-called associations. The Berlin-Central Germany Association offers a "Ascension Camp " (in short: HiLa ) over the Ascension weekend , as does the Hansa Association, while in North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, the "Corpus Christi camp " (in short: FroLa ) takes place on the long weekend around the Corpus Christi festival. Regional action days and scout services complement this offer.
The star walks (called STEWA ) take place at federal state level to changing locations. The star walks usually take place from Whitsun Friday to the following Wednesday and the event at the final storage area from Wednesday to Sunday. However, this differs from small group to small group.
swell
- ↑ We are the CPA Mittelrhein. (No longer available online.) Christian scouts of the Advent Youth Middle Rhine, archived from the original on August 22, 2010 ; accessed on March 31, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Advent Youth Switzerland :: Local Groups Switzerland (DSV). Retrieved May 25, 2018 .
- ↑ Homepage of ADWA Switzerland: Training structure ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , July 18, 2006
- ↑ Homepage of ADWA Switzerland: Organization ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , July 18, 2006
- ↑ Homepage of ADWA Austria: About us ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , July 18, 2006
