MILL CREEK – In the Western tradition, youth pastor Brian Dickison took five city boys to a working cattle ranch in Eastern Washington.
Culture shock soon set in.
“A few of them had never touched a cow before,” Dickison said. “A cow would go to the bathroom and they would scream ‘Gross!’ and jump up on the fence.”
Within a few hours, those young city-slickers adapted to the rugged setting and were working alongside the ranch hands wrestling and branding cattle.
Dickison, as much an outdoorsman as a youth pastor, has come to value experiences that are far removed from the rec rooms of the Nintendo generation.
“Their first reaction was shock, but it was the shock of doing something completely new and outside of their comfort zone,” Dickison said. “But once they got going, they enjoyed the hard work. Sweating, laughing; they had a good time.”
Dickison said the worst injuries the boys received were baseball-size bruises to the shins from the hooves of excited cattle.
Branding cattle usually involves four people who herd a calf down a chute with someone at the end to make sure it doesn’t escape. Once in the chute, the calf is flipped on its side, given a series of booster shots and a local anesthetic before branding.
And the bullocking, as in the castration of bulls.
Don’t ask.
Dickison said the teens learned quickly and began to enjoy working with the calves.
He doesn’t think the young bovines hold the same opinion.
“Not the best day to be a bull,” Dickison said.
After a day of working with the cattle, the group switched to trap shooting. Armed with 12-gauge shotguns, the group shot at clay pigeons up and down the Ritzville ranch.
“Some of the kids learned pretty well. All the clays were done in a way to simulate how birds would react as if they were real,” Dickison said.
Only one of the teens had any experience with a firearm, Dickison said.
“At first they were angry because they weren’t hitting anything, but it was mostly a competitive anger,” he said. “After they got more experience, they got to be better shots and were hitting the clays.”
Dickison feels that getting teens out of church helps develop relationships and create a healthy masculine self-image and camaraderie.
“In a sense, the church can create sissy-men, and God calls us to be men of God. In that context, this is a way to introduce them to masculinity,” Dickison said. “Not that cattle branding does that, but it helps you connect with your fellow man. We could all use a renewed sense of brotherhood.”
Reporter Justin Arnold: 425-339-3432 or jarnold@heraldnet.com.
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