Everything in Isa’s life screams Jesus. Even his name – Isa – is Jesus in Arabic.

He lives in Bethlehem in a perpetual nativity scene.

He wakes up with olive-wood dust still underneath his fingernails, the dust sanded and carved off nativity sets. Mangers are stacked en masse about his shop, and his desk sits in the middle of a sea of beautifully crafted Marys and Josephs and donkeys and baby Jesuses.

He’s kind and gentle in demeanor, and he prides himself on his work, but he’s quick to tell you he didn’t choose his vocation.

“We have no dreams here,” he said. In the West Bank (Palestine) where Bethlehem is located, jobs are dwindling and people for the most part aren’t allowed to travel into Jerusalem for work, even though it’s only a stone’s throw away.

“We don’t get to decide things for ourselves,” Isa says.

But he did get to choose one thing he’ll never regret – to serve the Jesus born in the manger, like the ones he carves everyday, with his life.