By RANDY BARTLEY
Staff writer
Veterans Memorial Park in downtown Clarion became the biblical city of Bethlehem on Friday night, thanks to the congregation of Trinity Point Church of God.
“We have been doing this since the early 1970s,” said church member Jerome Connor, who has been involved with the construction of the two-story set for “quite awhile.”
“It is a solid set,” he said. “Each of the partitions is numbered and that makes it simple to put it together. It takes about three hours to set it all up. Everyone involved is a volunteer from our church.”
No Nativity scene would be complete without animals, and this year it included sheep and a donkey. Church members also own the animals.
“This is our way of sharing Christ with the community,” church member Laura Burford said. “People tell us that this Nativity is what starts their Christmas season.”