Engineers love straight neat lines.... (We are camping here)	Campsite Perimiter Ropes
	Trailers are a must and tents galore		Jet packs drying on the line
	Vinal table cloths was used for the flames in these jet packs.	Foam Paint booth at the Ranger shop	Bisquits and Gravy yum!
			Great relationships between Churches
	Evangel Temple Brothers!		Fathers and sons sharing time together.
Good times hanging out around the fire pit.	Rope swing and the Bop Board
Camp organization		years at it make it good at it!
Federal Chaplins reading the Word!		Father and son fire building	One Match fire after cut n chop training
Young men face the challenge		One match fire the right way	It takes lots of times to get good at these things.
Can I build another one?		Dude this is fun!
Make it safe and make it happen.
			Cut n Chop traning before they did this activity.
Dad's n Lads.	I did it!		Outpost Chow line
Leaders and boys working together to feed the need.		Even hanging out in lines is fun.
			Mike fine tuning funnel cake cooking! He is a ARTIST AT IT!
	I think these guys would just keep eating if we let them.	Older boys lead and help.
			Dhydration cans for waste food.
Supply tent
		Sr. Guide chowing!
			Friday nights meal at the smokers.
Kirk and Phil at the smokers	Wow this was great food.
A Great group at the entrance of our camp.
Oh they get impatient waiting on photos.
			This lady is beautiful in and out! Happy Aniversary!
Security Patrol		Map of Activities
			Rocket Man!
	We had to put the foam bats a way a few times..GRIN!		Rocket man!
			First time Camping!
			Pow Wow's are great fun.
Costume Judging	Costume Judging.
			Great leaders make this type stuff happen.
		Peaches!
Friday night Callout.
	District Commander what a prince of a man.	Better than John Luke.	Introducing the new FCF members.
	Friday night service
			Pow Wow Pagent site cool.
Pagent work by Evangel Temple good job guys.
	One of my boys!
	Pastor B brought the Word!	Ranger Lake I call it a big pond!	Ernie great help.
		What I have to build a fire then do the kayak?
260 fires later... were smoked up.		Ever seen 6 boys in kayaks..most for the first time x 8	Fire Craft around the pond
	My event staff went for a couple of swims retreaving stuff.	Paul Stanek and Charlie Weaver
		Pulling in 300 Kayaks is tough work!
			Damon is heading to Calfornia in 2 weeks.
	Star Wars glider	Made of cardboard!	Great job of cardboard and planning.
	Camp fire after piling on the firecraft scraps.
		Great men working to make it all the best it can be.
So many things going on behind the sceens. They make things work.	Pancakes on Sunday morning.. yum..5:00 am.. o-my.	5 ok am we do funny things...before we wake up to cook your breakfast!

So many good people doing great things for Jesus.  These boys are worth it.

District Royal Ranger Pow Wow is the Biggest and BEST event of the year.  We get to camp for 4 days.  We get to have all kinds of neat challenges.  We get to fellowship with men and boys and young men that are like minded sold out to Jesus and pointing others to Him.

Every ministry in the Church of today is trying to create life long servant leaders.  Yet Rangers does these things as second thought. It's not our focus as are focus is to Reach, Teach and the hard part Keep boys for Jesus Christ.  We use many means to that.  We make things.  We race things.  We cook things.  We tie things up.  We do songs and yells and skits and we laugh and kid a lot. 

The one thing that brings Rangers to the BEST Ministry for me is the SCOUTING - CAMPING FOCUS.  If we didn't teach this fundamental as a base for our Rangers we wouldn't see them at Pow Wows, Rendezvous, Camporamas, Float trips, backpacking and a whole list of events.  Johnny Barnes knew this he even wrote a article about it and here is the link to that. 

http://readyrangers.tzo.com/Why%20Camping%20-%20By%20Johnnie%20Barnes.pdf

Some things are timeless. They just work good and don't need a reinvention or a total program rewrite every few years.  The camping and scouting programs work.  Those that don't like to camp should find another ministry that doesn't camp.  There are tons of need in those ministries for sure and YES they reach out to many folks and see mighty moves for God in them.  Yet Rangers can be watered down to a point where it stands for nothing and falls for everything. 

I was reminded of this at Pow Wow this year.  At the Mars Landing event we had 6 Kayaks but first the boys had to build a one match fire using a knife and a baton splitting a 8" piece of old cedar fence.  We only teach tool craft once to our Discovery Rangers.  We saw hundreds of boys that had no clue on how to build a  A-frame fire or properly use a knife.  In our Outpost each Pow Wow on Friday morning we go over the Cut n Chop card and review the tool craft section in the Adventures in Camping.  A 45 minute lesson and it keeps the boys minds on safety and tool use. 

Camping brings us together. It puts us all on the same level and it grows boys by challenge and success/failure it takes both to develop properly. 

So many cool things going on at Pow Wow I could write for hours on them.  Yet I have rambled long enough.  Remember if you don't camp you won't be at Pow Wow. So at the bare minimum develop your camping program.  Please read that article by Johnny Barnes. It will put you RIGHT ON on what works.

Mark Jones