What’s a living nativity scene without a little real-life drama to go along with it — that’s what local church officials and members are saying in hindsight. The Eagle River Presbyterian Church in Avon, Colorado was gearing up for its Wednesday night live nativity scene, an annual tradition, when two of the scene’s players went missing Wednesday. The players, two donkeys, must have gotten spooked by the snow plow driving through the church parking lot Wednesday morning, Pastor Rob Wilson said. That’s the theory the church members came up with, anyway.

The donkeys were being held in a fenced-in pen, but they managed to push their way through it, Wilson said.

What happened next was a snowy journey from the Avon church, near Wal-Mart and The Home Depot, along the railroad tracks into Eagle-Vail. Chip Howard, the church member who began the annual tradition there, had borrowed the donkeys from their owner and was the first to arrive and realize they had gone missing.

Howard was on his way to ski school — he teaches snowboarding at Beaver Creek — when he decided to stop by the church for a minute. “They weren’t there — it freaked me out,” Howard said. “I was so afraid and nervous that the worst could have happened.”

Howard immediately called 911 when he realized the donkeys escaped. He could see fresh footprints in the morning snow and hoped they didn’t go too far. A sheriff’s deputy quickly arrived and the two decided to follow the footprints down the railroad tracks. Howard set off on-foot, while the police officer drove along Highway 6.

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