A 90-year-old cancer survivor has saved over 10,000 animals, and she’s still not slowing down. Barby Keel doesn’t wear a cape, but you’d swear she had wings tucked somewhere under her sweater.
Out on a 12-acre patch of earth in Sussex, England, she rises every morning with the sun and a holy calling—to tend to the meows, the whinnies, the oinks, and the soft paws of the forgotten. For 54 years, Barby has been running her namesake animal sanctuary with nothing but her hands, her heart, and a sacred stubbornness to never give up.
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“I’m not slowing down,” she says and shrugs with a twinkle in her 90-year-old eyes. “Some days I’m shattered—it’s hard work. But then I get a little nose ‘boop’ or a face peers up at me, and I remember why I’m doing this.”
That nose boop? It’s a love note from God in fur and whiskers.
Barby has rescued over 10,000 animals since the 1970s, when it all began with a single soldier’s dog. A young man asked her to watch his pup while he was deployed. That pup never left. And neither did the call on Barby’s life.
Soon after, the Bexhill Cats Club reached out about some kittens, and before she could say “no,” she had 40 cats underfoot—and then came the goats, the pigs, the horses. Today? She cares for over 600 animals. Her sanctuary isn’t just a shelter; it’s a sacred place where God’s forgotten creatures are seen, known, and healed.
She’s fought cancer three times. She gave up a long-term relationship when her partner asked her to choose between him and the animals. “My animals come first,” she said simply. And they always will.
It’s not easy. The work never ends. But Barby doesn’t take days off. Not really. She leaves the sanctuary only every few weeks—for shopping or to play darts. And then she’s right back to feeding, brushing, bandaging, and blessing.
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"I know I’m getting older so I know my limitations,” she said humbly. “I don’t deal with the big animals anymore, but I still get up every morning to feed all the cats and see them all. It’s a good life.”
And you believe her. Because when someone lives this poured-out, when someone gives everything to care for the overlooked and the voiceless, you can’t help but see it—it’s a life that smells like Jesus.
The Barby Keel Animal Sanctuary runs entirely on donations. It is a nonprofit tethered to heaven by Barby’s grit and the kindness of others. It recently reopened to the public on Sundays until October 2025, welcoming visitors to the café, gift shop, and vivarium—and more importantly, to meet the animals who now know love. Barby even uses her own pension money to buy bulk food and sell it cheaply to locals so no one has to give up their pets.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s what makes her story so miraculous. Not just that she’s saved 10,000 animals. But that she still believes—no matter her age, her aches, or her trials—that love is worth the cost.
“I’m so grateful to my motley crew of volunteers—they keep everything running—and the generous public,” she said.
She’s proof that sometimes, the holiest work is feeding the furred and feathered. That the gospel can be lived out in muddy boots and purring laps.
Because at the end of the day, it only takes a little nose boop to remind her—and us—that love always shows up.
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Proverbs 12:10 “The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”
h/t: Good News Network
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/SWNS
