For three days this weekend, visitors to the Bethlehem Walk at Mable Hill Baptist Church in Ardmore, Alabama, will be swept back in time to a tiny village in Israel, where they will experience what Christians believe is the true reason for the season — the birth of Jesus Christ.

Now in its 18th year, the live outdoor drama starts in the church’s Family Life Center, where a kind village woman dressed in long flowing robes hands out shekels to visitors, warning them that only those who pay the tax collector may enter the village ahead.

Jacob, Bethlehem’s fictional mayor, greets small groups of pilgrims as they enter the 10,000-square-foot working replica of Jesus’ birth city. Angry Roman soldiers mounted on horseback shout orders to visitors, while a fishmonger noisily encourages those passing by to purchase his latest catch.

Women bake real bread in an outdoor stone oven fashioned by several of the men in the church earlier that year. A tanner demonstrates his trade, handing out small strips of leather to wide-eyed children. There is a candle shop along the way and even a tea store where weary travelers can sample some honey and unleavened black bread.

“We want people to feel like when they step out of the Family Life Center into the village, they are stepping out of Alabama and into Bethlehem,” Becki Roberson, the event’s executive planner, said. “We try to tell the story of Christ’s birth as accurately as possible.”

She explained that her church used historical records, the Bible and a collection of modern-day photos of Bethlehem taken by an associate of the church’s pastor to conceptualize the living village.

Goats forage through the city, and fires burn to keep guests warm. A group of children approaches visitors with intriguing news: Three kings from the Orient are on their way.

Toward the end of their journey, visitors encounter a remorseful innkeeper. He tells them of a young, pregnant girl he was forced to put in a nearby stable, because there simply was no room in his inn.

It is then that excited shepherds beckon guests to the stable, where they find a baby wrapped in swaddling blankets.

“There are so many people who have not heard this story from beginning to end,” Roberson said.

That is why the tour doesn’t end at the manger. A shepherd draws the crowd to a towering wooden cross at the edge of the village.

“They walk a distance of 20 feet and find themselves 32 years in the future, where they learn that the baby they just saw lying in a manger would grow up and die on a cross to save them,” she added.

The group ends up in the church sanctuary. The staff has turned the baptistry into a replica of the empty tomb, replete with grave’s clothes.

“That’s the big news we want to share,” Roberson said. “Jesus is no longer dead. He is alive and here for me and you.”

Most of the 130-member congregation works together to make the free event, which runs from 6:30–9 p.m nightly Dec. 8–10, a success, according to Roberson. Several members from Union Baptist Church also joined in with the production. Mable Hill Baptist Church is located at 3778 Ready Section Road. For more information, go to www.mablehillbaptist.org or visit their Facebook page.