The inn in Bethlehem was crowded because of the census being conducted by the Emperor Augustus. Among those at the inn were a man and his pregnant wife, but there were many others there as well in this work of Biblical fiction: the innkeeper and his family; an elderly woman and her granddaughters and a childless couple who were there for the census; a rejected Roman wife traveling from Egypt to Rome; and an itinerant carpenter searching for work among the crowds of the census. These are only a few of the people in this story who stayed at the inn that night, but their life circumstances led them to be caught up in an unexpected birth of a baby that occurred behind the inn, in the stable. Encounters in Bethlehem tells how the birth of Jesus influenced them all, bringing them assurance and peace and the love of God.