Royal Rangers is a great ministry to boys that our church supports. Mike has been a leader in Rangers for over 5 years now. One of the great perks is the campouts. Here they went
Cibbets Flat during the weekend of 9/26/08
Here is a shot of the camp they set up.
Food
One focus point at the camp out was to make sure everyone remembered it. One way to remember an event of friendship & fellowship is to have great
food! They had about 15 people to feed. Mike really enjoyed the challenge of creating the menu and working in the camp kitchen. Les saved the church a ton of money with her hard work at shopping, driving, and coupon cutting as she bought all the groceries. The Rangers had 5 star food at discount prices!
Here are some gross pictures of pork steaks marinated in a wet homemade rub from Mike.
On Saturday they planned a big lunch. The menu was BBQ chicken legs, pork steak, mashed potatoes and baby carrots.
A significant effort was made to conserve food and reuse as much as possible. For Saturday dinner, the plan was to convert the left over mashed potatoes from lunch into potato cakes. Interestingly, all the masher were eaten at lunch, so, at dinner, new mashers had to be made and then converted to cakes. The potato cakes were not without their own problems. Mike tried a new recipe that he did not try at home first (lesson learned!) and the cakes were not cooking through and firming up on the griddle. Another leader, also named Mike, helped to saved the cakes by thinning them and adding a touch or two of flour. The flavor was right on and, with help, they kept their shape. They served the cakes by first putting a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese on the plate and covering it with the hot potato cake.
Dinner was those potato cakes plus sloppy Joes, which was reusing the spaghetti sauce from Friday night's pasta dinner. It is amazing how you can change spaghetti sauce with just some brown sugar and BBQ sauce.
Dessert time -
doughboys! Sounds strange, but they are terrific!
Ministry
Food is only a ministry to our stomachs. Our Rangers were at the campgrounds with Rangers from several other churches in San Diego. The boys and leaders met together throughout the weekend for great devotional times lead by Ron who is one our church's leaders. Do you know who Jedediah Strong Smith was? Ron used his story to teach the boys that they & the leaders should never cease to the be very best at what God has called them to be. Ron pointed out that Jedediah was called the best mountain man by his fellow mountain men and, here is the key, Jedediah's enemies said the same. The question to the boys and leaders: Does the enemy of your soul know you?
Competition
Saturday was the day of events. All the boys from all the churches competed together in relay fashion on several tasks.
Knot making. Here is Elijah and an adult working on their knots.
Fire starting. Elijah is using a metal match to create a spark which will ignite the cotton ball.
Not pictured is the compass relay and a fun water game.
Hiking
Boys and leaders went a short hike together on the
Pacific Crest Trail. Here we have leader Mike finding and stripping a bloom from a cactus for him to eat.
You should click on the picture to see it a bit enlarged. This is a
tarantula hawk. It is a wasp and has
an amazing story.
