Kicking Bear Wisconsin Youth Hunt 2022
Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
October 7-9th was the annual Youth Hunt for our Wisconsin Kicking Bear group of mentors and mentees. Our amazing hosts Denny and Melanie Simon welcomed the group up to Hixton, WI on Friday night and you could feel the excitement in the air as 8 young hunters got settled in while connecting with each other over a pizza dinner. The group was a great mix of some seasoned hunters, as well as several kiddos going out on their first hunt ever! Sarge Symons led the group in a safety meeting and did a great job of getting the whole group focused on staying safe and also being reminded to take good shots for a clean harvest. We were incredibly blessed this year with hundreds of years of wisdom and experience from our 11 mentor guides. This experience combined with the generous donation of land to hunt on created the perfect recipe for a successful hunt for the youth. After our safety meeting the whole crew got tucked in early as visions of monster bucks filled the minds of a very eager hunting party.
Saturday morning we woke up to the coldest morning yet this fall. Frost covered the ground, but it wasn’t slowing down the young hunters as they bundled up and headed out to their blinds with their trusty mentors leading the way. Prayers were sent up to our Father to guide us, keep us safe, and provide deer for us to harvest. The hunt that morning got off to a pretty sweet start as Bri got a nice 8 point buck about an hour after sun up! The rest of the morning was filled with turkeys and a few more deer sightings, but after Bri’s buck the hunting stayed fairly quiet. 
Everyone headed back to camp around noon and Denny and Melanie had hot food coming off the grill. A game of football popped up on the lawn and Bri and her dad Mel filled us all in on stories of the buck harvest. Then Mel showed us how to skin and process the deer, once again we were so thankful for him sharing his knowledge with us all. The highlight of lunch was when Larry Guthrie shared a message with the group. The message reminded us all that we face a very real enemy in Satan and how he uses all his tactics to try and harvest us, put us in his frying pan. Larry further demonstrated this with a very cool visual including an egg, some fire and a glass bottle. Through the demonstration we were reminded that Satan can and does sometimes “draw us in” and we can need someone’s help to get back on track and out of the grasp of the enemy. The message included some great hunting stories from Larry and of course the power of the Gospel and a real relationship with Jesus! After the message we were ready to get back in the blinds and see what God had ready for our evening hunt!
The Saturday evening hunt started kind of slow with a few deer sightings and some twitchy turkeys, but as the sun started to drop the action picked up. It started with Chaz getting a nice 6 point buck, then Riley with a nice doe! The deer were really moving now and Korban got a second chance at an earlier visitor and on this 4 pointers second pass by the stand that day he was on the way to Korban’s frying pan! Gunner also harvested a 3 point buck before the sun went down and the crew headed back to camp that night with four more deer in the trucks! 
Rolling into camp we were met with one of the coolest parts of the trip. Melanie had arranged for a worship group from Eau Claire guided by Michael Rambo to come and lead worship for us all!! Imagine after a day of sitting in God’s creation and coming back with such thankful hearts for the deer that were harvested, we all got to step out of the trucks and into such a beautiful setting of worship and praise. After our time of worship we got to hear from the hunters. Riley, Robert and Chad shared how they hadn’t been seeing deer and finally Robert led a prayer, Riley followed with his own prayer and then God provided!! Many groups shared about praying in the blinds and it was cool to hear how God responded to those prayers. There is something powerful about being in God’s creation, praying to Him for provision and then seeing the results of those prayers right before your eyes. We can get pretty distracted and busy in the world around us, but those hunting blinds provided a time and space for us all that day where all the distractions and busyness faded away and the closeness to God was overwhelming and awesome!! Lots of smiles as we tucked in that night with bellies full of Sarge’s chili and 5 successful hunters already with back straps for the frying pan.
Sunday morning Kaylie, Reese and Caden rose early to go get one more chance to fill tags. The pressure was especially on for Kaylie as this was her last year on the youth hunt. She had shared on the ride up that she would be transitioning into a mentor role next year, so she just had this one last morning to end on a high note. Kaylie waited patiently as a few deer stepped out into the freshly picked bean fields but they were all just out of reach for a good shot. Her guide Tyler kept close watch on a group of 3 does as they moved farther out from the tree line and when they stopped about 250 yards out Kaylie scoped one up. She took a deep breath and let us know she had a good shot. Seconds later the doe fell as Kaylie made a great shot. She had done it, filled her tag for the last time as a mentee! 
As the morning hunt came to an end everyone chipped in to get blinds taken down, camp cleaned up and of course swap stories of the hunting weekend. After cleaning up we all circled up for a beautiful church service together. The kiddos shared stories of their hunts, Riley preached out of Philippians, and Ethan led worship on his acoustic guitar, the air was filled with thankfulness and a sense of camaraderie between the mentors and mentees. 
Another amazing Kicking Bear Youth Hunt had come to an end. The one word that just kept popping into my head as I reflected this past week over the hunt was “Thankful”. We thank God for His amazing creation and for the experience of harvesting deer to take home and feed our families. Also, thankful for our hosts Denny and Melanie for providing such a great place to stay. We thank Ashley Furniture/LTM Farms and Rick Teska who allowed us to hunt on their land. Incredibly thankful for our servant hearted mentors who gave their time, energy and wisdom so freely, and thankful for the youth and their families too. We also had kiddos stomping ground up north hunting for bear this fall. These hunts are life changing opportunities for the youth and the adult guides, thank you to everyone who helps make this possible!!