Finally, More About Goats!!

 

God is good, He is amazing and His works are incredible so basically I could stop there but then what fun would that be??  My last goat post was here if you wanted to catch up, but so much has happened since then, that it just blows my mind!! 

When we left the DR we left the community with a list of goals that would need to be accomplished before we could move on.  It is so important that they take ownership of this project for it to be successful.  So we left them with the task of locating land for the project and to locate and identify forage that would be used to feed the goats. 

Before I go any further, let me explain Dominican time to you because their time is not like ours.  Here in America we rush with everything,  I think we are a hurry up and get-r-done kind of a nation!  In the Dominican their time is much slower.  If they say we are leaving at 8am, we would hurry up and be on the bus at 7:55am and then wait to finally leave at 8:30am.  So when we talk about time, their time table can be much slower than what we  would consider normal.

With that being said, when we left we did not know how long it would take them to be ready for their next set of goals.  We were really hoping that January would give them plenty of time to be ready for the “next” phase.  I am very please to say that last Monday I got a message from the pastor saying that they found land and were waiting for the next set of goals.  I WAS FLOORED!!  They moved so much more quickly that I ever thought they would.  Not only did they find land, but apparently there has been many meetings discussing the goat project.  Very encouraging.

So what does this mean?  What is this goat project all about??

This goat project will feed hungry children in their community.  Some of the  children that reside there that are being fed sugar water because there is nothing else for them.  Their hair has began to turn orange because they are not getting enough nutrients to sustain their hair color.

The leadership of this community know the great need and  the importance of having dairy goats and daily fresh milk that would provide the very thing that could literally mean life or death to some children.  Trust me, I am speechless when it comes to this.  I have found myself, more quiet and reserved, in awe of the magnitude of this project and the way it is coming together.  God is moving in a mighty way and I have a front row seat watching Him work.  It is so much more than I can explain in a few words on a blog on how big this is.  I guess that is one reason that I struggle with writing this post, because my words can not do this goat project justice. 

The biggest thing I can say right now, is God is good!  I will share more on this as the goat project moves forward and as it is now, could be changing daily.  I do appreciate your prayers more than I can express.  Right now, we wait and are ready to go back at a moments notice to get the goats in the community!

Goats…Goats…Goats

Finally, I have a minute to sit down and talk about the goat ministry that is coming alive in the community of La Cumbre.  I will be honest, I have tried to stay calm about this ministry and not talk and get too wild about it, but honestly, I just can’t keep quiet any longer!!  I am so excited at how God is moving with this ministry and I can not wait to see it continue and come alive!! 

Here is where I first talked about the vision for a goat ministry.  If you are interested in going back and reading, click here.

There has been lots of research this year on how to get quality goats in the Dominican.  Many dead ends, lots of calls and no answers and a couple of calls with a Spanish speaking person answering the phone with me having no way to communicate with them.  But finally, I made contact with someone in the DR that could answer my questions and help me!  Paul & Linda are missionaries that moved from the states and began a goat farm near Santo Domingo in 1986.   Not only do they have a very successful goat farm, but also have started a school there in their community.  

   

We took eight members from the community of La Cumbre along with five members from our mission group and Daniel who is over World Servants, whom we partner with and his daughter to a day of “goat schooling”.  Linda laid out the importance of beginning a goat project for the right reasons, the hard work of making it successful and the importance of a co-op mentality.  

After some class room time, we hit the farm to learn about the forage and amounts needed to sustain the goats during lactation and also get up-close and personal with these very friendly and curious creatures!  I was so encouraged by the photos above and the interaction that was happening, all the way down to some note taking…very promising! 

So why was this day so important??  Because there were certain criteria that we felt would need to be met before we could move on.  The concern was when the goats were not lactating that they would be eaten. These alpines are massive, much bigger than many goats that they are used to seeing.  So we were so encouraged to have two men that wanted this project to succeed, so the goats would have the protection they needed from others in the community that might not understand the nutritional  importance of the milk these goats will provide.

    

For now I am going to leave this post at this.  There is so much for me to tell you, so stayed tuned for more!!

Also, I am asking for prayer for our family and some decisions that we are seeking.  I want to share more, but for now, I need to wait.  Thanks so much my wonderful blogging friends!

Goat Ministry

I have been up since 3:30am and I laid in the bed, tossed and turned, prayed some and finally gave up and got up.  My mind is reeling with thoughts of our up-coming mission trip to the Dominican and I am discourage a bit, optimistic some, and totally confused on this calling.  I keep asking myself is this is a God thing or a Patrice thing.  I asked God to make this clear to me, make His presence known to me where I will not longer question this anymore and more forward.

For those who have followed my blog for  while, you will know of my prior mission trips to the Dominican Republic and last year while being there I felt a calling to start a goat ministry.  You can read about it here.  It would take a small army to get this up and going and I lack the confidence right now to see it come to fruition.  Each turn along the way has been an uphill battle from trying to get a hold of our contacts in the DR to finding quality goats in the DR.

Yesterday I finally got a hold of someone that I found in the Dominican and was again optimistic on this is going to happen.  Now I am awake in the middle of the night, not being able to see the forest for the trees.   There is so much to consider, from the cost of the goats to the long term care of the goats when we leave.  Not being there, able to talk with some in the community that we will be working with, not knowing the dedication of those that we will be teaching and then entrusting the care of goats to those there.  It leaves big questions and very little answers. 

Again, is this something that we should be embarking on?  I am very confused, again very discourage and am lacking direction on where to go from here.  I am asking for y’all to pray for me, for this ministry, the trip and direction.

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!