Blessing in disguise for Hope Afield

Many of you have asked, “Did they catch who killed the pet goats?”  Currently, the answer is “no” the vandals were never caught.

However, that is not the rest of the story. God used that tragedy to bless us beyond measure.

Our Facebook article had 10,822 hits. Thousands across the Southeast now know about the mission of Hope Afield.

Our local community has been united around the loss of goats and our work in the community. Crimestoppers ran a segment on the event.

News about the slayings made the news statewide. Radio, TV and newspapers all had segments about the shooting of the pet goats.

Phone calls came in from around the southeast. We finally had to start turning livestock donations down.

Here is just a sampling of how God has taken a tragedy to bless us. We were out of town the day the goats were shot picking up two Great Pyrenees puppies that will help protect our livestock.

The Hope Afield children grieved the loss of the pet goats, but two new puppies helped ease their pain.

Plus, this event gave us an opportunity to teach the children that bad things can happen to good people.

Jesus said of Satan, “The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy.” Our battle is not against flesh and blood. Our real battle is against Satan.

Within days the man who had given us the pet goats a few years ago gave us two more goats.

Someone gave us three adult pet sheep that were kid friendly one of which had been bottle fed.

The day after they arrived in their new home, coyotes and wild dogs got in the pen and killed all three sheep.

By now we are starting to feel like Job. But the phone rang again and someone north of Atlanta, Georgia brought us more pet goats.

Next, we received a text from the people who gave us the Great Pyrenees pups. They offered to give us the father of the pups to help guard our livestock as well as they gave us a pet sheep.

Someone from North Florida called and donated a registered Appaloosa mare that is kid friendly, gentle and is a beautiful horse.

Yet again, one of the former University of Alabama football coaches contacted us and donated two Longhorn Steers.

Many calls of encouragements, funds donated to help with the loss and the new livestock and the response from our community has been overwhelming.

All in all, God is good and faithful. He continues to bless us as we serve our community.

In addition to these blessings, we now have a security camera and security lights around the corral.

Our smaller livestock are being protected from predators by a huge Great Pyrenees dog, a donkey and two Longhorn steers.

All can easily handle any predators that get inside the fence. Hopefully the cameras, lights and community watch will discourage any future vandalism.

God is so good! As Jan’s dad would say, “We have been wonderfully, wonderfully, wonderfully blessed!”

Visit https://www.facebook.com/hopeafield to learn more.