Animals reaching out at thriving Pakefield mission

Pakefield Pastures, which cares for an array of animals and offers outreach support as a mobile care unit, would welcome prayer to support its continued advancement.

The Community Interest Company (CIC) is led by Katey Mills, the Children, Youth and Families Minister at All Saints’ and St Margaret’s Church in Pakefield, where the Pakefield Pastures animals have now become a fixture of missional work. 

Having started out by acquiring a donkey so that the church no longer needed to rent one for living nativity and Palm Sunday services, the flock has steadily grown – to the point where the CIC’s smallholding is home to alpacas, chickens, pigs, sheep and even a quail! The animals regularly visit settings such as schools and care homes, providing therapeutic experiences especially for those living with mental or physical health conditions.
 
The time given by a dedicated team of volunteers, along with generous donations from supporters, is essential to the project’s operations. Katey credits the power of prayer for delivering the people, land and resources required to keep the animals healthy: “It’s incredibly God led. Every step of the way, I’ve expected to have doors closed and they’ve been wide open. From finding a field in the first place – land is pretty scarce around these parts, and once you have it, you don’t leave it – to financially, when we’ve needed things for the donkeys, operations and things; the money has just come.”
 
Revd Sharon Lord, Rector at All Saints’ & St Margaret’s, believes passionately that including animals in the church’s mission has been a huge positive: “Animals attract people, it’s as simple as that. We already had the pets’ services, and we used to have lots of people bring their pets to that, and we noticed in the first year of having a real life donkey at our Palm Sunday that we have people that perhaps have not really engaged with church in the past. But because they knew there was going to be an animal, they came to see the donkey and then joined us on our Palm Sunday walkabout. It’s absolutely amazing.”
 
For more information about Pakefield Pastures and also the flock of sheep who live at Pakefield church, visit the Diocese of Norwich website.
 
Hear Katey and Sharon explain more about the mission here.
 
Visit, also, the Pakefield Pastures and the Pakefield Sheep Facebook pages.

The photo shows Rev Sharon Lord, left, and Katey Mills, right, with some of the animals.  
Story, pictures and video all courtesy of Diocese of Norwich.

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