God's Great Outdoors

Guest (Male): Welcome to Trail to Adventure. Today's program is a repeat of our most listened-to and the most requested for replay of the last nearly 200 programs. Several people have requested to have this replayed as it touched them so deeply. Please join us now for an ongoing testimony from Mark Witt on Trail to Adventure from God's Great Outdoors.

There's a special bond between a father and son. Often, it's a bond that will carry far beyond the death of either one or the other. In our lives, we truly don't know how much of an impact we have on our children or others that we have come in contact with. We need to realize that people that we see and touch on a daily basis are watching us closely to see if our words match our deeds.

On today's program, we'll hear from someone that had a father that had an impact on those around him far more than he had realized, and his life continues to impact others years after he's been gone. So come along now as we join our host, Dean Hulce, as he hears from his special guest about the value of living out our testimony. This is one of the most moving hunting stories that we've ever had on this program, and we want to share it with others. So let's join the two of them now as we head down the Trail to Adventure in God's Great Outdoors.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors, a Trail to Adventure. We are in Madison, Alabama, this afternoon, and we are with someone my grandson heard Mark Witt speak a year ago in a Special Youth Challenge hunt in Nebraska. He said, "Grandpa, you've got to meet Mark and get him on the radio show." Mark, good to have you.

Mark Witt: It's good to be here. Thank you so much.

Dean Hulce: From what I hear, and I've not heard it from you, you've got an amazing story that comes from tragedy, but God turned that eventually around. We're just going to let you talk. We're going to let you share your story and see where God goes.

Mark Witt: I grew up in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. It's a small Amish-Mennonite area about 20 miles from where the plane went down on 9/11 in Shanksville, Stonycreek. It's a very small town. My dad was a high school science teacher and a lay minister. My mom was a stay-at-home mom with four of us. In our family, when we grew up, we had two traditions that I can remember.

One was church. It wasn't religion; it was a faith in God. My parents lived their faith out. My dad was a deacon. My parents were both Sunday school teachers. The doors of the Meyersdale Grace Brethren Church were open, and we always attended. They lived their faith. They taught us Bible verses and taught us how to pray. I got saved when I was five years old with my dad.

The second tradition in my family was hunting and fishing. I didn't know it until much later, but I grew up in a very poor family. My dad loved hunting, but he didn't do it for the racks; he did it for the meat. In Pennsylvania, you have to be 12 years old to hunt. I can remember my dad going hunting and coming home with deer, turkey, grouse, and squirrel. I just couldn't wait until I was 12 years old. I had a brother, Dan, who's two years older than me, so he was hunting two years before me.

The time came when I finally turned 12, and I got to go deer hunting for the first time. The only problem was we had the snow of the century in Pennsylvania. We got about 36 inches of snow overnight, and we couldn't get out. The deer season in Pennsylvania is two weeks long, and finally, the last day of the deer season, my dad said, "Look, they've got the roads plowed. We're going deer hunting."

My dad was 6'4". I was a 12-year-old, my first time deer hunting with my dad. We went out to my grandpap's place, and my dad's cutting the path down through the woods for us. Dan's following, then my grandpap, and then me. I was so excited. It was dark as could be, and it was cold, but I was excited.

My dad dropped my brother off at a good place, then my pap, and then he dropped me off and said, "Now, I'm just going to go 100 yards down over the hill here. If you need me, just follow me." I watched as his light went out of sight for the last time. Little did I know that that would be the last time I would ever see my daddy alive.

I waited for it to get daylight and stood there for an hour or so and was freezing to death. It was so cold. I'm like, "I can't take this anymore." So I turned around and walked back to my grandpap's house. I was in my grandpap's house for a couple of hours, and then all of a sudden, fire trucks are going by, and ambulances and state police. I didn't know what was going on.

I found out later that my dad had gone down and got underneath a hemlock tree, cleaned the snow out. We had orange on before it was a state law in Pennsylvania. He was just that careful of a hunter. We were on stands, and then another hunter and his family came in and were doing man-drives, trying to get the deer moving.

This guy looked over and saw movement under this hemlock tree. Unfortunately, there was a stump between him and my dad, so he couldn't see my dad's vest. He saw black and thought it was a buck's nose, and my dad had long black sideburns. He's looking at it, and my dad's looking down over the hill because this guy's family's yelling and screaming. Then as the snow melted, the tree popped and it looked like antlers. This guy, his mind played tricks on him, and he was 100% sure it was a buck. He watched my dad for 10-15 minutes, pulled up, and shot my dad and hit him in the temple, killed him instantly. He went running over, thought he had a buck, he was that certain, and pulled the tree back, and there laid my dad dead.

It was tough. My mom graduated the day before with her teaching degree. My dad was killed on Saturday, and my mom met with the 21-year-old kid who killed my dad on Sunday and forgave him. That's the kind of mom I had. At that point, Dan and I got really angry at God because we were taught that God doesn't make mistakes.

