God's Surprise on Vimeo

Life is full of surprises. Sometimes God gives us surprises, and sometimes those surprises can be delightful.

We had a herd of llama that we rescued from the fire and got them down to safe pastures. A month and a half later, all of a sudden,here was this baby in the herd. He was born and it was a surprise. We didn't know he was coming. He turned out to be the biggest warm fuzzy. Not just for us but for our community. It was like God gave us this stuffed toy.

He was, from the beginning, a people lover. In fact, when he first stood up when he was born, he went straight to a child. Since then he's loved people, he loves dogs, and he loves children. We realized that because this little guy is so tame, maybe we should make him a therapy llama, a comfort animal.

Right now llamas are all the rage. There are pictures of llamas, you can buy toys, there are all these things. God gave us a real one. It's just been such a delight to share. God has been opening all these doors for this little llama whose mother carried him through the fire.

We named him Phoenix Hope. It’s a name our fellow survivors can connect with immediately. All we have to do is tell them his name is Phoenix Hope and they get it, and they go, “Of course!”

I realized that God's timing knows no haste and no delay. He knows what He's going to do ahead of time and He's got the plan. That's what Phoenix taught me to do for him. I knew what I wanted to do with him, where I was going to take him, what we were going to do that day, but I needed to be gentle and soft and slow. I realized that's how God talks to me.

Maybe we should use him for God's work and glory and bring joy to everyone. Why not use him as a comfort animal, as a therapy llama? That's what we’ve been doing. We’ve been taking him up the hill every week, once a week. It's our Friday tradition.

He stands in front of the clinic and greets everyone that comes. He acknowledges every single person. He makes each person feel important because he goes right up and touches them with his nose and says, “I'm interested in you. Who are you? I want to be with you. Pet me.”

It's just been an amazing, unexpected joy and delight. It's just so wonderful because the more people he greets, the calmer he becomes. He's just so interested in every single person. He will go right up to them. The way you say hello as a llama is by touching with your nose. So he’ll touch people's hands or if they put their face down, he’ll touch their nose. It's as soft and fuzzy as a rabbit.

Phoenix doesn't have to do anything except be there. He makes us happy and he gives us joy, and he does that for everyone who sees him. They touch him and he's so soft and fuzzy and he cheers us up. We are here because we cheer God up. We make Him happy. We exist for His joy, His glory.

Looking around the clinic everything is just destroyed. It's like a war zone. But when people see him, they focus on him completely. That's just what God did for us through him. God gave us this amazing little distraction to get our focus on His creation, and to really stabilize us emotionally and realize there's other things to set your mind on.