Bethlehem

No trip to Israel is complete without traversing over to the West Bank to see where the story of Jesus all began: in Bethlehem. Getting to the West Bank was no problem. Kim & I live within walking distance of the checkpoint to Bethlehem (about 5 city blocks). Despite our relative proximity, we drove with the CBN crew.


Our morning started at 5 AM. Our alarms sounded half an hour late, so we only had 25 minutes to get dressed and out the door. From there we had a 20 minute walk to the office to arrive by 6 AM. We left the apartment at 5:27 and arrived to the building at 5:50. Not bad, but did we mention that all of this happened in the AM?? Erin Zimmerman, the best CBN producer there is, needed to shoot B-roll before her flight left the same day. We didn't mind arriving to the office so early because we love working for Erin, and we love the exclusive access a CBN press pass gets us. We filmed lots of neat rocks and hillsides, a donkey, and even a few places inside Manger Square, but definitely not inside the Church of the Nativity. Despite having the paperwork and almost all the permissions in order (we were missing the Greek Patriarchate...one out of twelve!), the police outside wouldn't let us in. Of course, when we say police, we actually only mean one police officer - the rest had no problem with permitting us entry. In the end, we were unable to film inside the church but captured great exterior footage nonetheless.



Later that day we went with Erin to Ein Karem, the traditional birthplace of John the Baptist. We hiked half a mile uphill through a construction site to reach the Church of the Annunciation (where Mary might have visited Elizabeth while they were both 'with child'). Our last day shooting with Erin was fun but sad. We miss her and look forward to slaving away for her anytime...the sooner the better!