Thursday Night Pursuits: Sharing inspiration and outdoors adventures

Getting together to join the party in hunting is one of Libby's fun traditions, but there are few more special than at Libby Christian Church’s Thursday Night Pursuits. 

For five consecutive Thursdays every fall, community members joined in the event, which ended on Nov. 17.

This event hosts hundreds of locals. A fun raffle for the kids to earn some fun prizes kicks things off. Church parishioners Jim Regh and Bill Armstrong showed their 90th video featuring different hunting stops and the beauty of nature.  

Then preaching minister Phil Alspaw came on stage and talked about his latest adventure, what he called his "Mission Journey” in Nebraska with his sons. They spent their time hunting ducks and geese. 

He talked about how his favorite times in the trip were the first goose that fell and the last goose that fell, a “book end of good times” as he described it. He also shared that this was the first time he had shot a banded goose. Wildlife officials place ID bands on migratory birds for the purpose of gaining information.

Alspaw's first goose put up a fight after it hit the water. When their dog attempted to retrieve the bird, it pecked at the canine and the dog almost gave up as it started to head back to shore. But halfway back the dog turned around and made a successful retrieve. The audience enjoyed a laugh after hearing their second dog, younger and new to the hunt, had immediately turned back around and ran to his owner when the goose started flapping around. 

Alspaw ended his tale about the whole group, which included his son, his friend Rich and he had come across a flock of geese. Rich's persistent calling brought the geese into gun range where the hunters lay in wait. 

"It was an amazing sight,” Alspaw said.

When some geese hit the water, their dog was on its way to retrieve them.

Alspaw also shared an article he had come across that gave him inspiration and a good laugh.

“If you spend enough time outdoors you will eventually run across something unexpected but I would add to this by saying if you spend enough time in hunting camps you will eventually have some unexpected stories,” he said. 

In closing, Alspaw read and talked about a Bible verse located in the Old Testament, 2 Kings Chapters 6-7 with the moral being that there are three types of people. They include the ultimate problem managers, problem solvers and problem magnets.  

"Problem managers are people that see the problem and will do all the right and wrong things until they fix the problem at hand. Problem solvers are people that see the problem, evaluate it and with the steps they have planned they will over a longer course of time solve the problem without hardly any missteps, it just takes them longer to do so," he said. "Last but not least are problem magnets, these are the people who see the problem and freak out. Their head runs through all the things that could go wrong or be wrong. They think about the problem at hand so much they overbuild it. Eventually they get through the problem but only after they are able to stop overthinking it."