A little over 2 millennium ago, a young expectant mother heard the news that a census had been decreed by the great ruler; Augustus. We don’t how she heard it. Possibly in the town square or maybe from a nosy neighbor who, other than sharing this juicy little tid bit, did not deign to talk to the young girl. After all, she had returned from her cousin's obviously pregnant but had not yet lived in her betrothed’s home. Still, he had taken her in which had helped to qualm the gossip –a little.

Now she and her newly wedded husband, the village's carpenter, would need to take what would have to feel like an endless journey; through the desert and across enemy territories to the birthplace of David – the line from which her husband descended.

Have you ever wondered what that would be like, in the last days of your pregnancy? Heavy with child? The ligaments in your back already aching just from normal daily chores, tasks like hauling water from the town well? How would they feel after hiking an average of ten to twelve miles a day for almost eight days in order to be there in time to be counted?

Then there were questions to answer such as should she bring swaddling clothes for the baby or would she make it back home before the birth? What if she gave birth halfway between here and Bethlehem? Maybe they would find a caravan to travel with that had a midwife with them? But then it was such a small town – how many would actually be descendents from Bethlehem and would they even find a caravan to travel with?

But this young women had a special relationship with her creator, one whose name is so powerful that only the High Priest referred to Him by his rightful name: Yaweh. From the moment that we are introduced to her, by Luke, we are made aware of the abundant trust she has in God, our father, when she answers God’s request of her; that she bear and give life to the Son of God, though she ‘had not yet known man’. No doubt, this trust carried her through the difficulties and challenges that Caesar Augustus' decree placed before her and her faith filled husband.

This book is my attempt to imagine what it must have been like to travel in the chill of winter to try and reach a small town over 80 miles, in time to be counted by Caesar’s soldiers. It was inspired by an advent project I created over two decades ago with my first five children. I had drawn a donkey carrying Mary, the Virgin Mother, with Joseph leading them. Then I drew a simple manger and placed the two drawings at opposite ends of our living room wall. Between them I created a path of stones that lead from the Holy family to the manger. During the weeks of Advent we slowly moved them closer and closer to the manger in Bethlehem. I was sharing the memory of this with Gabriela, who was an infant at the time and too young to remember this Advent journey we had taken with the Holy family in the early nineties.

We were chatting about how we should do this again when suddenly I said ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have an account to read about their journey each night as we moved Joseph and Mary closer and closer to the nativity?’ Gabriela agreed that would indeed be fun. Later when we shared this idea with Hugo, my husband, he suggested we publish the story through the Kindle. With that the Advent Journey with Mary and Joseph was born.