Outpost 6 1st Place Over All!	Twister Event

Always the highlight of the year in the Ranger world. Our District celebrated it's 50th anniversary.
We had just under 600 in attendance.

Temps ranged from low of 64 at night to a high of 88 in the day. Thursday and Friday we had a lot of rain that fell on already soaked ground. Yup it was a muddy Pow Wow. YET! Despite the mud and the rains and the storms. 60 souls saved, 20 souls called into Ministries and another larger group went forward for prayer.

While Royal Rangers is a vehicle to this result it brings along many other things that should be recognized. Often results in Life long, friendships, character building, skills and teaches no matter what; keep after it; Don't give up.

As a mouse looking around in Outpost 6 that little ole rat saw many things going on. Weeks if not months of preparations by our District Director. We are blessed to have Jerry Millhouser in our Outpost. Not many men on this earth would fit in HIS SHOES. We are blessed and God is greatly to be praised from such a humble man that has a work ethic that makes goose bumps rise up when I think of the model he projects. Qualities that I know Jesus is shouting from Heaven well done, Well done!



Looking around our outpost would be much like your outpost. You would see many men and ladies preparing for s 4 day camp. In that camp it took so many things to be READY! Forms, Permissions, Flyers, Vehicles, Food, Shelters, Kitchens, Hygiene, Events and 50 other things I can only remember by the Check off list. Our outpost brought 56 but I think Life 360 had around 64 with the largest camp. GREAT JOB LIFE360.



In our vehicle spread we hauled a smoker trailer, a 8x10 box trailer, a large heavy duty horse type box trailer, a 30 passenger people mover, a 15 passenger people mover and another 6 or seven private vehicles. The 2 hour drive for us goes fairly quickly both ways.

We left our Ranger Building at 9:30 am.

Arrived in good shape with no difficulties along the way. Soon we were unpacking and eating sandwiches. It's one of those great ideas for boys to bring their lunch but most don't so note to self don't do the bring lunch thing next year. As the day progressed all tents were up, fire roaring, Dinning Fly full of 8 plywood camp tables and 40 chairs with 50 other things going up. Wash station, Grease Pit, Waste Water pit, Supply Tent, Kitchen setup, perimeter rope and posts, Chippewa kitchen, rope swing, tool craft, water and bug juice station, first aid station, entry way, flags, colors, trash stations and setting up our personal areas with tents and tables and chairs and cots. Cots are a favorite when it rains.

Thursday afternoon we got about a 1 inch rain with some strong lighting and the siren went off so we camp setup got delayed a bit. After returning from the Shelter up at the Registration Building we fired up the smoker trailer and proceeded to cook up 7 trays of Lasagna and toast. Yup with the Olive garden salad it was FANTASTIC! Thursday night ran late into the evening and the boys were WILD! Through the night it rained and rained and stormed and rained... I thought I saw Noah float by but couldn't tell for sure due to the down pour. Now I am sure we were not alone in this but several of the boys were pretty scared of the storm and thank goodness for those Commanders that stayed up till 3 am consoling these boys that their lives were not about to end. It was a dandy storm. I am thankful I slept through most of it.

Friday morning showed up with a bunch of boys that looked like drowned rats... Yup we took some 14 sleeping bags to the laundry in Eldon to dry. Along with that we restaked and velcrowed the tents and wiped them all out and hoped for sunshine to dry them out. Pancakes hot off the griddle were good but most of the camp went up to the Biscuits and Gravy being served up at registration for a small fee.

Friday late morning had cut n chop training and re-certs and one match fires for the boys. We also got all the things tweaked to make them work better. Our Older boys went and did Shot Gun Shooting that kept them busy for most of Friday and Sat morning.

Friday at 5 pm I lost my voice. (not unusual but generally loose it on Saturday night after cheering and yelling) a sore throat gradually came worse and worse. Yet Pow Wow was in full mode no time to feel sick. GREAT SERVICES at both the FCF Callout 26 names called and the Friday night Pageant had a good chuck of the crowd laughing at the corny jokes and humor that we all love. Those old skits from days gone past are still winners and the older I get the more I learn that tried and trued methods beat the "new ideas" 100 to 1. Realizing it took some of the smartest people on earth over 100 tries to get a light bulb to work... so I have learned not to expect too much from "NEW and IMPROVED". In boys ministries we have about 6 years. If we continue on with the tried and true it just keeps working. Those that need a change won't be around long anyway..they will have changed. My two cents as a little ole mouse looking around. That smoked pork tender loin and a hamburger with trimmings was a nice meal. I got a hold of some of that Buffalo sauce...I was sweating like crazy after 2 pork loin sandwiches.. yum.

Saturday morning is event day. Just about every staff person host an event. The day is full of just about everything you can imagine that will challenge a Ranger. My event was a one match fire for 350 boys and 5 kayaks with life vests to keep them challenged. I was raised out in Kansas. Muddy old brown water lakes all the time. Our Pow Wow lake is a few notches above those Kansas Lakes but not by far. Boys don't care. They loved the kayaking and getting wet. The FCF village is full of cool stuff as well, Homemade root beer, fried pigskin, hawk and knife, old time games and flint and steel to name a few. Events go all around the place. BB gun Shooting, Archer, Water Slide, Memory and Bible quizzes. Obstacle Courses. Even saw some out in the muddy field playing tag foot ball they were muddy.

Around 3:30 we shut down our event and clean up the muddy kayaks and then hauled the pageants council fire over to the pageant site with necessary stuff. At camp Teriyaki chicken was grilled and real French fries and watermelon was chowed on. We had plenty so shared it with other camps.

When the leaders went off to the leaders meeting my job was to get out our costume and get the boys ready. With about 35 boys in camp that is a job. Our outfit this year was Cowboy boots, blue jeans, long sleeve white shirt, red bandana, black lone ranger mask, gold Texas star badge and lariats and a wooden rubber band gun that is 24" long double barreled. (We won best costume hooo rahh)

At 6:45 pm Rob and I went over to the pageant site and setup for the council fire. Remote lighting of the fire and it was a good HOT FIRE! Made of oak and cedar screwed together with a little shot of lamp oil on the outside edges. ( I think they are going to accuse me of starting the fire that had the District Top Man stuck on top of the roof of a burning building after a few embers rolled out of my 2'x2'x2' council fire. We were ready with water and I avoided the claim to fame) Neat service and fun pageant and even my 22 year old son commented he found himself laughing at the old time comedy for years past. Alters were filled and God by His Spirit was doing a work in lives there.

Sunday morning the hardest of them all. Get up to cook breakfast a hour earlier than the rest of camp. Yup. It was my first time in many many years I didn't make the call. My lost voice and my sore throat was taking it's toll on me. Yet no time to quit. Just tried to stay quiet and work where I could.

While the boys were off to Sunday school leaders broke camp and did our best to dry out those humid tents. Sun came up and we were able to move them into the sun along with everything else that needed drying as we packed it all away.

A short 2 hour drive home and we unloaded the trailer. I unloaded my personal gear at home and then showered and slept until 5:30 pm. Sore throat was worse and Monday went to the walk in clinc to only find out it has to run it's time. Gargling with saltwater, throat lossingers and nasal flush. It's been a while since I was sick.

Pow Wow is always a blessing. Worth every difficulty and hardship.

Mark Jones