LANCASTER TWP — The Rev. Barbara Love, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, 557 Perry Highway, has a date with a real pig.

Come April 26, Love, and perhaps three other members of the church council, will pucker up and kiss a pig in the pavilion next to the church parking lot.

All the public pork smooching is for a good cause, Love said.

Zion Lutheran’s 200-member congregation is in a friendly competition to raise money to buy piglets to be sent overseas to provide recipients with food and a ready source of cash should a harvest fail.

The young pigs cost $30 each and are purchased and sent through the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Good Gifts program, which also ships out health kits, mosquito netting and well supplies.

“We’re talking piglets. They go to numerous countries. We don’t know exactly where the piglets are going,” said Love.

Money is raised from pig-shaped money boxes sent home with the congregation for Lent.

Love said it was a Lenten denial.

“Daily you put something in it so that you are thinking of others,” she said.

“The campaign started Ash Wednesday, and we will be going through the 19th of April,” said Love.

Love’s already on the hook because she promised to kiss a pig if the congregation members raised enough money to pay for 10 piglets. By March 25, they had raised money for 12.

Love said, “We are at 12 and with each increment of another 10 pigs, another officer of the executive council will kiss a pig.”

At 20 pigs, Tom Meyer, council president, will have to pucker up; at 30, Chris Trimble will be called on to smooch; and at 40, George Measle will get up close and personal with Porky.

“The kiss will take place on the last Sunday of April here at the church. It may have to be in the pavilion. We will be praying for a sunny day,” said Love.

“I have never kissed a pig before,” said Love. “I have played in a pig lot before. I grew up on the northern corner of my grandfather’s farm.

“It was in Summit Township. The William Yost farm,” she continued.

“The members of the congregation expect me to kiss it on the snout. I’m not afraid of pigs,” she said.

Volunteering the pig that will be the recipient of all this affection is nearby farmer Jim Kerr, who doesn’t belong to the church but is the friend of a church member.

He plans to have a 25-pound Yorkshire piglet on hand for Love and the others to shower with love by the end of April.

“He’s 5 weeks old now,” said Kerr of the piglet Love posed with for pictures. “He’ll probably weigh 250 to 275 pounds by August.”

He noted the average life span of one of his pigs was about six months “from birth to slaughter.”

Love said she came up with the idea for the campaign. She said the effort fits in well with the church’s tradition of global missions.

The ELCA’s Southwestern Pa. Synod’s global missions chairman, Marcia Downs, is a member of the Zion Lutheran’s congregation.

The global mission is not the only mission of the church, Love said. The church houses the Southwest Butler Food Cupboard, which serves about 120 clients per month.

The church also participated in a mission trip to New Orleans, and two of its members recently went to Madagascar.