Latest / Community Spotlight / From PTSD to Purpose: A Ministry Connecting Heroes with Healing
Transcript
- (00:00): The Light FM presents Community Spotlight, a program designed to focus on what's important to you in your community. Now here's Braxton with Today's Community Spotlight. (00:10): Alright, so we just celebrated Veterans Day a little over a week ago, and this is so cool, the community spotlight that we have today. Thanks for listening on the Light fm, but I've been doing Community Spotlight for more than six years, and I'm talking to a ministry today in Lenoir, North Carolina that I have never talked to a ministry even remotely close to the one that we're about to hear from today. It's Shepherds for Sheep Dogs with Earl and Nicole. Thanks for being here guys. (00:44): Thanks so much for having us. We're really excited. (00:46): So I don't want to try and explain exactly what it is you do. It's very unique, but I'll butcher it. So I'll start with you, Nicole Shepherds for Sheep Dogs. Tell me what it is, but most of all, Jesus is all over this. I just want to hear the why. So tell me both of those things. (01:06): Our organization, shepherds for Sheep Dogs is we provide professionally trained service dogs to disabled veterans and first responders. And the Lord really has just blessed our whole program from beginning to now where we are. We never anticipated starting, and it just happened because the Lord put things together. So our whole purpose is to provide the service animal, which will hopefully change these people's lives who are struggling with some kind of disability, whether it is mental or physical, and we want to give them the freedom to go back into the world. We want to give them their independence back. Unfortunately, so many veterans and first responders do struggle with PTSD because of the things that they've had to do and the things that they've seen and just the lifestyle that they've lived. And now that translates into isolation. It translates into depression, anxiety, just a lot of social issues. (02:11): And by giving them this dog, this companion, we're hoping that they can reintegrate back into just regular life and enjoy the freedoms that they have fought for us to have. They should be able to enjoy those freedoms as well for sure. But the Lord is the sole source of peace and healing. So if we can provide them a physical tool to love them as we should, as humans are supposed to love other humans, then I think that we're doing our part and then we can share with them the love and the peace of God, and hopefully that will stick, that will change their lives. And if they turn him, all of these issues can be overcome and worked through. So that's our whole purpose. (03:07): Yeah. So two questions. One about the animals and then one about the doors that those animals open for you to share. Jesus. So I may have told a slight mistruth at the beginning of this episode because the one podcast community spotlight that I have recorded that was somewhat similar was horses, a horse farm in east Tennessee. They didn't give a horse to somebody like you're giving a dog, but they did horse therapy for children who had a learning disability in some way. But those horses were incredible to be able to calm the nerves of a child to relate to the kid. There's science behind it too. So I'm curious, first the animals, when you provide, I'm sure there's research that goes behind, okay, we need to give this specific dog to this specific person. They'd be a great match. Tell me what that looks like and what dogs are really able to do for a veteran or a first responder who's struggling with physical or a mental disability. (04:14): You are totally right. Animals are a complete, they're amazing. Their ability to sense our issues, our problems, our struggles, our fear, and they're nonjudgmental as humans sometimes fail to be. We are not always as accepting to other people or as patient or as kind or as unconditionally loving as we should be. But animals really are, and you're right, horses, dogs, they do have some insane ability that the Lord has given them that they can pick up on people's needs. And they do break barriers because people feel safer with animals because they're not going to be judged. So specifically to answer your question, I suppose our program works in two ways. We can either take someone's previously owned dog and put them through the training. We have to do some assessments to make sure that they're capable of the training, behavior, temperament, that kind of stuff, a medical assessment. (05:18): But if that dog shows the correct qualities, we can put that dog through the training. Or if a person doesn't have a dog, they can select one from the organization that we work with in Tennessee who are professional dog trainers. So we use multiple breeds at the facility, German Shepherds, Belgian Malis, Labrador, retrievers, and regular retrievers, I suppose Labs and Retrievers. Those are the kinds that they create, they breed. But if a person shows up with their own poodle or their own schnauzer or their own whatever, as long as that dog shows the capability, we can train that dog. (06:00): Okay, Earl, how about the doors? The dogs open, obviously Nicole's talked about just the heart behind this is for people to meet the ultimate healer. Jesus. How have you seen God? I mean this is just year three for you guys, but how have you seen God use these animals and the relationships you've built to share Jesus? (06:24): Well, one, it creates an opportunity for us to continuously make contact with the veteran and or first responder who received the dog. And by doing so, not only do we check up on the condition and the dog itself, is it still performing as it should, but we want to check in with the veteran themselves. How are you doing? How are you coping? And if we can relate somewhat to their life, then we can interject and share with them how God has helped us through our lives, through our situations. And we also talk about the concept of shepherd is that it's not just the German Shepherd or the Belgium providing them comfort, but that the ultimate shepherd is the one that provides everlasting comfort and everlasting healing. And I think our recipients, they understand. Now, of course, not everybody is going to be as receptive as we would love them to be, but we're able to be encouraging. And all it takes is for us to plant that seed. (07:58): If (07:59): We can plant that seed, then we leave it up to the Lord to make it flourish. (08:05): And you kind of alluded to something, and Nicole, I want you to chime in, but this is not a one-time transaction. It sounds like it's a relationship that you build and you're able to continue to check in on how things are going, but also bring up the Lord too. (08:21): So this year specifically, that's our goal for this year is to improve our follow-up care. So we have now committed to following the person for the working life of the dog. And longer if they want us to be in their lives, that's totally