In the house-like building on the corner of Budd Avenue and San Tomas Expressway, little boys and girls in Sunday school are dressed in cloaks, robes and headdresses reminiscent of biblical Israel. They're waiting for the teacher to tell them what's next on the agenda.

All around them, the walls are decorated with paper structures molded into different shapes.

Against one wall there's a well made of what looks like paper bags. And in the corner of another room, someone has built a simulated manger complete with a stuffed sheep doll and shredded paper that represents hay.

"That's a marketplace," says parent Filip Buntaran, pointing to another structure.

"That's a hotel," he says, pointing to yet another. "And that's where they get water."

Buntaran says parents and teachers created the elaborate setup to give the children an idea of what it was like to live in Bethlehem when Jesus was born. It's also a way to educate them about the history and tradition of Christianity and to get them into the holiday spirit, he adds.

The children, teachers and their parents are all members of the Campbell-based Gereja Injili Indonesia, or Indonesian Evangelical Church.

Led by Rev. Stephen Hosea, the church began offering services in 1985 to about 30 people in a conference room at San José City College. In 1990, it moved into the Budd Avenue location.

For 11 years, Budd Avenue served as the site of the congregation's Sunday services and school. Growth, however, forced Hosea to look for an even larger place in 2001.

Today, the Budd Avenue location is used mainly for study sessions, special functions and some Sunday school classes, says assistant deacon Ian Phan. The church's regular Sunday services, with its 200 churchgoers, are now held in the nearby Campbell Seventh Day Adventist Church on Campbell Avenue.

Most of the congregation hails from Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands situated between the Asian continent and Australia. According to the CIA World Fact Book, the country has a population of about 250 million people. Christians, including Roman Catholics, constitute about 8 percent of the population. And with almost 90 percent of the population being Muslim, Indonesia holds the distinction of being the most populous Muslim country in the world.

For years, religious tension between the Muslim and Christian communities has kept many parts of the country on edge. The tension, unfortunately, periodically erupts into open conflict.

"Every once in a while, we learn about another Christian village getting attacked," says Christopher Rustam, 27, who moved to the United States three years ago.

To reduce the risk of exacerbating already tenuous relations, many church members say Christians in Indonesia generally keep Christmas observances low-key.

Margaret Hing, 14, who was born in Indonesia but moved to the United States when she was 3 years old, says she became aware of this when she went back to visit Jakarta for the first time.

"I woke up and nobody said 'Merry Christmas,'" she says. "Christmas over there felt just like a regular day."

Her friend Irin Pansawira, 15, agrees.

"It's really different there," she says. "We don't have Christmas presents. And we don't have Christmas trees."

Though he nods his head in agreement, Phan says there are other reasons, too.

"You also have to understand that Christianity isn't native to Indonesia," he says. And the country doesn't grow many pine trees.

Without Indonesia's religious tension—but with an abundance of potential Christmas trees—the congregation here is free to celebrate as it pleases.

At the Budd Avenue Sunday school, for example, the children are running rampant through the Christmas decorations. And at the Campbell Avenue church, teenage members are performing a holiday skit that espouses nonmaterialistic values.

Rustam says he's appreciative of the freedom of worship in the United States, but the relative lack of adversity in his newfound home isn't all good news.

"I'm pretty concerned, to be honest," he says. "Everything here is so secure, so nice. It's easy for us to forget about our brothers and sisters in Indonesia."

Just about the only thing that seems out of the ordinary about this church is the language.

Serving the Indonesian Christian community in the greater Bay Area, Hosea conducts his services in Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia.

Because almost everyone in the congregation is from Indonesia, Phan says, almost everyone understands him.

But with three generations of immigrants present—some who've just arrived from Indonesia, some who've been in the United States for a while and some who've grown up in America almost all their lives—there are some who are unable to follow along, says a lady near the door.

For them, the church supplies multilingual Bibles and songbooks, which can be picked up at a table in front of the entrance.

Church volunteers also pass out little electronic devices with headphones attached. They're personal P.A. systems. And people can use them to listen to an interpreter interpret the service.

"But the interpretation isn't professional quality," Phan admits, adding that they seldom hand out more than four or five sets on a typical Sunday.

At the Campbell Avenue site, it's already 15 minutes into the service and only around 100 people are inside the worship hall.

Many are still at the entrance, greeting one another and picking up books.

"Indonesians don't usually come on time," Phan explains quietly, watching a handful of people filing past him.

Hosea is urging everyone to pray for the political situation in Indonesia, to pray for the country in which everyone now resides and to pray for resolutions to problems both locally and internationally.

By the time the service ends, almost the entire 200-people-strong congregation will have been packed into the hall, which the church rents from the Adventist Church.

The rent situation isn't likely to last for long though, Phan says. Gereja Injili Indonesia is looking for a place to call its own.

It has started a search of South Bay facilities that would be able to accommodate both Sunday services and Sunday school activities. If it finds one, it will mean shuttering the Budd Avenue church.

Back at the Budd Avenue site, that's the last thing on the children's minds.

The teacher arrives and explains to them that she plans to have them learn about the different roles men and women played in biblical times.

As she leads the girls into another room to wash clothes, she leaves the boys with some of the male parents. They gather around a large blue tarp lying on the ground.

The parents tell the children it's a tent, and it's the man's job to pitch it.

Together the boys take hold of the edges. And in unison, they lift the tarp over their heads, creating a makeshift canopy with the boys' arms as the supports.

But some boys can't help but take the opportunity to play.

Letting go, they run under the canopy, yelling, jumping and striking the tarp along the way. Another pair skips out from their duty as well. Blindfolding themselves with cloth belts, they begin slap-fighting each other with their long flowing robes.

A spirited Christmas, indeed.