Lamb Finds a Home in the House of the Lamb of God

When Agnes was born a couple of weeks ago, her tiny mouth was too small for even the smallest of bottle-feeding nipples at a farm supply store. (Screenshot via The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.com)

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Agnes, a lamb rejected by her mother, has found a place in the house of the Lamb of God.

Pastor Bryan Schneider-Thomas of Peace Lutheran Church in Sparta, MI, discovered Agnes clinging to life on the floor of his family’s Kent City barn about two weeks ago. One in a set of twins, Agnes was too weak to nurse and was rejected by her mother.

Schneider-Thomas told The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.com that he thought Agnes, about half the size of her twin sister, was dead and had perhaps been trampled by her mother and another ewe.

The pastor took the sickly lamb to the church, where he kept her in a baby’s playpen while he worked in his office. The smallest of the bottle nipples at the farm supply store was too large for the lamb’s tiny mouth, so Schneider-Thomas fed her with an eyedropper in the beginning.

Bottle feedings every two hours have subsided to once every four to six hours. Now, she bounds around the church, nibbling on leftover Easter lilies and full of life and youthful energy as she greets churchgoers.

“Everybody’s very surprised to meet Agnes,” Schneider-Thomas told the Grand Rapids newspaper. “It’s been fun. It’s been interesting to have a lamb at church.”

With a lamb in the church, Schneider-Thomas has a living, breathing example of “how Jesus cares for us,” the pastor said.

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Agnes will join the rest of the Schneider-Thomas family’s flock once she is weaned.

“Until she’s done nursing, it will be hard to be in with the other sheep,” Schneider-Thomas said. “Once they’re done nursing, then kind of everybody’s on equal ground. She’ll fit in all right.”

Until then – to borrow another metaphor – everywhere the pastor goes, the lamb is sure to follow.