A Scout is Reverent! That is the 12th point of the scout law and as scouts it is our duty to do our duty to God. Through out the Jamboree on Sunday there were plenty of services for the boys to choose from in order to appeal to every religious preference. Services started at 9 AM and ended at various times depending on the length of the service. For almost all of our boys this is how their morning began but for one his morning started a little earlier with a very cool and unique opportunity.
Mack Cory and several other boys from the central region had their name put into a drawing in which the winners got the opportunity to participate in the flag raising ceremony at 8 AM sharp. Mack’s name was drawn and was chosen to represent our troop and help assist with the ceremony by raising the Missouri flag at the court of flags. The court of flags has a total of 53 flag poles which hosts a flag for each state, the American flag, the Jamboree flag, and the international scouting flag. This was a very special opportunity and Mack did an excellent job representing our troop and our council.
As we got back to camp after the flag raising Mack took charge and made sure everyone was accounted for and had a plan for the morning services. Once this was done he sent them on their way for the day in order to make it on time for the various religious services to begin. Every boy was eager to attend a service of their faith because this put them one step closer to earning their Duty to God rocker patch. One of the requirements is to attend a faith service and what better time to complete that than on Sunday morning.
After services ended many of the boys came back to camp to gather their things for the day and relax a bit before activities started up again. Most activities didn’t start till 1 PM with a few starting on the noon hour, which gave the boys a chance to catch their breath from the fast paced life that we call a National Jamboree.
With a shortened day of activities I decided not to venture very far from the campsite, I went and picked up lunch at one of the kiosks and swung by the patch board again to see how well it was filling up. The board was gaining momentum and filling up fast, I think it had to do with the free t-shirt incentive that they started doing. If you donated a patch to the board that they didn’t have already you got a free t-shirt and it was apparent how well that was going by the large jump in patches on the board. However onto lunch, it was like always your typical cold cut meal for the on the go scout with a frozen juice pack that seemed to grace almost every lunch no matter when you picked it up. After lunch activities continued for the boys but if I remember correctly I chose the napping activity so not many pictures were taken that afternoon. On a side note though, I can say that I wasn’t the only one working on the napping merit badge. Sorry John but I promised I would put it on here.
Later that evening we had another special opportunity when we swapped 10 of our boys for 10 boys from another troop for supper. This exchange was great for the boys because they got to experience how to be a host to some young men from Utah. Everyone had a blast as they swapped stories and patches making it a fun evening for everyone involved. Before they left to go back to their own campsite we thought a picture needed to be taken to mark the occasion, so we lined everyone out in front of the gateway for a snapshot to use as a reminder of the fun times we had that evening.
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