The last four days have probably been some of the most exhausting international work I have ever done " and some of the most revealing.
The Life of Jesus crew has just finished day nine of an epic shoot in Israel, and everyone is more than a little tired. The temperatures have averaged in the high 30's, involved walking on lots of stone, and usually stretched for ten hours at a time. To say that we are looking forward to a sleep-in on our scheduled day off would be something of an understatement.
Four days ago we crossed into Palestinian territory to visit the birthplace of Jesus, the city of Bethlehem. It has been eight years since I have visited this town and things have changed dramatically with the addition of Israel's security wall.
The border controls are akin to those that you meet in most airports, but that is not the major difference. It is the "feeling' of the town, if I can be so vague. From a hill-top overlooking Shepherds' Fields (the traditional location of the site where an angel of the Lord announced the birth of Jesus) you can clearly see the shiny new suburbs that are being built on Israel's side of the fence. But in Palestine things are not so bright. Bethlehem is wasting while the rest of Israel moves on.
I had dinner with a group of 20-something Jews who were keen to compare notes on our lives. Naturally I didn't want to bring up such a sensitive topic like internal security, but I didn't have to. It was one of the only topics they were unified on. This emerging generation saw the wall as a postponement of problems rather than a solution, and they feared the reckoning that would emerge from the limited prospects it created. Our Palestinian guide into the territory probably summed it up best. Looking at the graffiti that decorated his side of the barrier, he said, "They say in America, "Good fences make good neighbours'. Here, great walls make great enemies."
Negotiating the access to the Church of the Nativity was as fun as always. Since it is jointly controlled by the Roman Catholic Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church, you have to have three pieces of paper ready every time you walk through a new doorway " just in case you have crossed into someone else's territory. However it seems that all parties are still keen for people hear about the birth of Jesus, so once the paperwork was in order, our problems were few.
We have also been on something of a tour of Israel's national parks and cultural centres " The Herodian (one of Herod the Great's palace fortresses); The Davidson Centre (containing the remains of the great Jewish Temple); The Tower of David Museum (displaying images of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans); Kursi (the traditional site of Jesus casting demons into swine); and Sepphoris (the upper class city on the border of Jesus' home town). It was this final location that gave us one of greatest logistical challenges.
We had decided before leaving Australia to record all of the Bible passages to be used in The Life of Jesus on location in Israel. Our excellent production assistant Katrina Boyle had located just the right Israeli actress to carry out the task and Israel's National Parks had given us free reign over the beautiful site of Sepphoris. The day dawned and the only thing that stood in our way was a 40 degree heat wave. There is next to no shade at Sepphoris, and sustaining the shoot and supporting each other became an incredible effort. We almost lost our intrepid director as he ventured out into the Arab-speaking countryside for a "lunch run'. However God saw him safely back. At 4:00 pm, with the sun and our energy levels descending, we still had five more passages to film. Once again, though, God's graciousness triumphed and we managed to finish on time. The happy faces say it all.
Today has involved shooting largely around the Jordan River. It's an amazingly evocative site, as much for its association with the life of Jesus and John the Baptist as it is for its natural beauty. There are brilliant blue kingfishers that dart down to dark green water, searching for whiskered catfish and the ugly St Peter's fish. But probably the catch of the day was the shot that showed presenter John Dickson falling backwards into this famous river. If you'd like to see how it came about, then you're just going to have to stay tuned for the series :)
The Life of Jesus crew is John Dickson (Presenter), Allan Dowthwaite (Director), Greg Clarke (Presenter / Researcher), Mal Hamilton & Paul Moss (Camera operators), Neil Kelly (Sound recordist) and Mark Hadley (Producer).
