The Vision: A Goat Ministry

This past year while in the Dominican on our mission trip I felt a strong calling to start, what I was calling a “Goat Ministry”.  There were goats, one on the side of the road tied up another

on the hillside

and then one night while our associate pastor was preaching two run by.

I was noticing them all over the place.

I will be honest when I say this, but last years trip was a really hard trip.  The year before when we went, I felt that I had accomplished something while I was there.  This time, I felt disconnected in a sense and some ways I felt that I was in a foreign country being totally useless and not doing much of anything.

The week while we were there, there were several times that I felt God tugging at my heart telling me I was there for a reason, but each time in that situation, I didn’t see why.  Allow me to explain a little further.

We stayed in a small church/community center.  Right past the place where we slept, there was a mother horse and a newborn baby foal that was just born, she could not of have been more than two days old.  Around her neck there was a red handkerchief tied.  The next day I noticed that this little baby was not looking very healthy and then upon looking really close, I noticed that it’s mother had no milk.  Right up the road were two goats that had a substantial milk supply and I said to my husband, they need to milk these goats and feed that baby horse. Later that week the horse had died from lack of food. 

I felt completely helpless that I was there, had the knowledge of how to milk a goat and I didn’t do anything.  It really bothered me a lot.  Throughout that week, there were many challenges that I faced.  If you have been on a mission trip you’ll understand what I am saying, if not, I am sure you can imagine that the sights that you see of extreme poverty is a hard sight to see. 

In just one day, I witnessed houses that had no electricity and dirt floors, an  eleven year old boy…a child the same age as mine…lying in a room motionless, sick, that I prayed over.  In another house down the road, a women lying in a filthy bed moaning in pain and her family asking for prayer, praying that the prayer will bring a miracle to save her from her pain and unknown aliment.

Later that night I laid crying in a bed that was thousands of miles from my comfort level asking God why I was here.  Why would He send me to place where I was so helpless.  The rest of the week I struggled, honest to goodness, down right gut wrenching struggling. 

During that week I talked with one of the staff members and asked  if these people milked goats.  She said not to her knowledge,  I then began to tell her what these people could do with goat milk, the nutritional values of unpasteurized milk, how they could make butter and various other things and on and on and on.  There are sick kids and adults that could gain substantial health benefits drinking goats milk.  With there being no electricity they could can the milk that could not be drank or use fresh for another time.  I felt God was showing me something, but how do I accomplish this.

The week comes to an end and we are back home.  I feel God is calling me to do something, but I feel so small and very inadequate on how to do it…how do you begin to start a “Goat Ministry”.  So I put it on the back burner and as I think of it often, I let my everyday life consume me and I move on with my life.

As I am busy with life I cannot move my thoughts far from the Dominican.  It was and is hard for me to take a shower each day.  I climb in my shower, turn on knobs and clean hot water pours over me and there I sometimes cry, having the guilt wash over me as the water flows down the drain.  I can't help but to think of these sweet people that are in the Dominican and how I am here, hot clean water, food in the pantry, being here, not there and doing nothing to help them.

Here is where this is going to get exciting….

One Sunday morning, our family had a hard Sunday morning.  We woke up late, fussed as we got ready.  As we sped down the road, already late for church, me and my husband are fussing at each other, and at one point I almost pulled the truck over and turned around to go home.  I said to myself, nope, devil you are not winning this one!  We walked into Sunday school  20 minutes late.

The teacher passed out pieces of paper and asked us to write down three things that we would do today if money was no object.  On my list I put international mission, Dominican, Kenya and a house in town.  Two other had mission on their list as well.  I explained how hard July’s trip had been and what I felt God was calling me to do but how I felt very lost and didn't know how to begin the task of, one, getting goats into the community and two, teaching them how to care and milk goats and what to do with the milk after they have it in their possession.  I said that if you give a man a fish they eat for a day, if you teach them to fish they eat for a lifetime and this is how I felt about teaching them about milking goats.

Well here is where God showed me that when He calls you to do something it will happen!  Here is where this gets really exciting!!

Kathy, who was was teaching the Sunday School lesson was filling in for our regular teacher, her husband and her son were the others that put on their papers that if money was not an object that they would do missions.  Eddie (Kathy’s Husband), the guy that had mission listed told me that he had goose bumps.   Kathy & her husband Eddie raise goats…do you see how exciting this is??

There is where the “Goat Ministry” became a reality.  Long story short, we are working on getting goats into a small, very improvised community named La Cumbre.  I only spent  a very short time in this village, but our church spent a week there two years before working on a church.  In this community there are shacks without doors they call home, children drinking dirty water and mothers that rely on men who come to them for a service, to scratch out a living to try to feed their children.

This is where God is leading us.  Here we can teach these women how to milk goats and feed their children.  The vision is to show then how to provide for their children and then sell goat milk that is left over to others to make a little bit of money to provide food and other essentials to their children. 

I have learned that God does not call the equipped to carry out his mission, but he equips the called.  Eddie and his wife Kathy have jumped on board 110%.  They have ignited a fire within me and I am excited to say that we are working hard to get this ministry started this June!  Yep, June 26, 2010 we will, with God’s divine wisdom, began a “Goat Ministry” in the small improvised community, La Cumbre!  Y’all I am very excited at the possibilities of this ministry.  Please pray with us during this extremely difficult time of planning and preparing.  More to follow in the upcoming weeks!