The Best Meal Ever

“The Best Meal Ever”

(Today is my father-in-law’s 88th birthday.  Here is one of my favorite stories about Bro. Voss.)

My father-in-law, Bro. Voss, hunted deer in Marion Count for many years after they moved to Texas in 1966.  He loved to stay in his pop-up camper while hunting at the lease.  Forever the optimist, he would bring all the essentials to the deer camp except meat, confident that the Lord would provide.

On one particular hunting trip, neither Bro. Voss nor I had managed to get a deer, so it appeared that we might have to take the “drive of shame” back into Jefferson to join other unsuccessful hunters buying meat at the Piggly Wiggly.  Fortunately, Bob, one of the day hunters on our lease, came into camp with great news – he had shot a deer, but couldn’t find it.  Desperate for “camp meat”, Bro. Voss and I agreed to forgo our evening hunt to help Bob find his deer.

As we went to find the lost deer, it became obvious that Bob, although a very good hunter and brilliant in many aspects, was seriously deficient in finding directions in the woods.  After wandering around for quite some time, it became apparent that Bob was not looking for his deer, but was simply trying to find his stand.  Ever the diplomat, Bro. Voss begin to ask Bob which stand he had been hunting and quickly veered us toward the lost stand and deer.  Putting Bob in the stand, we asked which direction he had shot.  Walking less than 50 yards in the direction he pointed, we came upon the “lost” deer exactly from where it had been shot.  As Bro. Voss and I dragged the deer back to camp, Bob expressed concern that we seemed to be walking in the wrong direction.

At camp, we discovered that Bob had no provision to transport the deer back home in his small car.  In fact, he only had a small cooler that would require the deer to be almost completely processed for transport.  Bro. Voss and I processed the deer and iced down the meat in his cooler.  Bob thanked us helping him find and process his deer, then got into his car and left without leaving us a sniff of camp meat.

I looked at Bro. Voss in utter disbelief, “I can’t believe after we found his deer, dragged it to camp, skinned and processed it, then he left without offering us some camp meat!”  With a twinkle in his eye, Bro. Voss said, “I was afraid he might do that.  That’s why I took the tenderloins and hid them by the carcass!”  Later that evening, as Bro. Voss and I sat down in the camper to a delightful meal of fried tenderloin, he told me, “There’s only one thing better than fried deer tenderloin, that’s STOLEN fried deer tenderloin!”  I guess the Lord does provide, sometimes in “mysterious” ways!

Years later, we continued to laugh about the stolen tenderloins, but Bro. Voss softly confessed that he believed the Lord Jesus and his friend Bob had both forgiven him.