Teaching Your Family Bushcraft

My family and I have only just recently begun studying and practicing survival/bushcraft skills. The drive and push to do this came from the disturbing geopolitical events. We started out a couple years ago knowing NOTHING and in a short time have learned quite a bit. If I were just starting out I would first commit my works my efforts to the Lord. I would bow the knee and acknowledge that I don’t know anything and need all the help I can get.

First commit your works to the Lord (Prov. 16:3). Start no endeavor without first giving it to God. Let Him do the leading, the building, the growing etc.

Ask God to give you wisdom and knowledge about His garden. He is the source of all creative ideas and “witty inventions” (Prov. 8:12). All good ideas come from Him and so if you want to see what God has concealed for His own glory (Prov. 25:2), then ask Him to reveal it to you. I take inspiration from George Washington Carver who went to the Lord and ask Him to teach him everything you could know about the peanut. Ask God to teach you about wild edible plants those used for medicine and those used for food (Gen. 1:29; Eze. 47:12; Rev. 22:2). Believe that His garden is good (Gen. 1:31).

Ask God for power. The Word says that “power belongs to God” (Psa. 62:11) so you can do nothing without Him. Ask God for ability and power to make things, to see things, to hear things in the wild.

Ask God to give you desire. Ask God to help you like bush craft to enjoy it (Matt. 7:7-11). There are some things that I’m not really interested in like Hamm radios or generators. Knowing this about myself I’ve asked the Lord to help me like it and to be interested in these subjects and others ~ “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him” Phil. 2:13 (LB).

Study bush craft and survival in the Bible. When Noah took his first step off the Ark there was no 7-Eleven, Walmart, Sears, or anything. He could not just go buy a Diet Coke at the local Shell Station because there wasn’t any. Who taught Noah survival/bushcraft skills? He learned them before the flood and had a much greater knowledge of the Garden then you or I. How about Elijah? Who taught him to survive out near the brook Cherith (1 Kings 17:2-6)? God told him “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you” (1 Kings 17:9). That village is only about 13 miles north of Tyre and 8 miles south of Sidon along the sea road. In other words he had to learn a few things about urban survival and avoiding the searching eyes of wicked Jezebel (1 Kings 18). Another thought ~ Elijah lived within a mile of the Mediterranean Sea and ample access to Bull Sea Kelp, Sea Salad, Shellfish, and many other ocean edibles.

If you’re near the ocean there is no reason to starve. How about righteous Lot? When he fled Sodom into the mountains did he know how to make a shelter with an adjustable pot stand? Did he know how to make a solar still for fresh water? Did he know any wild edibles? I don’t know how he got along but it happened for him and God will take care of you to.

Take your first step ~ make something. I would purchase Richard Graves Bushcraft or John “Lofty” Wiseman’s SAS Survival Manual and make something. The very first thing I made in the wild was a tent peg at Penial Ranch, Washington. Easy. Just make something

I would encourage you to purchase John McCann’s new book Stay Alive: Survival Skills You Need because it has reviews of the latest and greatest equipment the survival/bushcraft world offers. I’d also highly recommend watching over 500 Youtube videos put out by Dave Canterbury at his Pathfinder School in Ohio. I would not recommend watching his Discovery Channel show with Cody Lundin because they frequently use coarse humor and foul language. Dave Canterbury is a Christian and I have yet to find any of that in his Youtube videos.

God Bless, Patrick