The frontiersmen back then really and truly relied on God a lot for their hunt. They could go months without eating and if you were not a real good shot that could hit your target; you might not eat for awhile. This kind of goes back to the Christian point of view that you’ve got to be straight with God or you might veer off the path and go a different way. That is what this leadership is all about, to reach and keep boys as well as families for Christ.

Also in these reenactments we cook off of the grill, we have no type of modern stoves. We use what ever we can find really. If we see something to kill, we will go ahead and get it, we skin and tan the hide. We use the hide for coverings on stools, for bedding, or we will slip it on the ground next to our bed to step down onto. It is all a whole lot of work, but very fulfilling.

We also teach the boys that are on these campouts how we make rope. We forge our lantern holders to hold our lanterns up off of the ground and we forge stakes to hold our tents down. There are many things that you can do with a forge, although we do not use horses, back in those days they used a forge to create horseshoes. They made them for their own horses to protect their hoofs. They also used a forge to keep the wheels on the wagons and buggies. They would put a metal ring around the wheel so it wouldn’t come apart.

In the evening time when we are camping we all come together in one cooking area. This is a very important part of the camp and is where the word fellowship comes from. We come together and discuss what struggles we had that day, where our weaknesses were and how we managed to get through it. You’d be surprised to find that the others had many of the same problems and we’re all in the same boat in this thing. When we are fellowshipping we all talk about how God can help us all through this and how He can get us through hard times. Wherever we struggle, we help each other through this as well.

In 2001 I was involved in the reenactment called Tombstone in La Grange, TX. We reenacted it as it was in the movie when Wyatt Earp and all the guys had lined up on the street. We had all the tents lined up facing the crowd. The crowd consisted of approximately 1,200 people.

This reenactment symbolized two bad sides coming together. We use blanks in the reenactment, there are not any projectiles coming out of the guns. There is a lot of smoke, a little bit of fire and a lot of noise that come out of the guns. I’d say most of the time these guns are like a cannon in your arm. During the battle the Chaplin came out and held his arms up, as in the Bible this meant “Peace be still.” We then ceased fire, the smoke cleared on the battlefield and he explained to the audience that what’s going on in their lives, things such as divorce, how the world wants to pull you away and they say “Let’s come out and party and have a good time.” Then the Chaplin read out of the Bible how to stop all of the battles in life, how God can save you and pull you in the right direction.

In 2002 we reenacted the Alamo. We had 40 men plus several boys involved in this battle. We had charges coming out of the ground with grass on top of Folgers coffee cans and had explosions coming out. It was really a realistic battle; we had ten cannons firing at one time. We had four on the Alamo and on the side of the Mexican Army we had six. All of our clothes were real clothes that were from back in that time period. All of the clothes were rented from a museum and we were allowed to use them. They were very authentic and very real uniforms. This gave you the feeling of stepping back in time to the days of the Alamo and the actual battlefield.

That night after the reenactment I saw 215 people change their lives. This was due to the Chaplin’s explanation of how in real life battles are taking place, how the enemy is coming to attack you, how to prepare yourself for life and how to make your heart right before the storm hits you. He reminded everyone that God will always carry you through the storms.

In 2003 we reenacted the true story of Paul Revere in Wallisville Texas. I acted out the role of Paul Revere. I had asked a cousin of mine if we could use a horse for this reenactment. The horse never showed up and since boys are always looking for a laugh, of course when it comes to me, I put myself down to their level a lot of times. So I found me a big stick and I road my stick horse through the camp and that was an exciting night! That night we probably had right at 20 that were saved due to the reenactment. The reenactment symbolized how God came through the village and people surrounded him and how the people shouted “Jesus is coming...Jesus is coming!” Much like this, all the people surrounded Paul Revere wanting to know the news.

June the ninth of this year we were invited to Anahuac Texas to be a part of a very historical battle that took place in Fort Anahuac. My cousin Solomon Barrow was actually in this battle along with William Barret Travis. They were in prison at the time. This was very unique for me to be a part of this reenactment knowing that my family had been in this battle and here I was out on the same field where they had actually been.

Friday evening around 6:00 pm we arrived at the Fort Anahuac Park. We unloaded our tent, got everything out of the wagon, we found us a nice shady spot and set up our tent. We put up the fly on the tent, which most know of you know is a porch on your house. Most of your dry goods go under the fly. We began to open up our chuck boxes and began getting ready to start our fire. As we prepared the meal we had some fellowship and discussed what we thought was on the mind of those guys before the attack on the fort. We began to pray that God would open up our minds, our hearts, and our ears as we thought about the guys that had gone out on that battle field the following morning, which was on June the tenth. This was the actual battle date. There were a lot of thoughts that those men must have been thinking and we were able to experience some of that in this reenactment. That is one of the reasons why I really wanted to stay the night in that park. I really wanted to get close to God and sympathize with what my past ancestors had been thinking at that time about being in the battle. I really wanted to feel that.

