Advent celebrations has not been a part of my family or church background, for a variety of reasons. But, this year, our family had decided to prepare for the celebration of the birth of Christ is a unique way. We were introduced some time ago to a story entitled: Jotham's Journey. The book we are now reading is sort of a sequel to that story. The name of this book is:
Bartholomew's Passage: A Family Story for Advent by Arnold Ytreeide.
It is the fictional story of a young, Jewish boy, who loses his parents to slavery by the Romans, and then in his search for them and his struggle to survive, he meets some new friends along the way. All along, he is also introduced to the non-fictional truth about a Messiah, a baby that would be born in Bethlehem one day. So, the historical setting is back in the days around Jesus' birth.
This is one of those stories that has something for the whole family. We have 8-14 year old children and we all love it. There is humor, drama, adventure, and usually each chapter leaves us wishing we could keep reading on. It is fit with the advent season, so the story begins 3 weeks before Christmas. You read one chapter per night and are encouraging to use the traditional lighting of the candles. We also added the opportunity for our children to light a little candle and go to bed with it after the story.
There is also a devotional thought at the end of each chapter. We use it and then have a brief time of questions and discussion about the chapter and devotional thought. We then have a time of singing and prayer. It has really been a great blessing to our family, each night during this Advent season; and we still have almost 2 weeks to go! I highly recommend this to you and your family.
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