Once again, the Lake Union Conference has been chosen to host the 5th international North American Division "Faith on Fire" camporee August 10–14, 2004, at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. As Lake Union constituents, you are especially invited to participate in this historic event. Join hundreds of other day-pass visitors to witness the largest assembly of Pathfinders in the world. International guests are coming from more than 70 countries to join Pathfinders from every conference in America.

Young people will have an opportunity to see that they are a part of a huge movement—bigger than their imagination. They will see that there are other young people who want to share Jesus and serve their communities. With 20,000 Pathfinders in dress uniform, they will feel like they are the "army of youth" that will finish the work. Pathfinders is the strongest congregation-based youth ministry program in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The "Faith on Fire" camporee will use the life of Joseph to teach biblical principles to equip young people to deal with issues common to the last generation—issues of jealousy and sibling rivalry, sexual temptation, forgiveness, being falsely accused, and more, to create a spiritual memory that they will take with them to eternity.

As Joseph collected grain to prepare for the famine, each night Pathfinders will bring one Bible and one dollar, collected from people like you, to the meeting to counter the spiritual famine today. Bibles will be shipped to children in Africa, Belize, and the Philippines with the funds collected.

Each day 4,000 Pathfinders will be deployed to community projects in the greater Oshkosh/Fox Valley area. Civic leaders have been amazed at Adventist young people and what they contribute to the community.

If you do not have a Pathfinder club, you can organize one for the camporee if you have two or more young people. We’ve had one-family clubs and two-family clubs. You can link up with another club to help share resources.

We also need 1,000 volunteers to help manage this city of 20,000. And we’ll need just about every kind of public service volunteer: security, medical, water and waste management, ushers, photographers, writers, activity managers, etc. Volunteers must be 18 or older and must pay a registration fee like every other Pathfinder leader or sponsor. All volunteers must be free of any club responsibilities.

If you can’t attend, you can help by donating camping equipment to your local club, collecting Bibles, contributing funds, or sponsoring or hosting an international guest. Above all, you can pray.

This may be the last time the camporee is hosted in the Lake Union for decades. Thank you for doing what you can to make our guests feel welcome and helping this to be the best camporee ever.

Yours and His,

Ron Whitehead & James Black