Feeding Fawns

This spring Nancy and I met a young couple in the missions class at our home church. Scott and Cassie are about to get married and they are asking wedding guests to contribute money to an orphanage in Africa in lieu of wedding gifts. And on their honeymoon, they will visit that orphanage. Some of you may recall that Nancy and I asked for similar generosity four years ago when we got married shortly before going to Central Asia. We felt a strong connection to this couple immediately.

When they asked about our road-trip, we told them that we would probably spend one night in northern Illinois on the way to northern Wisconsin. Cassie immediately said, “Oh, you will have to stop and meet my parents. They live right on your way in northwestern Illinois and would love to meet you.”

After exchanging more details, we decided that we would, indeed, like to meet Cassie’s parents. We learned that they became Christians about six years ago and that they raise white-tail deer as their primary income source. We also learned that we would be traveling in their area exactly when they would have many bottle-fed fawns to take care of. Who could resist that temptation?

As it turned out, Cassie’s mom was in Nebraska on the night we stopped in Illinois, but we were warmly welcomed by her father. And he appreciated our help in bottle feeding 19 little buck fawns ranging in age from a few days to about three weeks. We also got to hear her dad’s story of how he came to the Lord and got to meet Cassie’s little sister and her three-month old nephew, Cole.

The fawns were shy and somewhat flighty, but their hunger drove them to approach us. And once we got a nipple into their mouths, there was no holding them back. They trampled our feet with their tiny hooves and competed with each other for the liquid nutrition we were offering and soon forgot all shy impulses as they filled their little bellies.