Our dad was a godly father, a godly science teacher, track coach, lay minister. He shared his faith with everybody. We were like, "God, you took the wrong person." Right across the street was a guy who was an alcoholic at the time, and it was just an awful situation. We're like, "Why didn't you take him, not our dad?" Then we looked at the other neighbor, and he was the bar owner. We're like, "You should have definitely taken Paul. He sells booze to these people."

For years and years, Dan and I got very bitter, very angry. Years later, we moved to Virginia so Dan and I could both go to Liberty University. Dan went back to Pennsylvania 10 or 15 years later. This guy says, "Hey, come on over. I want to talk to you." It was Paul, the bar owner. Dan looks at him and he thinks, "You should be dead, not my daddy." He didn't say that, but he thought that.

Paul said, "Dan, I need to tell you about your daddy. He never missed a chance to share Christ with me. Every time we were in the backyard by the gardens working, he would say, 'Paul, let me tell you about my best friend. Jesus loves you so much he gave his life.' 'But I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. I'm young, I got plenty of time.'"

Paul tells my brother, "You know what? He never condemned me one time for owning a bar or selling booze. He just loved on me. For years and years, every time I'd see him, he'd tell me about his best friend, Jesus." He said, "I came home that day, and my wife said, 'You know who died?' and it was your dad." Paul said, "I could not believe it because he was 38 when my dad was killed. I thought he was an old man at the time, but not anymore."

Paul said, "The Holy Spirit just started convicting me. After a week or two, I went in and knelt by my bed and I said, 'God, I don't know how to pray, but I want what Walt had, and I want you to save me.'" At that point, you realize that God doesn't make mistakes. Paul went on to tell us, "I got rid of my bar. I knew I couldn't keep it. I started going into four nursing homes every weekend telling these old people about Jesus because they were really close to dying." He started smuggling Bibles into China because they didn't even have Bibles. Then Paul became a pastor in a church in our community. His family and my other neighbor's family, almost all of them got saved. It was like, "I don't make mistakes, God."

As an evangelist, I speak in prisons and churches and schools, and I tell people, "God does not make mistakes. I can promise you that. Even as tough as things are, he does not make mistakes." At that point, we realized that God was in control because if God had taken one of those two guys that day, they'd be in hell. God allowed your dad to be taken. We live in a sinful world. That wasn't God's perfect plan when he started and he created us. But because of that, many others are saved. My dad, his testimony, his story, he's led more people to the Lord after his death than he ever did in his life. He was actually working on a sermon the day he was killed. He was supposed to preach the next day at a friend's church. 30 years to the day, I found my dad's sermon and I worked on it. His was on heaven, and mine's on the rich man and Lazarus and heaven and hell. I preached my dad's sermon at that church 30 years later, and thousands of people have come to know Christ through my dad's sermon.

Dean Hulce: Well, listen, let's take a quick break because I hate to break it, but we do have to thank our sponsors and those that make it possible. We want to share that we are listener-supported and God supplies. We'll be right back with God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure.

Mark Witt: Years later, I wanted to start sharing our story, so we created a tract called "Mistaken Identity." We've now produced 350,000 of those. I do a lot of expos where all I do is hand out 3,000 or 4,000 of those tracts on a weekend, and it's just sharing our story and sharing our faith. I encourage people because I know a lot of people who are Christians have a rough time sharing their faith, and I say, "Look, consider me to be your friend and just say, 'Hey, a friend of mine has an amazing story about his dad getting shot and killed the first time he hunted with him. Can I share this with you?'" I've said, "When you put a tract in somebody's hand, you just shared Christ with them."

So many people get bold doing that because once you do it, it's really fun and it's exciting and you go looking for places. My kids used to go in Walmart looking for guys or people with camouflage, and they'd walk up and say, "You like hunting and fishing?" "Well, yes." "Well, my granddaddy was shot and killed the first time my daddy hunted with him," and they'd put tracts in these people's hands. Of course, they're going to read them. You're just planting seeds, and then the Holy Spirit does the rest.

Through the tracts, years later, a newspaper in Virginia where Dan lives now said, "Hey, I'd like to interview you. I read your tract. It's an amazing story." So I was going up there to speak anyway. Dan and I do wild game dinners all throughout the country. This guy interviewed us, wrote a little small newspaper article: "Boys used their dad's hunting tragedy to share their faith" or something like that.

The next Monday, Dan gets a call at his office, and he says, "Is this Dan Witt?" He goes, "Yeah." He goes, "Well, I'm Eddie Nickens. I'm a freelance writer with Field & Stream magazine, and I just read your story." Of course, my brother goes, "Yeah, this is my brother Mark," because I'm a practical joker and Field & Stream ain't going to call us. He goes, "No, Dan," he says, "I am with Field & Stream magazine." He said, "I just read your story," and he said, "I need to tell you something." He said, "I've been looking for 10 years to interview somebody involved in a hunting accident. Nobody will talk about it. You and your brother talk about it." He goes, "I think God wants me to interview you guys."

