Eastern Carolina Sportsman's Banquet

In April, Grace and I took a group of 6 people from our church to the Eastern Carolina Sportsman's Banquet. It was held in Greenville, NC at the Greenville Convention Center and hosted by People's Baptist Church. People's is a large independent baptist church in the area pastored by Max Barton. The youth pastor's name is Doug Weber and he actually invited our church to attend since he had been organizing the event. Apparently, it is usually held at the church, but this year they decided to open the event up to other churches and rent out the Convention center. It was my first time at the Greenville Convention Center which I thought was really nicely constructed. There were booths set up to peruse through: from car and boat exhibits, to guns, BBQ sauce, and hunting locations. We went over early and had the chance to look over everything. We even bought some Carolina BBQ sauce. It was a make your own mix. All the main BBQ here is pork and not beef. Although I suppose this sauce could be used for either. It is a mix which you combine with a gallon of sweet vinegar. Basically the mix makes one gallon. Since it was only a few bucks it seemed like a good deal.

The evening went well with several hundred people present. The church had a full catered dinner with BBQ and the use of that famous local BBQ sauce we bought. So we did get to try it. YUMMY! It is pretty spicy, but pretty good. We also had green beans, rolls, drinks, and banana pudding for dessert. The main event for the evening consisted of various hunting tips and thoughts by a special speaker by the name of Chad Shearer. He is a Christian man and has a television hunting program on cable. In addition, he is the editor of a hunting magazine. The night went well. Chad Shearer talked about how to do various hunting calls, and various hunting techniques. He gave a power point show and had many pictures and videos to go with his experiences. In addition, he presented the gospel in a very positive way that appealed to hunters at the end of the night with a conclusion of having them respond by filling out a card if they had accepted Christ. This gave People's Baptist the opportunity for follow-up. I thought that was good since about 20 people responded to the call to be saved.

There were many prize giveaways throughout the evening and at the end of the night the main prizes were given away. They consisted of a new large deer stand, an all expense paid hunting trip, a new deer rifle, etc... To wrap it all up,Grace and I both won prizes. She won a new camo hunting ball cap and I won a free heating and air conditioning service call.