My wife and I have been talked into helping out with the Easter play at our church this year. The play is called Son of God, Son of Man, and is a musical written by Pastor Ken Parker, one of the pastors at our church. It is the story of the life and death of Jesus Christ, and we’ve been asked to help out by providing a couple of animals for the production. We decided this would be a fun new challenge, so we agreed.

Jackie, our full-sized donkey, will be the donkey that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on during Palm Sunday. This is probably the most nerve-wracking scene for us. Jackie is a rescue animal (meaning that she was being neglected by her previous owner), and when she came to live at the farm, she was malnourished, very shy, didn’t like to be touched, and had hooves that had not been trimmed in well over a year. In short, she was a basket-case. You couldn’t touch her without her flinching and if you touched her feet, she went ballistic. Over the last year, she has really blossomed. She has filled out, so you can no longer see her ribs. She now seeks attention from you. She loves to have her head and ears rubbed and loves to be around people. We’ve been working with her over the last two months to get her ready for this play. We’ve had to practice with someone riding on her back (she has obviously had someone ride her at some point) and we’ve spent lots of time desensitizing her to the sights and sounds at church. She has been nothing short of amazing so far, given all the new experiences she’s had to learn about it. My only fear, is that she, after all, is an animal, and by definition, that means she’s at least a little unpredictable. If she gets scared and dumps Jesus off the stage, I think it will detract a little from the scene, don’t you? So far, that hasn’t happened and we’ve got a weeks worth of rehearsals before the first performance. I’ll be one of two handlers with her on stage during that scene. If all goes well, she’ll be on and off the stage in a minute or less.

The other animals that will be participating will be Sheba the mini-donkey and at least one of the two goats (Casey and G.G.)– and maybe both. They’ll all be in the market scene early in the play and my wife will be handling the animals during that scene along with some other cast members. I’ll be outside with Jackie getting her warmed up for her scene.

Pray for us and our animals as we prepare for and participate in this production. We want this to be a joy for everyone — humans and animals included!

You could, of course, also come and see us perform. The tickets are inexpensive and the show is excellent. You can pre-order tickets by going to here.

I hope we’ll see you there!

–Pete