Yount's chance encounter came at a Young Messiah Easter performance when a Jewish pastor who was supposed to carry the shofar down the aisle was unable to attend.
"I'd never even touched one before," Yount said. But once it was in his hands, he was determined to hear it blown.
He crept into a nearby prayer room where he could be alone.
"I blew it the first time like I remembered blowing on my trumpet when I was in school," Yount said.
The sound pierced the walls of the prayer room and reached the ears of people in far corners of the building. "Those people later told me that when they heard it, they felt the presence of God," Yount said.
In the Bible, Yount explained, the shofar is identified with the ram that became the substitute sacrifice for Abraham's son, Isaac, in the story told in Genesis. Throughout the Bible, the ram's horn was used to summon people to Mount Sinai, to announce the ark of the Lord, to rejoice and give thanks, and to gather people to worship.
"It was the shofar that Joshua used to bring down the walls of Jericho," Yount said. Symbolically, the shofar is believed to bring down the walls between members of families and to connect Christians with their Jewish roots.
Yount's latest "foolish" mission is the subject of a televised program about the shofar that he recently taped in Birmingham, Ala. The noon program will be aired Sunday, Sept. 28, on Sky Angel One network, which is available to satellite dish owners.
Now 54, Yount was born in Ford City, Pa. He was working in a steel mill in Pittsburgh when he got the call to follow Jesus.
Since then, Yount has preached, given his time at Mount Hope Prison Ministries and at Faith Chapel, both in Hagerstown, where he is an elder. During all this time, Yount never has actually held a "job" in the ordinary sense.
"I've trusted in God all these years," Yount said. With that trust, he and his wife, Dagmar, have raised three children, Naomi, 23, Danielle, 21, and Joel, 11.
Yount travels and preaches, subsisting on love offerings that flow from those appearances.
"I had more than 90 meetings last year across the country," Yount said.
His Christian heritage intact, Yount still feels his calling now is to help bridge the gap between his faith and the Jewish faith.
"God is moving on the Jewish people to know Jesus as their messiah," Yount said.
Yount's shofar came from Israel via a friend.
Yount speaks and blows the horn at Messianic Jewish programs.
"It's just an instrument, but it represents the breath of God, helping us to build our faith," he said.
