Ohana Community Baptist Fellowship Comedy Hour

The banner over the stage read, in ambitious, slightly crooked letters:

OHANA COMMUNITY BAPTIST FELLOWSHIP OF OAHU PRESENTS:

A STAGE ADAPTATION OF The Pilgrim’s Progress

Someone had added a palm tree sticker over the “i” in Pilgrim’s.

That someone, as it turned out, was also in charge of the fog machine.

1. The Gathering

The entire congregation had turned out.

They filled the auditorium with the warm hum of potluck-fed contentment—bellies full of teriyaki chicken, mac salad, and Sister Lani’s very experimental guava casserole that no one could quite identify but everyone politely praised.

Kids ran between the rows playing tag. The youth group clustered near the back, whispering and snickering like they had inside knowledge of impending chaos. The elders sat in the front row with programs folded neatly in their laps, expressions of dignified anticipation.

Pastor Kaleo stood near the stage, clipboard in hand, radiating the strained calm of a man who had said, “How hard can a simple play be?” exactly one month ago.

Behind the curtain, a loud thunk echoed.

Then another.

Then a voice whispered, not quietly, “Don’t drop the cross again!”

Pastor Kaleo closed his eyes.

“Lord,” he murmured, “we give You this evening.”

Another crash.

“...all of it.”

2. The Cast (A Brief Warning)

The program listed the following:

Christian – played by Brother Micah (new to acting, very enthusiastic)

Evangelist – Sister Keilani (excellent memorization, questionable volume control)

Obstinate – Uncle Beni (method actor, took role very seriously)

Pliable – Jonah from the youth group (easily distracted, ironically perfect casting)

Mr. Worldly Wiseman – Deacon Harold (had insisted on a British accent)

A Fog Machine – not listed, but spiritually present

3. The Opening

The lights dimmed.

The curtain rose.

A single spotlight illuminated Brother Micah as Christian, standing center stage with a backpack that looked less like a symbolic burden and more like he was about to summit Everest.

He took a deep breath.

“As I walked through the wilderness of this world—”

The fog machine activated.

Not gently.

Not atmospherically.

It unleashed a dense, billowing cloud that swallowed Christian whole.

From somewhere inside the fog:

“—world…”

cough

“—world of…”

cough cough

“Is this supposed to be this much?”

In the front row, Sister Lani fanned the air with her program. “Oh my goodness, it’s like vog inside.”

Pastor Kaleo sprinted to the side of the stage, whispering urgently, “Turn it down!”

A youth group member whispered back, “It only has ON and MORE ON.”

The fog thickened.

Christian reemerged like a confused ghost.

“—I dreamed a dream—” he continued heroically.

He took one step forward.

And tripped over his own burden.

The backpack—stuffed with what later turned out to be hymnals for “authentic weight”—pulled him down in slow, tragic, entirely avoidable fashion.

He hit the stage with a resonant THUD.

A child in the audience burst into laughter.

Then another.

Then, like a wave, the entire room began to giggle.

Christian, still face-down, lifted a hand and said, “I’m okay. It’s part of the journey.”

4. Enter Evangelist (and the Voice of Doom)

Sister Keilani strode onto the stage as Evangelist, pointing dramatically toward the audience.

“WHY DO YOU CRY?” she boomed.

Her microphone was… extremely loud.

Several people physically recoiled.

An elderly man dropped his program.

A baby started crying.

The sound system emitted a high-pitched feedback squeal that felt like it could peel paint.

Keilani did not falter.

“DO YOU NOT SEE YOUR CONDITION?”

Christian, still on the ground, shouted up at her, “I do! I really do!”

“THEN FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME!”

“Working on it!” he said, trying to stand, but the backpack dragged him sideways again.

He crab-walked toward the edge of the stage.

The fog machine wheezed ominously.

5. Obstinate and Pliable (Things Escalate)

Uncle Beni as Obstinate burst onto the stage with such force that the curtain behind him shook.

“I WILL NOT GO!” he declared.

He meant it.

Jonah as Pliable followed, reading from his hand.

“I mean, maybe we could—um—consider—”

Uncle Beni grabbed him by the arm (method acting) and said, “YOU ARE STAYING!”

Jonah, breaking character, whispered, “Ow. Ow. Uncle Beni, you’re actually—ow—”

Christian, attempting to intervene, got tangled in his backpack straps and accidentally clotheslined himself on a prop sign that read “The Way to the Celestial City.”

The sign fell.

It hit Obstinate.

Obstinate did not break character.

He pointed at Christian and declared, “SEE? THIS PATH BRINGS ONLY DESTRUCTION!”

The audience laughed harder.

Jonah, now fully out of character, said, “This is not how we rehearsed.”

From the wings, someone hissed, “Just keep going!”

6. The Slough of Despond (Water Was a Mistake)

The script called for Christian and Pliable to fall into the Slough of Despond.

The props team, seeking realism, had constructed a shallow pool using a kiddie pool and a tarp.

They had also added actual water.

