Welcome to Christian Outdoors Podcast, I am your host, Pete Rogers.

In the early spring of 1971, at just 8 years old Joey Theil and his brothers went to live with his grandparents in rural Georgia. While exploring one of his grandfather’s barns he discovered two things that would change the course of his life. A stash of Fur-Fish-Game magazines hidden away from his grandmother and two wooden box traps his grandfather called “rabbit boxes.”

The magazines opened doors to places and adventures he had never imagined. The traps ignited a fire inside of him that has burned for more than fifty years.

That boy grew up to become a lifelong hunter, trapper, outdoor writer, hunting guide and has done some outdoor television appearances along the way. Although he never set out to become a firefighter or medic, Joey spent his professional career in public safety, retiring in 2024 as a highly decorated Captain with the city of Thomaston, Georgia.

While public safety was his profession, the outdoors was his passion.

As an award-winning outdoor writer, Joey has been involved in outdoor television, including fishing with the troops at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Durning the time he appeared on the Real Life Outdoors Television Show, he completed two NWTF Grand Slams, the Gooseview Grand slam of Geese, and pursued everything from antelope to gators and countless other critters across North America. Today, he continues as a hunting guide at Gray Ghost Plantation in Mauk Georgia.

Joey is in his third four-year term as an officer in the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. In the Georgia Trappers Association, over the years he has served as a Regional Director and is currently in his third term as Correspondence Secretary and second term as the GTA’s Legislative/Congressional Director.

But beneath the titles, awards, hunts, and trapping accomplishments is a much deeper story.

Joey grew up in a small country church served by a circuit preacher out of Atlanta. Church was part of his childhood, but as he grew older, his relationship became something different. For many years, he described himself as a “Christian on condition” turning to Jesus when he wanted or needed something.

He had experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit but lacked the spiritual maturity to fully understand what God was doing in his life. Today, Joey is the first to say that his walk with Christ is still a work in progress.

Today, Joey’s love for the outdoors is a driving force in his life. Especially trapping and turkeys. But above all those things is his desire to know Christ, grow in God’s Word, seek God’s will, and share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Joey’s Story is the story of a trapper, an outdoorsman, and a man still learning to follow Jesus one day, one track, one lesson, and one step of faith at a time.

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