The post where Anna saw Jesus

Disclaimer: No goats are harmed, or even mentioned, in the making of this blog post.


Wednesday nights we have Bible study at our church, and although I'm not perfect about attending, I try to make sure we always go. There are times when I'm too lazy, or don't feel good, or have any number of excuses and don't go, I'll admit that. But tonight we had planned to go. First, we met my son for an early supper at the Japanese restaurant, (which was really an awesome surprise from him). As we left the restaurant with our full bellies and and boxes of leftovers, I drove through the parking lot. As I passed by one store in the shopping center, Anna and I noticed a man sitting on the sidewalk. He had a duffel bag by his side and a cardboard sign that said "homeless and starving, please help me". I stopped and asked Anna if she wanted to give him some money. She said yes, of course. I found a few dollars in quarters and she hopped out of the car. I let her go over by herself, to let her have the full experience of this by herself, not hiding behind Mommy. I'm not sure what she said to him, but he reached up, hugged her, and then shook her hand and told her thank you.

Yes, I know some of you are freaking out right now. I know what you are thinking.

  You let a homeless man hug her?

 What if he was a pervert?

 Or stinky and smelly?

 Or or or? 

 Yes, he was stinky and smelly, because I could smell it on her clothes when she got back in. He wasn't a pervert. He was genuinely grateful.

Guess what she saw?

SHE...SAW...JESUS.

How did she possibly see Jesus in a dirty, smelly old man with a bloodied and scratched face and torn clothing? A man who owned nothing but a few items in a duffel bag? How could I say she saw Jesus?

Matthew 25:37-40-Then the righteous will answer Him, "Lord, when we did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?"

The KING will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

We gave him about $4, and left. As we drove,  she told me about his injured face, and we decided to take some bandaids back over to him after we did our next errand. The errand took longer than we thought (which made us miss church), and by the time we got back over there, he was gone. We looked for him around town but found no sign of him. She's talked about him ever since. What he might be going through...Will he get to a shelter tonight, or be arrested? What else we could have done  for him? Bought him some food from the grocery store nearby instead of just the money, gave him bandaids right away, gave him our leftovers?

Most importantly, we talked about how helping someone like this man is exactly how to show God's love. Like the above verses teach us, when we help someone who needs it, it is just like we are doing it for Jesus.

Now, I know exactly what some of you are thinking.

He's probably just going to spend that money on alcohol or drugs, so why bother? 

You didn't do anything that will really help him, that was just a waste of money.

It's probably his fault he is in the situation to begin with, so he doesn't need your sympathy.

He might not even be homeless, he might just be scamming people. You just got used.

Every one of those statements might well be true. But if you are a Christian, and are thinking along these lines...

SHAME ON YOU!

Show me one place in the Bible where our actions only count if the person we are doing them for has honest actions. I'm waiting... Can't find one? Didn't think so.

Yes, I am well aware of the verse that says "if a man will not work, he shall not eat". 2 Thes 3:18. But you know what? That speaks of his actions, not our own. If we think we don't have to do for others unless we can prove they will be perfect, my friends we are dead wrong. I will be be judged by God for MY actions, no one else's. 

As soon as we got home tonight, Anna began making up bags to keep in the car in case we see this man again, or any other homeless person. Our small town doesn't have a lot of visible homeless, at least not that I see. In fact, he's the first one I think I've seen in town. I'm not naive enough to think it's not a problem, but I just don't come across them. We'll be better prepared next time, and I hope there will be a next time.

She learned so much tonight and saw so many parts of the Bible in action. She understands now, in a way that no Bible class could ever teach, what 1 John 4:21 really means: And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother". 

On a goat hunt

What an adventure we had this week! It all started last Sunday when my sweet friend M bought 3 new goats. Her ten year old son bought a pygmy/Nigerian Dwarf with his own money, and they also bought 2 pygmy does, both pregnant. Yay, more goats in the neighborhood!

The does are named Gypsy and Dora, and this turned out to be unfortunately prophetic naming. Wednesday evening, all three goats, including Mufasa the buck, disappeared. They managed to escape their new fencing and took off. Early Thursday morning my dad, who lives near her farm, called and said he saw two of them right below his house, but couldn't get close enough to catch them. Well, that was a starting point for the search that morning. M and her two oldest children searched for hours on foot, in the rain, but couldn't find them. I searched the woods and down near a pond behind my dad's house, and left messages with several people on the road. We all looked again Thursday evening, with no success. I did manage to find a goat, but it belonged to someone else. I was so excited when I saw a white horned head through the bushes, but when I got out there, it was tied up in someone's yard. So much for that!