Christian stepped into it.

His foot slipped.

He went down again.

This time, he took Pliable with him.

There was a splash.

A big splash.

Water sloshed over the edge and onto the stage.

Pliable shrieked.

“IT’S COLD!”

Christian, sitting in ankle-deep water, said, “Is this… supposed to be—”

He slipped again mid-sentence and disappeared briefly below tarp level.

The audience was no longer laughing politely.

This was full, unrestrained, hands-on-knees laughter.

The kind where people lean into each other for support.

The kind where you try to stop, but then you make eye contact with someone else laughing and lose it all over again.

7. Mr. Worldly Wiseman (Accent Catastrophe)

Deacon Harold entered with a flourish.

“Ah, good sir,” he began in what he believed was a British accent.

It sounded… like a pirate from New Jersey.

“Yeh seem tah be in a bit o’ trubble, innit?”

The audience howled.

He pressed on, undeterred.

“I recommend… uh… a more respectable path, yes, quite!”

Christian, soaked and bedraggled, stared at him and said, “Are you from London or…?”

“Yes,” Harold said confidently.

“Which part?”

“London,” he repeated.

Pliable whispered, “This is amazing.”

8. The Fog Returns (Of Course It Does)

Just as the scene reached a semi-coherent rhythm—

The fog machine kicked back on.

Full force.

Again.

This time, it set off the smoke alarm.

A loud, piercing alarm blared through the auditorium.

Red lights flashed.

For a moment, everyone froze.

Then Uncle Beni, still fully in character, shouted over the alarm:

“THE WRATH HAS COME!”

The room erupted.

People were doubled over, clutching their sides.

Someone near the back yelled, “This is the best play ever!”

9. Intermission (Unplanned, Unavoidable)

Pastor Kaleo rushed the stage.

“We’re going to take a short intermission!” he shouted, half-laughing, half-crying.

The curtain closed.

Behind it, chaos.

“I told you the fog machine—”

“Why is there water everywhere?”

“Who put hymnals in the backpack?!”

“I thought it would be symbolic!”

“It’s thirty pounds of symbolic!”

Meanwhile, in the audience, people tried to compose themselves.

They failed.

Every time someone said “Slough of Despond,” another wave of laughter hit.

10. Act Two (A Noble Attempt)

The second act began with renewed determination.

The fog machine was unplugged.

The water was mopped (mostly).

Christian returned with a lighter backpack.

Hope flickered.

Then came the Hill Difficulty.

Which, in this production, was represented by a wooden ramp.

Christian began to climb it.

Halfway up, the ramp shifted.

He slid backward.

Slowly.

Helplessly.

Like a tragic, theological treadmill.

He clawed at the surface.

“I will… persevere…!”

He slid down again.

The audience lost it.

Pliable, now fully committed to chaos, shouted, “You got this, bro!”

Obstinate, from offstage, yelled, “YOU WILL NEVER MAKE IT!”

11. The Grand Finale (Or Something Like It)

By the time they reached the Celestial City scene, any semblance of solemn allegory had dissolved into joyful absurdity.

The gates were represented by two folding screens.

They would not stay upright.

They fell.

Twice.

An angel (played by a very serious nine-year-old) entered, tripped over the fallen gate, and rolled.

He popped up, brushed himself off, and declared, “Welcome!”

Christian, exhausted, soaked, and slightly muddy, staggered forward.

“Is… is it over?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the angel.

“Thank goodness.”

He stepped through the “gate,” which promptly collapsed behind him with a dramatic CLATTER.

The curtain fell.

12. The Aftermath

For a moment—

Silence.

Then the entire auditorium erupted into applause.

Not polite applause.

Not “good effort” applause.

Thunderous, standing, tears-streaming-down-faces applause.

People hugged each other.

They laughed until they couldn’t breathe.

Pastor Kaleo took the stage, wiping his eyes.

“Well,” he said, “that was not exactly how John Bunyan imagined it…”

The audience laughed again.

“But,” he continued, smiling, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this church laugh like that together.”

He looked at the cast, who stood dripping, disheveled, and grinning.

“And maybe,” he said, “that’s part of the journey too.”

13. Epilogue (The Real Moral)

Later, over leftover guava casserole (still mysterious), the congregation replayed every moment.

“The fog!”

“The ramp!”

“THE ACCENT!”

Even Uncle Beni laughed.

“I may have been a little… intense,” he admitted.

“A little?” Jonah said.

Christian—Brother Micah—sat with an ice pack and a smile.

“I fell five times,” he said proudly.

“Six,” someone corrected.

“Six times,” he nodded. “But I finished.”

Sister Keilani raised her cup.

“To finishing,” she said.

“To finishing!” everyone echoed.

And somewhere in the corner, unplugged but not forgotten, the fog machine sat quietly—

waiting for its next revival.

And for weeks afterward, whenever someone in the congregation had a bad day, someone else would lean over and whisper:

“Remember the Slough of Despond.”

And just like that—

the laughter would start all over again.