ARLINGTON — Tino Turner was lost, then found.
Now the 80-pound African spur-thighed tortoise is traveling to area churches to teach kids about the prodigal son.
“He’s an official missionary tortoise,” his owner, June Angevine, said. “He’s just the most gentle, kind tortoise. He’s the perfect missionary.”
Tino escaped from Angevine’s fiance’s farm north of Arlington last August. For 10 days, the tortoise lived in the wild while Angevine desperately searched for her beloved pet.
When strangers saw Tino wandering down their driveway, they called Angevine. She proclaimed it a miracle.
In late June, Tino spent a week at a Seventh-day Adventist church camp at Auburn Adventist Academy. He met with hundreds of kids and teens. They listened to Angevine share Tino’s story and lined up afterwards to pet his shell and his head.
Angevine, 54, toted the teenage tortoise around the camp in a red Radio Flyer wagon. Fans would stop them to feed Tino corn on the cob, raspberries and pitted cherries.
Daisy, one of Angevine’s new tortoises, went along to keep Tino company.
After Tino ran away, his tortoise family, Tina Turner and Baby Tina Turner, wouldn’t let him back in their enclosure, Angevine said. They ganged up on Tino and used their force to push him out of the tortoise house into the cold.
It was hard for Tino to take, but publicity from Tino’s escape led two families to give their tortoises to Angevine, who has more than 50 tortoises and turtles, along with goats, geese, chickens, dogs, cats, a pot-bellied pig and a Peking duck.
Daisy gave Tino the love he was missing and they’re now inseparable, Angevine said.
While some kids at the camp and at other churches were just fascinated by Tino’s prehistoric appearance, Angevine believes others were touched realizing that God loves all creatures — even tortoises.
“It was awesome for the children to get to see a huge tortoise,” said Carol Galyean, secretary at Mount Vernon Seventh-day Adventist Church, which Tino visited last year. “Her story was really fun to listen to and (shows) how God works through little things.”
Several other Bible camps and church schools have asked Angevine to visit.
She expects Tino’s missionary travels to continue well into the future.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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