About a year ago Sarah Masikini, director of The Mountain Experience Pathfinder club from the Central States Conference, received a phone call from Kenya.
“We want you to host us,” the director of the Pathfinder club there said.
Sarah’s immediate response was “Are you kidding me?”
“We have 70 people coming to the Chosen International Pathfinder Camporee, and we don’t have anywhere to go,” the leader explained. “We need a club to sponsor us.” (Sponsorship is necessary to obtain visas.)
Sarah felt she couldn’t say anything but yes. “My parents would host everybody—even people they didn’t know,” she explains. “My siblings and I would complain to them, ‘You’re too generous.’ But as I grew up I realized this is right. You have to accept everybody and show them love and be kind as Jesus was to people.”
Sarah took the request to her church leaders, and they voted in support of hosting the Kenyan club. Sarah’s club also raised funds by planting gardens and selling their produce—including collard greens, tomatoes, onions, and pinto beans—to church members and the community.
The two clubs rode together on the bus to Oshkosh, set up their tents, cooked Kenyan food, and headed out together every day to earn honors (their favorite activity). After the Camporee, the Kenyan group (named the Flying Chariots) will stay four days with the Minnesota club before heading home to their Nairobi South Church in the East African Union.
