Cricket County and the Cherished Christmas Gift

We are just at the beginning of the Christmas Season, but if you are looking for a family event to help get you into the true Christmas spirit, we may have found just the thing for you to go see this weekend. Danny Arbogast, who, as you know, is the Director of the Pocahontas County Day Report Center, is also quite involved with a very professionally done Christmas play called the “Cricket County and the Cherished Christmas Gift. It will be presented on both Friday, December the sixth and Saturday, December the seventh at the Durbin Church of the Brethren, which is also known as the Rivers of Life Ministry. The church is located at 48 Pine Crest Drive in Durbin, West Virginia.

We talked with Danny about the play.

“Our Christmas Play will be Friday, December the 6th and Saturday, December the 7th. The doors open at six o’clock and the play will start at 7” said Arbogast.

“This Cricket County Christmas has been around for about sixteen years now, and the author of it writes a new section to it every year. And the Durbin Church of the Brethren A.K.A. the Rivers of Life Ministry has teamed up with the Pine Grove church, the New Hope Church of the Brethren and also another church in Durbin that Carl Grayhouse preaches at. We put on a pretty good show for people.

“It’s in a country setting -sometimes its in a city setting- but there’s two groups of people, a family group. There’s your city people and then there’s your country people. Well, they had an uncle to die. He was a rich, wealthy man, but he was a country man and what his values was and what the city people’s value of money was is two different things. He left most of the money to the country people, and the city people was always coming at Christmas time to try and get some of the money from the country folks. The value of money means nothing to them. What the true value of the country people is, is the true meaning of Christmas. And they try to get that established to the city people every year.”

“We have a really good time of laughter, but then there’s some serious Biblical moments that address the true meaning of Christmas.”

“We originally started out doing it on only one night. And the play grew so big that people were coming and it was so crowded that people had to leave because there was no room to see the play, and they said ‘well we’re not coming back next year.’ So, we had to do it on a Saturday night as well, so we’re doing it on two different nights now. We’ve had people come from Ohio to see the play.”

“It’s truly about the true meaning of Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ. This is what it narrows down to -what He has done for us. But it also looks at the character of greed verses people who are content with what they have.”

“It is on 43 Pine Crest Drive in Durbin, West Virginia. It sits up on a hill. Once you pass the Mayor’s office there and you go up and you will see two churches on a hill. One of them is the United Methodist church and the other is the Durbin Church of the Brethren. A.K.A rivers of Life ministries. Like I say, we’ve been doing it for sixteen years now. We have a really good spread afterward and aa lot of people stay around and fellowship.”

Is there any charge?

“No! No charge. It is almost like something you would see at the Opera House. I mean it’s a big play. There’s actually a play book where we start studying our skits and our lines and stuff two months out.”

Are you in the play?

“Yes, I’m in the play. I play Fester. He’s just a simple old country boy who isn’t the brightest kid on the block, but gets the true meaning of Christmas.  But yea, it’s fun and you know, this time of year brings a lot of stress on people’s lives and basically memories of those who have passed on or something. Suicide rates are even high in December. But here, we’ve got an opportunity to get people to laugh -bring joy into people’s lives.  And if anybody’s ever seen the play, they can attest there is a lot of laughter, but then it’ll get serious. A lot of laughter and then it’ll get too you a little bit. That’s our goals -to bring joy into people’s lives, but yet bring out the true meaning of Christmas.”

So Again – you can bring the whole family to the Durbin Church of the Brethren on Pine Crest Drive in Durbin either this Friday or Saturday evening starting at 7 o’clock for a free evening of true Christmas spirit and fellowship.

Story By

Tim Walker

Tim is the WVMR News Reporter. Tim is a native of Maryland who started coming to Pocahontas County in the 1970’s as a caver. He bought land on Droop Mountain off Jacox Road in 1976 and built a small house there in the early 80’s. While still working in Maryland, Tim spent much time at his place which is located on the Friars Hole Cave Preserve. Retiring in 2011 as a Lieutenant with the Anne Arundel County Police Department in Maryland, Tim finally took the plunge and moved from Maryland to his real home on Droop Mountain. He began working as the Pocahontas County Reporter for Allegheny Mountain Radio in January of 2015.

Current Weather

MARLINTON WEATHER
WARM SPRINGS WEATHER
MONTEREY WEATHER