Celebration of Christmas

When we got to Venture Out in October, we saw that there was a trip that we could book through the Activity Office that would take us by bus from the resort to Dream City Church in north Phoenix that does a broadway-style show for Christmas. The bus trip from our resort quickly sold out, but I looked into getting tickets on our own. We had bought our tickets, and then one of our neighbors asked if we were interested in going -- we ended up driving together, but had seats separately in the theater.

Arriving at the church -- our friends had a handicapped tag so we were able to park quite close.

We found our seats in the sanctuary/auditorium. We were pretty far back, but near the center - this was our view from the seats we booked.

After we got settled into our seats, a gentleman came up to talk with us. He asked if we had come to the show before, how we had heard about it, if we were there with anyone else. Then he told us that the pastor had reserved a few Premium seats, and that he would like to offer them to us -- seats in row 3. Initially, we said, "There's probably someone more deserving." -- but the fellow said that he only had a short time to give away the seats, and then our seats could be used for latecomers. He assured us that if we got to the seats up front and didn't want them, we could return to our seats... so we went up front with him....

Our view from the premium seats in row 3 - the conductor and orchestra were right in front of us (only row 2 between us and the conductor).

The pastor and his wife were there to welcome the audience to the performance. They stayed to watch the show (in the first row, with the conductor).

Part of the show had singing and dancing...

...including aerialist silk performers.

The story in the first part of the show involved a teenager who was interested in her great-great-grandmother's sleuthing skills from the late 1800s...

... she time-traveled back to the time of her ancestor...

... and worked with her great-great-grandmother to solve a mystery...

... they visited various places to look for clues - a place serving hot chocolate...

... a circus where there was a horse, dogs,

... and a camel -- (not pictured, also a zebra and a kangaroo).

Searching for more clues.

They eventually found the solution to the mystery...

... and the teenager went back to her own time for the finale.

After the performance in the first part of the show, the emphasis transitioned to the Christmas story...

... with songs telling of Christ's birth...

... singer with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus behind...

"Mary did you know?" -- note baby Jesus' arms waving in the video -- that's a real baby in the show!

Three kings came to bring gifts...

... including one on a camel coming down the aisle -- he dismounted just a few feet from us.

The cast on stage with angels flying above

The pastor spoke again and encouraged us to stand for the Hallelujah Chorus:

End of show picture

It was quite an impressive show. We were very glad that we went -- we didn't appreciate the "musical story" part in the beginning as much as we did the Christmas story at the end, but it was impressive how a church would have the resources (people, time, talents) to put on a performance like this. The pastor told us at the beginning that they have been doing this show for 45 years.

Side note -- long time readers of this blog might remember that we visited Short Creek Dream Center a few years ago (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2021/05/short-creek-dream-center-in-hildale-ut.html). Short Creek Dream Center is also a ministry of Dream City Church. They have a number of ministries dealing with "tough" areas -- at this event, the emphasis at this time is combating human trafficking (https://p2p.onecause.com/stw2025-phoenix).