My First Visit to Bethlehem

I took some time this evening to check out The Journey to Bethlehem, an annual production put on by my neighborhood Adventist church.  This was son Jordan's second year participating in this production; I was never able to see him in it last year so I was determined to catch the show this year.

 

 

I entered the church, received a numbered ticket, then was herded into a very large seating room.  A large screen showed singing and entertainment projected from the sanctuary next door.  I sat and waited for my group, No. 32, to be called.  Unfortunately, they were only on No. 24, which meant a long wait for my own personal journey to Bethlehem.

 

 

At some point I was close enough to the event that they moved me into the sanctuary for more singing.  The place was packed!  Finally, my number popped up on the big screen so I hurried, along with the rest of the people assigned to good old number 32, to the journey entrance. 

 

 

We were then taken through the doors then ushered past a curtain into the very cold outdoors.  A shepherd/guide uttering "Shalom" took us on a path as we traveled to Bethlehem.  They had quite an awesome set up of tents, fire pits, and guards; there was even a camel!  At one point a woman passed to us pieces of unleavened crackers for which to eat....and they were actually pretty tasty.  I refrained from grabbing a handful!

We finally made our entrance to the city; as we entered the town, many structures were in place with a wide variety of peddlers selling their wares.  I happened to spot Diva Janel dressed in layers of long fabric as she played a peddler pitching oil; as much as I would have liked to chat, she was in character so we simply smiled at each other.  We continued our journey through the town, stopping at the inn, where of course there was no room (uh, you should know the story.)

 

 

As we moved away from the inn, there I spotted my Jordan, dressed in peddler clothing with a roped turban, pitching his wares.  Of course he stayed in character but we were grinning fools when we spotted each other.  The only problem - no flash pictures were allowed so I couldn't whip my camera out and take a blog-worthy pix of him! 

I continued with the group on through the rest of the journey, enjoying the angel then Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus.  As we exited the adventure, we were greeted with cups of warm apple cider.

I'm happy to say I enjoyed my journey tonight!  I was also very proud of my son for standing out in the cold air to help with this production!