Eddie's a Christian. Dan goes, "Well, let me talk with my brother," and I'm a type-A++, and my brother's like a type-C-, so we really get along good. Dan asks me, and I said, "Yeah, let's do it. I want to do it." So Eddie goes and he interviews us. We end up going back to the tree where my dad was shot and killed in Pennsylvania. I had never been there. I got to share Christ with the game warden who did my dad's investigation.

Eddie wrote the article. Field & Stream is not a Christian magazine. The editors are in New York. Eddie called me and said, "Hey, I got your story written." He said, "It's the longest story that I've ever written," but he said, "I need to tell you one thing." I said, "What's that, Eddie?" He goes, "I've got to water this story down." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because they're not Christians. They'll never write it the way you tell it." I'm like, "Well, what do you mean?" He said, "Well, you share Christ every other second." And I'm like, "Well, we do." "I got to water it down." I said, "Eddie, if you water it down, as long as people understand the reason we do what we do is because of our relationship with Jesus Christ." He goes, "Yeah, I can do that."

He waters it down, sends it up to the editors, and I go back and meet with my dad's best friend, who's a pastor in Ohio where my headquarters was at the time. I was telling him about this, and Pastor Snell prays this prayer like I've never heard before. "Lord, don't let them water it down. Let this be the number one article ever put in Field & Stream. Let more people come to hear about Mark's dad and my best friend." He's praying this prayer, and I'm like, "Oh my goodness, just a powerful prayer."

I drive back to Alabama, and a couple of weeks later, Eddie calls me up and goes, "Hey, I just heard from the editors in Field & Stream." I said, "Well, how'd it go?" He goes, "They're going to put it in the double edition, December-January, to honor your dad because your dad was killed in December." He said, "It is the longest story that Field & Stream has ever written." They said it was just a really good story. He said, "They just had one question for me." I said, "What was that, Eddie?" He said, "They wanted to know if I watered the story down." He goes, "Well, yeah, I watered—" "No, we don't want it watered down. We want it told exactly the way the boys told you."

Eddie goes, "I have that copy. I can give it to you." So the original story is in Field & Stream. They call me up before it's printed and they go, "Hey, we hear your dad was working on a sermon the day he was killed." I said, "Yes, he was." He said, "Do you have his notes?" I said, "Yeah, I do." He said, "We want a copy for Field & Stream." His message that he was supposed to preach, "Will you be there?" on heaven, is in Field & Stream. It's now the number one article ever put in any outdoor magazine. It's won more awards than any other. It's the longest story.

Through that, Dan and I started getting invited to speak all over the country and in Canada. We had churches calling us up saying, "We want you to speak at a wild game dinner." Dan goes, "What's that?" "Well, you just have guest speakers. What do you want us to talk about? Share your story." Since the story came out, we have been in 36 states. We've been in Canada 8 or 10 times. We've spoken to millions of people. Thousands of people have come to know Christ.

I preach my dad's sermon every Sunday that I speak, and it's entitled "If You Were to Die Today, Where Would You Spend Eternity?" My dad has led more people to the Lord after his death than he ever did in his life. COVID hit, so wild game dinners slowed down. Then God started opening up doors. I retired from the Department of Defense after 30 years. I'm a full-time evangelist now. I speak at prisons. I speak at the largest prison in the state of Alabama each week. I speak at schools, which I love students. I've taught Sunday school for 40 years. I do homeless shelters. I do expos. Dan and I do wild game dinners. It's amazing how God just keeps opening up doors to share our faith. I tell people, "I can't save anybody. God just wants us to share." That's all we're asked is to be obedient. I learned something when I was at Liberty University with Dr. Falwell: "The best ability that any of us can have is availability." So I wake up in the morning and I say, "I'm available, Lord. What do you want?" Then I hang on for dear life because he opens up doors.

Dean Hulce: That's been since Lynn and I took over God's Great Outdoors—I shouldn't say took over, we've got a wonderful board—we're just hanging on. We hang on and just see where God takes us. It's an amazing way to live. I can't even imagine an impossible story to answer, but the question's got to be, was it worth it? I mean, that's a hard, impossible question, really, but—

Mark Witt: I wouldn't exchange it for anything in the world. I'm so glad I took an early out with the government after 30 years because I was young. Being in full-time ministry is the most exciting thing. The doors that God keeps opening up for special youth hunts with handicapped kids and traveling all over the country and taking my kids with me. It's so exciting to get up and share Christ, share your story, and then get out of the way and watch the Holy Spirit work.

