The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

The Cowboy Church of Orange County is hosting Paul Daily's Wild Horse Ministries on Friday, March 11 beginning at 5:30 p.m.

In about two hours, Paul, the founder of Wild Horse Ministries, will take a horse that has never been ridden or even saddled and train it to be attentive, trusting, and submissive. Paul does not "break horses," he "gentles" them, with words and pats, until they let him bridle, saddle and ride them - all within two hours. Occasionally, Paul can get the horse to totally submit by lying down. Paul says the Lord has given him this ability and is using him to reach people who shy away from organized religion and church. As the horse submits to Paul's ministrations, people submit to God's.

"We have witnessed individual lives being changed because of their willingness to submit to Jesus Christ," Paul said. "We relate horse training with soul-salvation how God loves us and how God wants to train us."

At the end of two hours, the horse will be ridden for the first time ever. "There are some horses that haven't been real pretty, but we were able to complete each one of them," he said.

Daily and his wife, Joanna, have been traveling with the Wild Horse Ministries for almost 15 years. They have performed over 1,500 of these demonstrations with nothing but success.

Because of the techniques employed in the training he is sometimes called a "horse whisperer". He describes himself as an "ole country boy" and "oil field worker". Paul has loved and worked with horses all his life. Before the ministry started he worked in the oil fields "for his bread money" and trained horses on his days off. He quit is job in May of 2000 and Joanna quit hers in 2001.

"We do these year around," he said. "I have to give God all the credit, none to me. I'm not a preacher, just a happy customer. I don't advertise. We go wherever God opens the door. One person will hear about it and then they'll tell another person. That's the way we do that. I don't charge, there's free admission. I live out of a donation bucket. That's how I live. We do sell t-shirts and videos, but other than that, we live strictly out of donations and free-will offerings.

Daily and his wife live in Trout, La. and have traveled to 32 different states, South America and Canada. They have two children, Lenora,23, and Dan 21. They both attend Louisiana Tech.

Joanna won't be able to attend the services on Friday due to a back surgery she had done three weeks ago. Lenora and Dan will join their father as he performs Friday's demonstration.

Wild Horse Ministries is a non-profit organization and all donations are tax deductible. If you would like to sponsor a demonstration you must provide PRAYER, an area of sand or tilled earth sufficient to erect the "round pen" and an untamed but rope/halter broke colt two to three years old. For information call 318-992-4667 or fax 318-992-7377