Staying Connected
BENTONVILLE, ARK. – When businesses began to close and many people stayed home because of coronavirus COVID-19, many of our school, sports and music activities ended abruptly. But not so with the Bentonville Beavers Pathfinder Club. We soon learned that our club leader was going to begin online meetings. We’d never met online before, so we were curious about what it would be like. During these times of social distancing, we know that God can help us do anything because everything is possible with God.
Our meetings are held Wednesdays via Zoom video conferencing and each is a little different. The first item on the agenda is worship. Every week we have a different guest speaker. We have had singer/songwriter Scott Krippayne talk to us about his music ministry, and he even sang his song called, “I’m Not Cool!” His song encouraged us to remember that we shouldn’t be seeking worldly popularity, but instead look for God’s approval. We discovered that Krippayne wrote the theme song for the TV show “Paw Patrol”!
During our virtual meetings, we have worked on the radio honor. We went on a virtual tour of our local radio station, KLRC, with mid-day announcer Isaac Weaver. He showed us how the equipment worked and how shows are recorded, and we got to interview him.
We were joined by a representative from the Saint Louis Science Center who talked to us about electromagnetic radiation and how electricity makes a radio work. He did some experiments and demonstrations! We played games together online too, like Kahoot and Quizizz, which help make what we are learning fun. Our club TLTs also got to help with the virtual meetings. One week they taught us the Red Alert honor. We always do something just for fun too! One night we learned how Jelly Beans are made, did a “History of Jelly Beans” Mad Lab, and then got to guess how many Jelly Beans were in a jar.
We have done so much through our club social media accounts, including two virtual honors (Trees and the Blood and Body’s Defenses).
Our club director posts tasks for us each day, like watching videos, reading things or making things. We post our answers or pictures of our projects in the comments. One week we did a #IMadeThis spirit week. Every day we had to make or do something silly, but fun, and post it on our social media accounts. Then we got to vote on our favorites. The prize was a virtual shopping trip to our Pathfinder points store.
Our club leader has been reading us a chapter a day of the book “Summer of the Secret Squadron” by Michael Pledger Ball. It’s a story that is set in Batesville, Ark., and is about mysterious coded messages and the search to figure out clues. We learned a lot about the gift and value of friendship as we listened to the story.
We wanted to continue our club’s dedication to doing outreach, so we’ve been writing letters. Every week, we pick a person out of the church directory and write an encouraging letter to them. Some of the Pathfinders have even received letters back! We are helping take care of our church members during this tough time and that is important to us!
Recently, we attended the first ever iCamporee hosted by the Texas Conference. It was different from regular camporees, but so much fun. We set up “campsites” in our houses or yards. There were family activities for us on Sabbath, as well as guest speakers on Facebook Live.
While we may not be able to see each other in person, we still get to connect with Pathfinders every week! Overall, we are having a great time with each other (virtually of course), and we will just have to wait this whole thing out. We know God is with us and He is in control.
By Gabby Schlueter, Salvador Aguilar and JD Aguilar