It's amazing because our old pastor calls Dan and me his "missionaries to rednecks" because we do wild game dinners and most men won't go to church because there's a bunch of hypocrites there. But if you do a wild game dinner and they give a bow or a treestand away, well, they'll come out of the woodwork for that. I call it a bait pile. It works. I don't care if they're there for the door prizes or the food; they're going to get to hear the Gospel.

I think so many ministries miss that where they do everything except give an invitation and give a person a chance to trust Christ. That's what I love to do. I always tell people the clearest plan of salvation in the Bible is the thief on the cross. People believe there's many different ways to get to heaven, like you can shoot a deer with a gun, a bow, or you can take them with a car, like most people do. People believe there's many different ways to get to heaven: "If I follow the Ten Commandments, obey the Golden Rule, get baptized, go to a certain denomination." I tell people there is no scale in heaven. One sin will send you to hell, and we've all sinned.

I talk about—because I have an engineering degree—I talk about the wide road and the narrow road. I ask people every week, "How many people believe they're honestly going to hell today?" Nobody raises their hand. Everybody believes they're going to heaven. A pastor told me, "It's easy to get them saved; it's hard to get them lost." So I got to get them on the wide road.

I explain the difference between the wide road and the narrow road. It's sad, but the Bible clearly says many more people are going to hell than they are going to heaven. So I just explain the thief on the cross. Jesus is dying for us. If you were the only person in the whole world, Jesus would have died for you, and he paid for your sins. Next to Jesus is a thief on each side. The one thief is looking across swearing and screaming, "Get us down off the cross." He dies a few minutes later and goes to hell. The other thief, it says, is doing the same thing, but then he stops and turns to Christ and goes, "You're it. You really are the one way." Jesus says, "I'm it." With his hands nailed and feet nailed, the thief turned to Christ and goes, "Would you take me to heaven today?" Jesus said, "Today you'll be with me in paradise." That's what salvation is. If you haven't done that, you're on the wide road. That's where Satan wants everybody: "I'm okay, you're okay." I'm so glad that on the wide road, God used a pastor as an example. When he gets to the end and God says, "Wrong road, you're going to hell," the pastor goes, "No, no, no, you got to let me into heaven. I preached, I did all this stuff." God says, "Depart from me, I never knew you."

Dean Hulce: This is an amazing story. Again, I could never say I could trade my dad for this. I speak at a lot of wild game feeds too. I did one, and there was a gentleman that was saying that he had watched his son die. He said it gave him an understanding of God. He said, "My real understanding was there's nothing I could do to stop it, and God could stop it and he didn't, for me." How someone can hear your story just now, or hear that just now, and say, "No, I don't want that." I mean, we got a God that loved us enough to let his own son die, or in your situation, your dad die, to save somebody else.

Mark Witt: And it's a free gift. Each one of us has a choice. God just hands it out and says, "Here I am. I'm the one way to heaven." All you do, like the thief on the cross, is you turn and say, "Jesus, I'm a sinner. Save me." The Bible says whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Dean Hulce: Well, that's a good way to end the radio portion of this, Mark. It's amazing. We are going to carry on to the podcast portion. But thank you for sharing this because every single person out there needs to hear it. For our listeners, if you've never made that decision before and you have questions, get ahold of us and we'll get you Mark's information as well. Quickly, give us how people find you.

Mark Witt: Our web address is www.followingourfather.com, and then our email address is followingourfather@gmail.com.

Dean Hulce: Okay, or look me up on the website. If you forget Mark's, get ahold of me; we'll put you in touch. Please join us again next week as we travel down the Trail to Adventure in God's Great Outdoors.

Guest (Male): The goal for each of us should be that our lives reflect the love of God to others with those that we have met along life's paths. Our testimony is only as good as the life that we live out in private and in public. One of the most classic quotes in modern-day Christianity, when referring to evangelism, says this: "Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words." Today we heard this quote often, and for good reason. It's because its message resonates with many Christians about the importance of living a life of such Christlikeness that it makes the world stop, think, and inquire about the Jesus you serve.

There are few guarantees in this life. Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying there is nothing certain in life but death and taxes. While in our world that may seem to be true, for those that know Jesus Christ, we know that we can be certain of life even after death. We should all strive to live out the testimony as one who is a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. If you don't have that relationship, please consider that like our guest's dad, life could end before you know it. Are you prepared?

If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear the extended podcast version, you can find it by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. This program is provided by and can be contacted at God's Great Outdoors, P.O. Box 414, Powers, Michigan, 49874, or on the website godsgratoutdoors.org. That's godsgratoutdoors.org. Thank you for joining us today on the Trail to Adventure. This is Adam Erickson for our host, Dean Hulce, hoping that you'll join us next week and every week as we head out into God's Great Outdoors. Have a great week.