Friday morning I had a facebook message from a friend. His friend had posted that they had two goats come right up to their house late the night before. Yay! Finally, another sighting! I called Mandy and gave her the address so we could start the search there that day. She was heading there from about 30 minutes away, and then had a flat tire. If not for bad luck...

I went to the house that had spotted the does, and found out they had been seen there Wednesday night, not Thursday night. Back to square one. My dad's sighting was still the most recent one. Where to start looking? Surely they hadn't gone far! I went up and down the road, leaving my phone number and questioning everyone I could find. 

I stopped at my daughter's house, which is near M's farm and my dad's house, to strategize a new search plan. I kept thinking, they have got to be right around here somewhere. They can't be far. I had just pulled up Google Earth to get a better idea of the neighborhood (I wasn't leaving this to chance!) Then I got a phone call from Dad's neighbor...

"The goats are headed your way! They just came by my house". I flung the laptop down (sorry, Kacey!) and ran outside to see the two little does nonchalantly strolling up the middle of the road, right towards the house. YES!!!

I grabbed the leashes and food bucket and headed towards them. I managed to snag one of them and get her into the trailer, but could not catch the other one. Dad and the neighbor were helping, so we had the neighbor to keep the one inside the trailer. Dad and I herded the other one back towards the trailer, where she jumped right in to be with her buddy. 

I was so happy to be able to return two of them to M and her family, but I knew her son was so disappointed that his buck hadn't been spotted at all. Without telling him, I suspected he had either gotten caught by a coyote or someone looking for a weekend goat roast. 

Late Friday evening I was headed home from a friend's house when I got another phone call. The little buck had been spotted! My daughter and I immediately turned around and headed up to the road where he had been seen. We rode to one end, no goat, and turned around. About halfway back up the road, my daughter yelled out "there he is!" Without any feed, or leashes, armed with only a half eaten bag of Bugles, we jump  out to try and catch him. He wasn't a fan of Bugles. As it's getting dark, we're tracking and trying to corner him through several yards in the neighborhood. I knew most of the people on the road, but there was one house that had residents that are, umm, less than neighborly. They hate other people's animals, especially goats, due to a previous encounter with another neighbor. So where does Mufasa go? Yep, right to their house. We knocked on the door to ask permission to go traipsing around their yard at night, but no one comes to the door. Great. We manage to get him back into a friend's front yard (incidentally, the yard where I got married 25 years ago), but then he gets back into the previous yard and up under their back deck.

 Now, I love my friend M, and I love goats, but I had to carefully weigh the consequences of getting A. shot, B. arrested, or C. both, by heading under someone's deck without permission or knowledge. 

We go to a neighbor's house for a flashlight and goat feed and come back, to try and lure him back out. I decide to try one more time to get someone to the door. As I head up the stairs of the front porch, I spy the little stinker ON the porch. My daughter helped me grab him, so we threw him in the car with us and called M to give her the good news. 

But the story doesn't end here. Since it was so late, we agreed I would take him home with me for the night. I didn't want to put him in my goats without being able to get him used to them first, so I brought him up on the porch. We have a fenced in yard for the dog, so I thought that would be perfect for him. 

About 6:00 the next morning, my husband wakes me up and asked if I moved him out to the goat pen. No, I replied, he's in Rosie's yard. Hubby said "Nope, he's not". 

Sometime during the night, evidently he jumped the dog fence or the gate on the porch and somehow weaseled his way into my goat pen. He and Molly, my pygmy here next to him, really took a liking to each other. They may have had a love encounter during the night. I hadn't noticed any signs of her being in heat, but she sure was enjoying having him around. Rubbing up against him, sticking close to him... She's not a social goat, so this is pretty significant.  I'm marking the date on the calendar just in case. I would be tickled to death if she is pregnant, because we were planning to breed them together anyway. She's about 4, so she's plenty old enough, and he's smaller than her, so no worries there. 

After breakfast Saturday morning, we got the three stooges reunited finally and made a ten year old boy very happy. But a word of advice to my friend M: as some of your other friends suggested, please change the does' names!!! No more Gypsy or Dora (the explorer)!