Blessing Our Animals: Part Two

This Saturday, September 29, 2018, Sardis will hold its third annual Blessing of the Animals. This is an opportunity to offer thanks for the very special animal friends in our lives — the ones that model how we should love one another. We’ll pause to pray for, celebrate, and bless these special creatures. You can learn more about the event here.

During last year’s event, we had the special privilege to meet Jessica Wallace from Bullies 2 The Rescue, a Charlotte-based animal shelter that rescues English and French Bull Dogs. The Bullies crew has rescued more than 200 animals this year, and we’ve enjoyed getting to meet them. You can learn more about their mission here. And on the day of the event, we’ll collect donations and supplies to support their good work.

As a way to expand our animal blessing, Sardis has created a wall of blessings. We encourage community members to share pictures of their favorite pets. We will display these pictures in our sanctuary (and add to them!) all year long, so we can ask God’s special blessing on the creatures that love us, and keep us safe. It’s also a way for us to bless pets who can’t be here in person, or to honor/memorialize those pets who are no longer with us. If you’d like to include a picture of your pet, please email a picture, name, and any special prayer requests to our church office.

Jessica and her team have been kind enough to share pictures and stories of the special animals in the Bullies family. Here’s another round of pics and stories:

Tiggy:

This is Tiggy. He’s one of our original volunteer’s dog. He’s on meds for dementia. He’s getting older and starting to slow down. He’s one of our alumni.

Petunia:

This is one of our fosters, Petunia. She has some skin issues but is on the mend. She’s a little cutie!

Diesel:

This is Diesel, who had a vet visit today and would love to receive prayers for his breathing issues as he has a hypo-plastic trachea and an elongated palate. His other issues include a cherry eye that he’s lived with for 4 years; a terrible and oozing skin infection around his neck where his collar used to be; and he has very swollen front feet that are so inflamed with cellulitis infection the swelling has nearly swallowed his nails. At least now he is living inside, is getting great food, gets to lay on the couch all day, and gets lots of love and baby talk that makes him a wiggle butt. 🙂”

Bert:

This is Bert, we just pulled him. He was severely neglected, and has a long way to go, and a lot of issues we are still addressing. This is what his foster mom writes;

“This is Bert. We pulled him from a shelter today. He’s 8 years old and has a lot of neglect to overcome but he’s got wonderful spirit!”

Delilah:

This is my foster-Delilah. Delilah was picked up as a stray in Kentucky. I drove up and picked her up a few weeks ago. She seemed healthy. We had no info on her other than what her previous owners told the shelter when they contacted them through her microchip. She’s 7 yrs old and we just found out this past week that she’s heart worm positive. She will begin treatment in the next month. We believe we caught it in the early stages and are pretty confident she will do fine through the treatment but we need all the prayers we can get, not only for her but all these sweet babies!

Apollo:

This is Apollo. He’s only eight weeks old, but he’s a fighter, and very sweet. Apollo has vascular ring anomalies. We already did a CT Scan to find out more. He was being weaned off mom’s milk and was regurgitating all of his gruel (wet kibble) so he has drastically lost all of his weight. He weighs .08 kilograms. He has a vein from his heart that is strangling his esophagus, making it impossible to swallow food. He is getting zero nutrients. If we are going to save him it has to be now. I’ve agreed to surgery. Is it risky? Absolutely. Does he deserve a chance? Absolutely. Is the surgery expensive? Absolutely. But I can’t cherry pick my fosters. My heart won’t let me. I’ve gotta rescue and save this kid.

This baby’s surgery is in the morning. The doctor is confident with the procedure. She has done several of these for the German Shepherd Rescue. However, Apollo is the smallest, most critical patient she’s ever had.

Please pray for rest, strength, and healing for Apollo and his owners.