How does ministry happen? Sometimes god tells you to do something and you go do it and sometimes He says nothing at all just orchestrates events to come together and fall right in your lap. That is happening in Merger with the goat project in a most unexpected way.

You might remember around my birthday I was going to take some of the 'bad boys' to the beach and it didn't work out. Since that time I have kept up dialog with them always joking around with them and such.

A tiny bit of digression here - we are having a terrible drought this year and the large pasture where we keep our CVM breeding stock and the extra project goats is dry as a bone. I have been supplementing the goats feed with cut food since the first of July.

So around the end of July one of the children was ready to give her twin female goats back to the project. I didn't want to take them because we have no grass and that meant more forage to cut and carry.

So the guys from the two gangs in Merger were talking with me and said Dr Kelly why won't you give us a goat. They aske me for something almost daily - gas for their motorcycles, bread, money - just something to see if I'll give it to them. I never do. So on that day I said yes because I needed to do something with these two young goats.

Well its been a month and they are doing well with them. When TS Isaac passed through the wall where we keep all the goats fell so we have about 35 goats at the training center in a space that can support about 2 goats. So I loaded up six males that I am holding until Christmas time when the price of goats is highest so I can make the most money for the project. my selfish self said I'll take the males and let the gangs look after them and when we sell them I'll give them some money and that is 6 less goats I have to feed (they are eating about 3 pickup loads full of leaves a day).

The guys were tickled pink and thought I was doing them a huge favor but in reality I was trying to make less work for myself. They are so excited and asking questions about the goats and wanting training and asking for individual goats for each member of the gang. So today I picked up 6 more males from Pernier that the kids were giving back and took them to the guys. Now each gang has 1 female and 6 males to look after. They have such pride in themselves for looking after these goats, its really amazing to see the difference. They asked for training so next Sunday we are going to have a training for them and we chatted and if they keep up their end of the bargin and do good with these goats as a group then in January we will start a new class of the GKK program for them so they can each have a goat just like the school kids. I almost cried when I heard them clapping and saying oh yeah, we're gonna get goats. Don't worry Dr. Kelly we won't let you down!

A ministry started because I didn't want to have to feed extra goats - pretty cool stuff!
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