God's Great Outdoors

On this week’s Trail To Adventure! Gerry is visiting with Dr. Richard Swenson in Wisconsin and the two are talking about Intelligent Design on this week’s Trail To Adventure! The truth is there is more chance mathematically that your car happened by accident over hundreds of millions of years, then just your eyeballs having evolved and how they works with your entire body? This is just one of the things that Dr. Richard Swenson shares in the interview with Gerry as they discuss this topic and Dr. Swenson’s book, “More Than Meets the Eye”. Having taught surgery at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, and having minored in physics, this interview is jam-packed with information that declares that we have a Creator God. Perhaps the most listened to interview aired by GGO in the 20+ years we’ve been broadcasting.

On this week’s program Gerry visits with one of the most recognized leaders in the sport fishing arena, Al Lindner. The two hook up in Brainerd, Minnesota at the Lindner Media Studios, as Al relates about his testimony, which is the content in the tract produced by God’s Great Outdoors titled “A Fishing Legend Makes His Biggest Catch!” They talk about Al’s time in Vietnam, where he prayed to God for the first time in his life during a close call with the enemy. Al goes into the story of how his brother Ron and wife Deloris, came to Christ, (included in Ron’s tract: “The End Of The Line!”) soon Al’s wife Mary received Jesus too. Then with his two boys and Mary going to church, Al finally agreed to join the family. One day his youngest son requested Al to pray, but he didn’t know how! This broke the walls of Al’s heart and he had to go into the bathroom and cry. It was the beginning of the end of Al’s running from Jesus Christ.

On this Trail To Adventure! Dr. Tom Rakow, the founder of The Christian Deer Hunters Association and Gerry visit together discussing the numerous outdoor ministries that have come about over the years. The idea is to provide Christians looking to reach others who enjoy time in God's creation with the tools to aid in the ability to help win them to receive Jesus Christ as their Creator God. Tom shares about how The Christian Deer Hunters Association got started and how he never expected it to be what it is today. Tom also tells how he began writing books, and today despite the fact that he flunked English several times in school, with his family’s aid he has written a number of books that are helping Christians reach out to their unsaved friends and relatives with true stories on fishing and hunting.

On this Trail To Adventure! Gerry visits with Steve Chapman in Nashville, TN as the two reflect on Steve’s first book “A Look at Life From a Deer Stand”, released back in 1996, yet is still going off of bookstore shelves as it has been reprinted many times. Meeting a need of women who wanted something for their male loved ones actively involved in the outdoors, (specifically hunting) but which also had a spiritual impact and would change lives. Steve also discusses how important outdoor ministry can be in reaching the man and the impact that it can have on the family. Steve hopes his new book “A Look at Life From a River Bank” will also help more men become trophies of grace for the Creator God Jesus Christ.

On this week’s Trail To Adventure! Gerry is in Montgomery, Alabama as he dropped in for a visit with Ed Gannon. The two met through Russell Thornberry two decades ago, with Gerry getting to do a little deer hunting on Ed’s farm. At that time, Ed was just starting to see wild hogs occasionally on his property. Now twenty years later, it’s being overrun with these animals that are destroying everything and make farming close to impossible! Ed tells how he uses his farm to bless and minister to groups, fathers and sons or anyone God directs his way. He shares the increasable story of how a baby in Russia was saved because of a father’s visit to his place. Then Ed share on his work with “LIFE ON WHEELS” and the powerful impact this outreach ministry is having on mothers and babies around their area of Alabama for the Kingdom of God!

Now this week’s Trail To Adventure! radio program has us at one of the Trail To Adventure! conferences that GGO conducts across the USA. The location is Stanley, Wisconsin at Maple Grove Bible Church. The guest Chris Smith was one of the speakers from the conference’s lineup of pro’s and ministry leaders who joined Gerry. Chris is from Victory Deer Recovery (www.facebook.com/VictoryDeerRecovery) and he shares how he and his wife Meghan founded the ministry. It started with their love of training dogs as the two went to a seminar on using dogs to hunt and find the shed antlers of deer. The methods of teaching canines to use their noses even in snow covered country sounded simple enough. From there they moved to using their pets to helping others find deer lost while hunting. This lets them build relationships and share Jesus Christ too!

This week’s Trail To Adventure! is at a Game Dinner at Skidway Lake Baptist Church in Prescott, Michigan. Gerry is joined by this outdoor outreach ministry team’s leader, Gary Moore, who heads up the evangelistic event. After sharing about how he became involved in outdoor activities with his dad, Gary reflects on discovering the effectiveness of doing some form of sportsmen’s meal to bring in unsaved people to get them under the hearing of the Word. Skidway Lake Baptist Church’s event has some very special dishes they present to the local community, all with the hopes of having a platform from which to share the Gospel. Gerry saw and tasted some things at this Michigan Game Dinner he’d not experienced before, but best of all, there were a number of life changing decisions made!

On this week’s Trail To Adventure! Gerry is in the Wisconsin Dells in Wisconsin, at the Mathews Bows event. His guest is Joel Maxfield who was the very first employee of the company at the start, as the owner Matt McPherson launched the business. Joel describes the humble beginning that was so small and yet, how on one given Thursday, suddenly the orders started rolling in, one phone call after another. He realized then that God’s hand was on the business as this clearly was a blessing from the Lord! Joel shares on how important the Lord and evangelism is to the owners, always trying to be a reflection of the Creator, Jesus. Also, he tells some fun outdoor adventures stories from years past.

On this week’s Trail To Adventure! we are taking a visit with outdoor writer Tracy Breen at this home near Muskegon, Michigan as he is doing his job as a stay home Dad. Tracy, a freelance outdoor writer, shares with Gerry and the listeners how he got started writing outdoor articles, plus how he juggled this career with his family’s needs, playing “Mr. Mom”, watching the kids at home while he writes articles. Tracy also talks about how he got started in the outdoors, his love of turkey hunting and how he now has trained dogs to hunt turkeys, which is legal in some states. He relates the story of how he accidentally shot himself on one of his turkey hunting adventures, which almost cost him his life. In all this, he gives the Lord the credit for who he is and how Jesus has given him the writing skills that are helping him fulfill his dream of being an outdoor writer.

On this week’s Trail To Adventure! we’ll be hearing from Vicki Cianciarulo who is the co-host of the outdoor television program titled, “Archers Choice.” Vicki and her husband, Ralph, travel around the world chasing the many different big game species they harvest and film hunts for the show. Vicki describes her early years of growing up with her mom in a single parent home and how it impacted the times at church, limiting that experience. Being a “Tom Boy” she loved the outdoors and getting dirty during those adventures was all part of the fun. As a young woman she had a chance to go on a grouse hunt in the northern part of Wisconsin and from that moment on she was hooked on hunting. Next in Vicki’s life came archery and that is where she became acquainted with Ralph who owned the shop she visited to begin the sport. Together this couple was hunting in God’s Creation as the Creator Jesus was pursuing them all to have a personal relationship with this family!