A Night in Bethlehem

Our church,

Pleasant Valley North Baptist Church,

held "A Night in Bethlehem" Sunday.

The above article appeared on the front page of Monday's paper.

I've been working on signs for the event for many weeks.I used some weathered wood and did some wood burning.

Saturday was used as a setup day. We placed the signs, set up tents, and prepared the luminaries.
Some of the "buildings" (facades only) were already set up...
...like the inn and the stable.
The tents were used for the marketplace.
Our local newspaper, the Rome News-Tribune,
printed the above article on the front page of Sunday's paper.
Sunday afternoon we dressed for our parts.
Syndi worked in the marketplace, originally in the dye shop, although she was free to roam the market and wander up to the inn.
Jon was a shepherd in the fields where the angels appeared.
We had five scenes:
the Census takers (at the entrance),
the Marketplace (with 4 different "shops" - dye, rope, bakery, and fruit & veggies),
the Inn (with an innkeeper turning away everyone, including Joseph and Mary),
the Shepherds in the field with the Angels,
and the Stable scene (complete with wise men, shepherds and live sheep).
The marketplace workers hawked their goods to the cars driving through, as pictured in Monday's newspaper article above.
The Roman soldiers at the entrance stopped the vehicles so census takers could take a proper count of the vehicles and the people in them.
We had 267 vehicles pass through with 842 people from 6PM to 8PM.
It went well for our first year.