fine, but to be in our program, they will have to agree to us being part of their lives for the entire working life of their dog. And our goal in that is exactly as Earl said, to check up on the dog and make sure that the dog is performing as it should because it is a perishable skillset. So we could train a dog to be perfect, but then a couple months down the road, if the person is not practicing the dog as they should or other stimulus come into the dog's life or things like that, the dog can lose some of those skills. So we definitely want to make sure that the dogs that we're sending out are performing as they should, but also that personal relationship. If I'm calling you to talk about your dog, can we also talk about your life? Can I just check in? Have you been able to go out and be with people? Have you been able to interact with other groups or have you plugged yourself into something because now you have this dog? So it really is giving us the opportunity to follow these people for the next couple years at least. (09:44): How many people are you servicing? (09:47): So this year we will have 20 dogs. (09:53): Wow. (09:54): So in three years, 20 dogs. And really God has just provided every year there's some problem. And he always provides through that problem, whether it's not enough money or whether it's not enough people to receive the dogs or whether it's not enough dogs to give out. We've hit one of those problems every year and he just overcomes it and he's like, here, this is what I want you to do. These are the resources that you need. Go reach these people. (10:24): So physical and mental, what are the most common things of these 20 dogs? Or is there something different for every scenario that they are helping their person with, (10:34): They are trained individually. So they're trained for each person's individual specific disability. But most of the time it is PTSD related. We can do so there's contact. So the dog will ground you if you're feeling anxious or whatever it is, the dog will literally put physical pressure on you. Or if you have some kind of anxious behavior like your hands shake or your knees tremble or you rock back and forth, or some kind of physical action, the dog can interrupt that to make you have to pay attention to the dog instead of what you're worried about. The physical sides of things, we do mobility and bracing. So if somebody has a hard time with their balance or sometimes bending over to get something, they can pick things up, they can retrieve things, they can do basic tasks for them. (11:36): Is it just the Lenoir area or how large is your service area? (11:42): Well, right now we are actually all across North Carolina. We (11:47): Even branched out into, we have a couple in Tennessee, one that's actually living in Florida, I believe. So we had a very difficult time receiving or receiving applicants. Most veterans will pass on it saying that somebody else needs it more than I do, so I'm not going to apply. So we had a struggle in trying to find enough applicants. And this year, once again, the Lord blessed us and we just had an influx of applicants. And what we're trying to do from now on is to stick more to the North Carolina, even possibly the Western North Carolina region. There's nothing wrong with helping people out of state, but the issue then becomes when we do these follow-up visits, everything we do is out of our own pocket. So we do not, none of our board members receive any kind of salary from this. This is just our passion is what we want to do. But traveling especially nowadays, is not cheap. So we want to try to stay closer to where we can actually also be within reach of these recipients. So if they do call in the middle of the night and say, Hey, I'm having a hard time and I trust you guys. Hang on, we'll be right there. So right now, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina, I believe, and North Carolina. But we're going to probably try to keep it down just to at least North Carolina. (13:22): Right. No, that makes sense. Good. (13:25): Oh, I was just going to say, with our goal being to provide better follow-up care, we want them a little closer to us to make that easier. (13:34): Yeah, makes a lot of sense. How can someone listening that's in your area or not get involved, help pray, donate, or hey, say, Hey, this person I know could use this. What can they do? How can they get in touch? (13:54): Absolutely. I would say prayer is definitely super appreciated. So we would love more prayer. Our website is shepherds, the number four sheep dogs.org. And you can go on our website and you can look at stories of previous recipients. You can look at the entire application process and all of the requirements. And then there's an apply button and you can click on that and then it'll give you, I think it asks you four basic questions. And then that survey or whatever comes to us, and then we will start the process. But on that survey, I think there's other questions that are not dog related, I want to volunteer or how do I donate or whatever. So any questions can go through that survey and it'll come to us. But on the website, you can donate, you can read all about the program. You can apply if you to send the website to somebody that you know. Absolutely. (14:55): Okay. (14:57): We are taking applicants right now for 2026, preparing to place them for this upcoming year. So applicants who either have their own dog or need a dog, we're encouraging them to apply now. (15:14): Okay, well, this type of ministry and what you're doing is exactly what the passion of community spotlight is to shed the light on people working for Jesus and meeting a need in their community. And we don't have time to go into the story, but you briefly shared before we started to record about how you wanted to donate to someone locally that helped veterans that you believed in, that you agreed with, and there wasn't really one. So you're like, what the heck? Let's just start one ourself here you are. Kind of just alluded to it. God's taken the reins and you didn't think it would last this long, but it's just been unbelievable. That's what happens when you say yes to Jesus, when God gives you something in your life and you say yes, and listen, he works in mysterious but also amazing ways. And so that's what community spotlight's all about, just to let people know what's going on in their community, but also how they can get involved. So super thankful for you guys. Thank you. (16:20): We're super thankful for this opportunity, so thank you. Thank you very much. (16:25): Special thanks as well to the sponsor of Community Spotlight Turner, business Appraisers, and Matthews, North Carolina. You can find them@turnerbusiness.com. (16:36): We hope you enjoyed today's community spotlight, covering issues that matter to you in your community. If you have a suggestion for a future program, just call 803 3 0 96 48. That's 803 3 0 9 6 4 8. Be sure to join us next week for another community Spotlight with Braxton on the Light fm.