Nothing is Stronger Than a Small Hope That Doesn’t Give Up

Updated May 16, 2025

A simple rescue? No. An epic tale? Yes.

What began as another mission to collect a sheep with a broken leg quickly became a journey of grit, grace and the unshakeable will to live. It led us across state lines and into the dark and craggy veins of rural New South Wales. Paddocks rolled endlessly into the night. Unmarked roads unravelled beneath us—but thankfully, our GPS did not.

The silence was thick, broken only by the crunch of tyres and the quiet question: What have we gotten ourselves into?
And then—we saw her.

A young Dorper ewe, black-faced and beautiful, lying motionless on the solemn dry earth. Though the light was fading, her eyes were not. They pleaded. They reached. Her vulnerability struck us. How frightened this sheep, unaccustomed to human hands, must have been. And her body, swollen with the life she carried, made one thing clear—this story wasn’t hers alone.

Then we saw her leg.

The farmers who had called us showed a rare kind of compassion—the kind that bridges even the deepest divides

Twisted. Swollen. Bent in ways nature never intended. A trickle of blood marked the spot where her snapped radius bone had pushed its way through the skin.

And yet, her eyes didn’t flinch.

Empathy surged.

The farmers who had called us showed a rare kind of compassion—the kind that bridges even the deepest divides. The kind that reminds us we are all kin.

But time was against us.

Not just the long road home, the late hour or the heart-stopping injury—but the pregnancy. The delicate, precarious hope inside her. Could we keep her stable? Could her babies survive this trauma? Could her body endure what was to come?

We wrapped her. We calmed her. We whispered that she wasn’t alone.

And now, back at sanctuary, she rests. She eats. She drinks. She presses her face into our hands.

She is here. She is fighting. And because of this, so are we.

For her, and her unborn babies.

The surgery must wait until she is stronger. The amputation is her only chance. And we hold our breath for the tiny lives she carries, praying their strength mirrors their mother’s.

She is, in every sense of the word, remarkable.

And we are, in every sense, in awe.

She needed a name.

As we stood beneath the vast sky—humbled by its enormity, its mystery, its unspoken promise—we felt it: nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

We named her Hope.

And under the endless cosmos, where starlight travels light-years just to reach us, her story is only just beginning.