Making A Heart Shot
Monday, November 29th, 2010 at 8:04 PMMaking A Heart Shot
FHFH.org
COLUMBUS, OH –-(Ammoland.com)- Many folks think our world is in trouble economically, socially, and spiritually.
How can we as hunters and farmers make a heart shot; and turn the clock back to a better day?
Let’s read what the Bible, the true and eternal Word of God, has to say in the last verse of the Old Testament about the disconnect occurring between parents and their children.
“And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:6 (NKJV)
Throughout North America most hunting and farming organizations are making a concerted effort to engage our young people with special Youth Hunting Days and 4-H activities. You and I can begin returning the hearts of our children to their parents and families by taking them into the world that God has created for us. When a parent and child spend a few hours sitting together in a pop-up blind striving to feed venison to the hungry their hearts beat as one. When a grandparent and grandchild share a seat on a UTV plowing a food plot they will share a closeness to God the Creator and Provider.
While watching a recently released movie, “The Nanny Diaries,” (don’t laugh) my wife and I heard the college -age nanny tell the mother of the young boy, “You have a very narrow window of time when your child has a total trust in you.” Recently, a father said to me that his son didn’t want to go hunting with him. I asked when he first invited his son to join him on a hunt. He replied, “I waited until he was 12 and able to sit still.”
Bowhunting Father And Son
As you may guess by that age the electronic distractions in life claim our children and grandchildren unless we get there first with the exciting, wild side of life outdoors that God has instilled in each of us! I was blessed with a father who GOT IT; probably because his dad, my grandfather, was a Church of God Evangelist, who failed to spend a significant amount of time with his six boys. While not yet five years old my younger brother, Don, and I were at his side on cold, opening mornings of trout season at Beaver Creek in Western Maryland.
I detested impailing the worms with those hooks. We crossed the twomile fields of ‘Ol Kentucky’ each summer to reach the Antietam Creek for our weekly adventures in bow fishing. Following many of those Saturday afternoon bow fishing trips we would take a trunk load of pretty big carp to a nearby section of town where people would flock to our car to take home a fish or two to their families for supper.
During the seemingly unending hours fletching arrows, making bowstrings, tying flies, and reloading shells dad would share our simple family values that were based on God’s Word. He explained that he and his hunting buddy, Bob Spong, did not hunt or fish with those who smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol because those habits ruined the hunt — and that included my brother and me. At the young age of eight or nine we were not aware that our dad was preparing us for the years ahead when our ‘friends’ would try to entice us into trying those and other harmful habits.
We sat in woodlots on nearby farms under oak trees together with dad and his trusty .22 caliber Hi- Standard squirrel rifle. There we learned marksmanship and shooting straight in life. In our early teens we took to the fields with my Stevens 12 Gauge Pump and dad’s Parker Double following our beagles, Chip and Beauty, as they circled the rabbits back to us. Following those hunts mom would prepare our rabbits and birds for the evening meals while dad was layed off from Fairchild Aircraft. We sat 30 yards apart from one another at the ‘Saddle” in Blair’s Valley with our Ben Pearson and Bear semi-recurve bows waiting for the shuffle of a doe’s foot steps. Bowhunting and tournament archery became our favorite outdoor activity.
As the years went by we learned to take deer to Holsinger’s Meat Market and pay for the processing so that those with less money and no deer would have meat for the winter.
My dad, mom, brother and I spent a lifetime sharing God’s world together as a family.
I know many of you throughout North America enjoy spending the same kind of experiences with your children and grandchildren in God’s great outdoors; because I’m blessed to talk with Tim, Doug, Allen, Caroline, Pete, Jason, Dean, Roger, Bonita, Duane, John, David, Henry, Jimmy and many others who call and share their family’s hunting stories. During the past decade we’ve become kind of a family who share the same passion for feeding and helping those whom God has placed before us.
And finally, during these thousands of wild adventures less than 50 miles from our homes the hearts of the parents and their children of our FHFH Family are joined together as we continue to make heart shots.
About:
Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH) is an outreach ministry of the people of God called upon to feed venison to the hungry among us nationwide. Visit FHFH.org
