Pathfinder Pioneers

Thank you for the special issue featuring Pathfinders [August 2003]. I am a pioneer of Pathfinders and enjoy hearing the latest. When I asked the Central California Conference executive committee for permission to organize Pathfinder Clubs in our conference [in the 1940s], there was vocal dissension, centering on the “fact” that it would be impossible to find leaders for such an organization, that it is virtually impossible to find leaders for junior Sabbath school. I suggested the job description would be quite different, and with the backing of a great conference president, I was permitted to go to the churches and organize Pathfinder clubs. On my first tour around the conference, we found leadership for 23 clubs, and many of them have never stopped meeting. In 1949, I wrote the words and God gave me the music for the Pathfinder song that is still used today. God has blessed Pathfinders. It was great to read about the efficient and spiritual leaders in the clubs today on the pages of the Recorder.

RCC Blooming for Jesus

I was pleased with Riverside Community Church’s “Bloom for Jesus” children/youth ministry report in the September issue. It was uniquely special with great potential for reaching the community for souls. The non-traditional method of conducting Sabbath school programs is the brainchild of Tami McGrew, RN, and RCC’s senior pastor for some four years. Pastor McGrew has steadily increased attendance and baptisms. RCC is a vibrant fellowship with good, exciting people searching for meaning and truth.

Are You Happy Now?

We just could not let a beautiful Christ-centered Sabbath day go without a big and grateful thanks to you, Mr. Tom Mostert, for your outstanding column in the September issue of the Recorder, “Still Grumpy.” Thank you so very much for this inspired column. We are having 100 copies of this outstanding reproduced to give out to other Christian and non-Christian people and a number of men and women in our beloved Armed Forces. There is so much meaning and spiritual truth in this article. Keep them coming. Don’t stop; thousands and thousands of folks like us are truly blessed and do so look forward to your monthly articles in the Recorder and other Adventist magazines. May God richly bless you and yours and all the Adventist writing staff.

Right, or Anti-Left?

Alan Reinach’s article, “Privacy,” [August 2003] seems to point religious liberty advocates in a new direction. While the “religious right” was being identified as the prophetic threat to religious liberties (by most Adventist leaders), the “anti-religious left” has brazenly captured the day. The issues which were the cornerstones of the “religious right” (abortion and homosexuality) have now come back to haunt Seventh-day Adventists. AB 17 and the equally dangerous AB 196 [both of which passed in California this year] represent the tip of the iceberg for Californians with religious or traditional moral values. The plethora of anti-conscience laws, either already on the books, or soon to be, would appear to be an almost insurmountable wall to scale. Hopefully, Reinach’s warning and call to arms will not be a case of too little, too late.