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Upwards of 200 people bundled up and braved the cold to see the play
YOUNGSTOWN
“Playing the Virgin Mary makes me feel like I’m closer to God,” said Jaiden Palomaki, 14, one of two girls who played the role in Zion Lutheran Church’s 37th annual “Live Nativity” play Sunday outside the church.
When temperatures are low, as they were Sunday for the four half-hour performances, part of the cast is doubled, including those who play the Virgin Mary, said director Jodi Hanousek of Austintown.
A cast member who braved the cold more than once Sunday was Brice Harris, who played Joseph to Jaiden’s Virgin Mary and to his own daughter, Shayne Harris, 12, who was the evening’s other Virgin Mary.
The “Live Nativity” is a community outreach program to which everyone from the church and community is invited to enjoy Christian fellowship and a meal, said Tom Gent of Austintown, director of the play for nine years before Janousek took over. “It’s a way of keeping Christ in Christmas,” he said.
The players don’t have lines. They act out recorded music and a narrator’s telling of the story of the birth of Jesus.
“There is such a beauty that seems to happen. People are happy and talking to each other and enjoying the story,” Hanousek said.
It has become a church family tradition to perform in the play, which includes live calves, goats and camels, and for people from the community to come and enjoy it, regardless of the weather.
“We had to move it indoors only once in 37 years. There was freezing rain and high winds. We even brought the animals into the church,” said Gent.
The Volenik family of Canfield – Laura and Jim and their daughter, Lindsay, 9 – have made it a tradition to perform in the “Live Nativity.”
Jim handled the lights Sunday, and he and Laura played Joseph and the Virgin Mary the year she was pregnant with Lindsay, who this year was one of the angels.
“It’s nice when families participate together and to come here with all the Zion Church members and the community,” said Laura, a music teacher at Valley Christian Church.
There is even a tradition connected to the soup-and-sandwich meal, presided over by Sallie Kumik, kitchen coordinator, of which everyone is invited to partake.
“Members of the church make vegetable soup from their own recipe, and it is all dumped together. Everyone seems to really enjoy it,” Gent said.