The Visitors

It is Christmas morning at the Barclay house, and the presents are a hit: a new overcoat for George, earrings for Donna, and a fast remote-controlled dune buggy for Jimmy. Out in the snowy yard George insists on taking a turn at the controls, and the buggy promptly gets away from him and crashes near the old shed. While they are retrieving it, George and Jimmy hear a cry from inside the shed and figure the neighbors' cat has locked himself in again. But it is not a cat. It is a baby, wrapped in cloth and lying in Jimmy's old cradle. A stranger's voice announces that the child has not been abandoned: the man is Chris, and with him are Elizabeth and their two-month-old son Zechariah.

Over hot chocolate the family learns the couple has no money and no home, only that they come from far away and needed shelter from the snow. Jimmy and Donna take to them at once, and Jimmy nicknames the baby Zach. But George and Mary privately admit the strangers give them the willies, and rather than let them stay, George phones Whit, who knows about the agencies that help people like this. The visitors are settled in a spare room at Whit's house for the holiday.

Then, at Christmas dinner, George reads the Christmas story from Luke: Mary wrapping her firstborn in strips of cloth and laying him in a manger because there was no room at the inn. The words land hard. Donna says it sounds a lot like what happened that morning, and Mary puts it bluntly: they have shuffled Jesus off onto Whit. Only a year ago, when everything the Barclays owned was stolen, others gave up their own Christmas to care for them, and now they have passed a needy family along to someone else. The whole household springs into action - Jimmy offers his room, Mary picks out clothes - but when George calls to bring the visitors back, the news is stunning. Chris, Elizabeth and Zechariah have vanished from Whit's house, leaving even the fresh clothes behind and the room looking untouched.

The Barclays drive out to search. After two fruitless hours, on a street leading into a rough part of town, Mary asks the harder question: are they searching because the strangers need help, or to ease their own guilty consciences? They are doing the right thing, she says, but for the wrong reason, and they have left someone out. So George pulls the car over and prays, asking God to lead them where He wants them to be. Moments later the family spots a couple with a baby dashing around a corner into an alley - and chases them into a dead end where nobody is. Instead, down a stairwell, they find a different family: Andy, his wife LeeAnn, and their baby Nathaniel, robbed of their money on the way to California and expecting to spend Christmas night outdoors. The couple has been praying God would send some good people their way. The Barclays bring them home, "sort of expecting you," as Mary tells them, and when LeeAnn calls George's family an answer to prayer, George answers that so is she. The first visitors are never found.