A dream come true

On November 21 Glen caught his hawk, she is a red tailed hawk and her name is Nike, named after the Greek Goddess of Victory.  Here is the story:

Because it is getting cold we have started going to Goshen canyon each week for our forest school.  On the way there we saw this beautiful juvenile red tailed hawk sitting on a stack of baled hay.  Two and a half hours later, on our way out she was still there.  We needed to stop and get gas, but when we got to the gas station my bank cards were gone.  We rushed back to our site in the canyon and searched everywhere for my cards, but we couldn't find them.  After praying I felt prompted to look in my wallet again and there they were!  As we got back into the car I noticed the weakness, exhaustion, and pain I had been having all morning from a fibromyalgia flare was gone.  I was frustrated that I had driven all the way back only to find my cards and asked why the Lord couldn't have had me look earlier, He said "Wait"

Glen said if that bird was still there he was going to try and catch it, and I felt God saying "This is why."  Abigail suggested we say a prayer and she asked that Heavenly Father help Glen to be stealthy enough to sneak up and catch the bird.  She was still there as we pulled around the bend in the road and she was facing away from the road.  I parked across the street and Glen took my jacket and climbed the fence.  The girls and I prayed the entire time.  Abigail prayed that he would get the bird and promised to stop eating sugar until Christmas if the Lord would help him.  I prayed and said "Please make him invisible, I know you can do it.  You did it for Jesus in the crowd, please do it for Glen."  Over and over, "Please please please, I know you can do this.  It means so much to him, he's worked so hard to get here, it will mean so much to him."  Every time I started to doubt I prayed even harder.

Meanwhile, Glen hopped over the fence and snuck up to the stack of hay.  Now and then the bird would look up and look around, but never at Glen, always at us or at cars passing on the road.  Glen was struggling to climb the hay, it was sharp and there wasn't really anywhere to hold onto.  At one point he squatted down and stayed there.  He told me he was ready to give up, but instead he prayed.  He felt doubt, "There's no way this is going to work, it's going to fly away."  But he said He felt Heavenly Father asking him to have faith in Him.  So he prayed to know what to do and felt the Lord guide him to throw my jacket up onto the little ledge below the bird and jump for it.  I thought for sure, throwing the jacket would scare the bird away, but she didn't even notice.  Glen kept looking at me to make sure she was still there, giving me a thumbs up to ask and getting a big thumbs up to answer.  After he jumped for the ledge and gotten his footing, he asked again, she still hadn't noticed, but Glen didn't believe that all the noise hadn't bumped her, so he took a peek and sure enough, there she was.  He reached up and grabbed her, she footed him a tiny bit before he got full control of her and wrapped my jacket around her.  I ran out to help him at that point, I couldn't help jumping and yelling, doing a happy dance and squealing!  I helped Glen down from the hay and we went back to the car where it was hard to be quiet so we didn't overwhelm his bird.  We were all so happy we kept spontaneously giggling, yelling, and squealing and then reminding each other to be quiet.

I think I said the most heartfelt prayer of gratitude I have ever said.  Tears literally dripped down my face the entire time.  My heart was overflowing right out of my eyes! 

Glen named her Nike and she is beautiful!  She is the most beautiful bird I have ever seen.  She is in great health, very strong, well fed, and she already likes Glen.  The first person he called was his falconry mentor.  We didn't tell John what had happened, Glen wanted to tell him in person so we called ahead and asked John to get everyone who was home outside in the garage so they could meet Nike when we got home. Then Glen and John rushed up to Craig's house to get anklets and jesses put on, to weigh and examine Nike, and to hold her properly for the first time.  Glen is headed back to the hay as I type this us, so he can retrieve whatever she was eating yesterday.  Hopefully there is enough there to feed her for a day or two until he can get her something else.  The next steps are to man her, which means to get her used to him, and to make her eat out of his hand.  She doesn't eat until she eats from his hand.  Once that has been accomplished he will start training her to respond to his call, and hunt when she hears it.  Then he can take her out and hunt with her.  He thinks it will take no more than a few days to man and feed her because she already seems to like him, but the rest of the training will take a few months at least.

Glen has wanted to be a falconer since he was 6 years old, this is a dream come true for him.