LIVE NATIVITY
What an incredible night we had! The presence of God filled that shed, hundreds came (literally - we estimate at least 200 people in the shed ... our average Sunday worship attendance is about 30) and all commented on how moved they were by it.
Mary Golem wrote the script and Gerald Golem audiotaped the Sunday School children and their leaders, Karen Lembke and Lisa Albright, reading it. The music of the parish's men's quartet The For Him Four was used for the four carols used during the program, and the children and some adult helpers dressed as shepherds, wise men, villagers and angels. A choral Hallelujah was played at the end.
Our resources are limited, but people willingly agreed to participate and were blessed because of it. Trevor and Lisa Fenton played the roles of Mary and Joseph. Their son Landen, almost 1 1/2 years of age, was a squirmish baby Jesus, who did not want to lie in the manger, but rather had eyes for one of our young angels!
Harvey Albright, a senior, offered to do "something". He was needed as a wise man ... willingly agreed, and did so with such pleasure. Zach Kotaba, a young confirmand, his parents, Brian and Cherylann and grandfather, John loaded their donkey and brought it. Another couple, Hank and Harriet Boon, with no connection to the church, except a friendship with Audrey Lembke, the main source of inspiration and drive behind the live nativity, brought their sheep. When we offered them a gift of cash and a CD of the men's quartet, they gratefully took the CD but immediately returned the gift of cash, saying how pleased they were the "real" story of Christmas was being shared with their neighbourhood.
It was a lot of work - erecting a five-foot wooden star with lights in the shed rafters, using fence rails to create a manger scene and old wooden doors strung together to create a village scene. But, what a fantastic night it was!
Plans are to have another live nativity in the shed on Christmas Eve 2006.
