Journey to Bethlehem

Yesterday evening we went to the Journey to Bethlehem. I hadn't been for maybe 4 years. Well, actually we went Fri. night. The first time we ever went we parked in the church parking lot. Friday night when we went it was full and they redirected us to another parking lot and bussed us over to the church. There was such a long line David thought we might have to stand in line for 2 hours so we ended up and left and decided to come back the next night but go earlier. I think the lady that bussed us back to the van said they'd rented 4 parking lots this year. So yesterday we got there like 2 min. until the time the website said it started and there was already a fairly long looking line. In fact as Janae was walking up to get in line she heard the men say to close that parking lot that we were in. Even though the line looked fairly long we moved rather quickly and maybe stood in line around a half hour. (We found out that they'd had over 4,000 people the night before and one lady said there was more last night than there had been the night before.) After you stand in line you finally get in the church and they give you a slip of paper with a Hebrew name which is now supposed to be your name. Then you wait in line to get into this part that has a stage in it and you sit in a group with your "family" and they give a play for you to watch while you wait for your "family" to be called to go on the journey. We were in the family of "Boaz" and "Hannah". They take you past the "Roman" guards and they ask some of you for your names. You stop at different "stations" where "Boaz" usually talks to some of the people--like a priest, the wisemen and the shepherds and others. You go through this market place where they act like they have stuff for sale. This one man asked if we wanted to buy this big fish. Dacia touched it and said it was real. Then after you finally get to where Jesus is then you can go and they give you a couple of cookies and some hot chocolate or water to drink. As you leave they have a group of carolers singing. We were there about 2 hours. It was a good thing we got there when we did. I don't know how long it would have taken us to get in if we'd waited to go very much later than that.