Royal Rangers Troop 393

This past Saturday we had the opening celebration of Royal Ranger Troop 393. For those who don't know what Royal Rangers is - they are a like a Christian Boy Scouts. It started in the US back in the 60's and has now spread to over 75 countries. In Germany alone, there are over 16,000 kids who are part of this program. We as a church had been praying about this for over a year now and have finally gotten a 'green light' from God to start a troop ourselves, the 2nd troop in Freiburg. We are officially known as Freiburg II, Troop 393.

Our desire is to reach the kids and youth of Rieselfeld, the neighborhood where we are currently living. As I mentioned in a previous post about Rieselfeld, there are now about 9000 people who live in this neighborhood, and over half are kids under 18! So this is a great way to reach these kids - the troop meets just down the street from our house in the neighborhood park, right next to the elementary and high school. At the opening celebration, the city even sent a representative to come and give a 10 minute speech on how the city is behind us, how they are excited to see us reaching out to Rieselfeld to 'give the kids and youth of our neighborhood orientation and direction in life' (something to that effect). And that is the ultimate goal of Royal Rangers - the 4 red points of the RR emblem represent the 4 basic teachings of RR - i.e. Salvation, Baptism with the Holy Spirit, Divine Healing, Rapture of the Church (can you tell this was started by the Assemblies of God?); while the white background symbolizes sanctification.

The five troop leaders are young students from our church - the main leader was saved through the Royal Rangers when he himself was a kid and his heart burns to see Troop 393 grow and reach out to the kids of Rieselfeld. At the moment the troop consists of mostly kids from our church who live in Rieselfeld (Jesaiah and Taliah included) and a couple kids (originally from Texas!) who we don't know, but who somehow heard about it and joined. And they want to bring other kids from their schools!

So pray for us, as we reach out to the kids of Rieselfeld. Here are a few fotos...

PS - you can learn more about Royal Rangers at their website.