I brought along my two sons, my oldest son is Luke who is eight years old and my youngest son is Waylon, he is six years old. This was Waylon’s first camp out and he had never slept in a tent with me before.   We have beds inside of our tents; my wife tells me that we are spoiled. I do carry a lot of stuff away from home with me. We have very comfortable mattresses on the beds which are hidden by old rustic material.  It was really very hot that night and there were lots of mosquitoes. Those guys had really endured a lot for us and our freedom.

This fort is where the actual first fire came from and this is how the Texas Revolutionary War began.  We know the Alamo, we know the Monument, that’s all that people know and I think that it is kind of a sad thing to this community. These men and colonist got together and fought for us all because we did not want to all come under the Spanish Law at that time. They fought for our freedom here and that was a very hard thing that they did for us.  God always has a plan, either through war or through your family’s lives. Sometimes we go through battles, but it all comes out the right way…for our freedom, for our happiness and there is always forgiveness that comes out of these battles. God has forgiven us all, so we must forgive others.

The next morning we all woke up and put on our outfits. It was very hot and muggy, we sweated, we again swatted at the mosquitoes, the pressure was on us much harder, and we knew we were getting ready to face something big. However we knew we were headed down to the Courthouse to get on a parade float which relieved the pressure just a little bit. That was really fun; the town really came together in this event, everyone showed up with fans and spray bottles of water. We were able to enjoy some of that and we would ask them to squirt us which felt really great.

We paraded down through the town and Sheriff Joe LaRive was out in the front of everyone. We returned back to the fort and we all unloaded off of the float.  There were announcements in the background and they were announcing a brass band. Even though we heard them our mind traveled back to the reenactment part of it. We were not really stressed out about it; it’s just that being in those men’s footsteps through the battle was going through our minds as well.  We really felt what they had gone through. Even my two sons felt it. They really knew that something was going to happen soon. On the way to the barracks my boys did an outstanding job keeping watch for the enemy. My wall tent served as the barracks and this is where the men had set up camp so they would be close to where the enemy was for the next morning. My two boys paced pack and forth in front of the barrack area. They were armed with non-firing replicas; however in their minds they were real. This was really neat, I really enjoyed them being there with me and they’ll always be there with me. God has so many things in store for us in the future. We have sat down and prayed many times together as father and sons.

After a short while we paraded across through the trees one at a time, there were three other guys with me, Mike Gilbert, Edwin Erwins, and Buck Leavins SR. We were the four main characters of this battle at the fort. We had  fourteen men inside the fort, all of them were from Galveston, and they were very organized in color with red shirts and white pants. The Mexican army was the same, back in those days they  were very organized and color coordinated. Those guys pulled the trigger on us; they fired a four inch cannon towards us. This represented the first fire from the fort towards the colonist. The colonist then stormed through the trees, up the hill and on top of the land that was facing the fort. They would each drop down one knee at a time then fire, and then the next guy would go ahead and fire. He would drop to one knee, reload, and repack, then fire. There was a lot involved in repacking your gun, you had to make sure that there was something still on fire down in the barrel; however you did not look down the barrel. They just waited a few seconds and swabbed the barrel then reloaded 150 grains, then put in 400% cotton cloths, packed it down, and then dropped down to fire. We did this several times all the way up to the fort.

Approximately 50 feet away from the fort, the Mexican Army, which was represented by the folks from Galveston, ran away from the fort and left Travis. My cousin Solomon Barrow had escaped before the original battle took place. In the reenactment we captured Travis and let him go. Later on Travis had made his way across to the Alamo for the next battle that took place in history in 1836. At the end of our reenactment the smoke had all cleared, the Mexican Army had fled the fort and we had won that battle and taken over the area. Every one of us cheered. The crowd that was across the street from the fort even got loud. It was great, there were approximately 1,500 to 1,800 people.

After the reenactment we had an editor that did some documentary work on us. We will be shown on PBS and the History Channel in about four months. He will keep us posted on when it will air and I will be sure to let the community know when it will be shown.

On November the 9^th on Friday, November the 10^th on Saturday, and on November the 11^th on Sunday, we will be having what we call our “section camp out.” This is a once a year camp out in the Fall Season, it will include a reenactment on Friday and Saturday night. We invite the community to come out see it during the daytime from 1:00pm until the council fire is over between 9:30pm and 10:00pm. The community is then dismissed and the gates to the camp are locked at 10:00pm at night. You are more than welcome to come back on the following day and do it all over again. Our camp is located off of Lake Charlotte which is on Lake Charlotte Rd in Wallisville, Texas. It is off of Hwy 563 on the North side of I-10. There will be signs posted out on the street that will give you directions to the park. When you arrive in the park you will see that our tents are set up very much like an army base. The tents are set up in a line and they all have perimeters around them. This represents different communities which consist of different churches from the Houston area.

I serve on the San Jacinto Section Staff as Camp Coordinator and also the Director for the Pine Wood Derby for the Houston area. It’s a very large area, it takes a lot of time and I thank God for an understanding wife. She’s there, sometimes not by my side, but she’s always there with me in my heart. Sometimes she is with me on these campouts as well.