All chapters in the Galilee Stories Nazareth. What am I doing here? I wanted to stay out of sight in the backwaters, now I'm at the center of the universe. There are 2 main trade routes in this world: Baghdad to Rome and Cairo to Damascus. Those 2 paths intersect right here in Nazareth. Thousands of travellers pass through this city every year. Hundreds of caravans. At least nobody will wonder where I'm from. Half the people in Nazareth are just visiting from somewhere else.
I tried a few carpenter shops asking about some farming instruments. The prices were all over the map, there certainly isn't any price fixing here. Unfortunately none of the carpenters were very friendly, and none of them knew a carpenter named Yeshua.
I found an inn on the outskirts of the city and rented a room. It had a straw mattress on a wooden frame, a chamber pot, and a window with a woven curtain. The air was stale and the lighting poor. But I had privacy which was been rare since I arrived.
I sat against the door and opened my pack. I reviewed my 15 bugs, a wireless receiving station and lamented that I had no place to put any of them. "If I can't make any progress in Nazareth I'll start bugging the synagogues and then return home" I muttered. I reviewed some of the pictures and video on my shoulder cam. What a wild place. Camels and donkeys everywhere, children running in packs laughing and scrounging. A few Roman patrols can be seen on major streets, but Nazareth appears to be a calm and peaceful marketplace.
Not trusting the "lock" on the door and not trusting the bedframe to be sturdy enough I lie down in front of the door, wedge my back against it, and let myself nap. I dreamed that I was crying while standing on a beach watching fishing boats. My best friend is gone and he's never coming back.
I'm jolted awake when my wire buzzes. I answer it in a soft voice, hoping nobody can hear my English.
"Agent Jensen, what is your status?"
"I'd rather ask you for your status. Has the bug in Caphernaum been recovered?"
"Not yet, the signal is so weak we are having trouble locating it. It appears to be buried roughly 2 meters beneath the old synagogue ruins. The Israeli authorities are none to keen to let us randomly dig in the hopes we'll find it. We'll need more precise coordinates before we can retrieve it."
"When"
"Probably 2 more days our time, that's 6 hours your time. Where are you?"
"Nazareth."
"What?"
"I know I know, but there was no place else to go. I tried Cana and Mt Tabor and several fishing villages on the Kinnaret. Nobody knows a carpenter or rabbi named Yeshua."
"How many people have seen you in Nazareth?"
"A few hundred, but nobody cares. This place is like a major airport. Thousands of people travel through here every week. I'm just another stranger."
"But you are still changing hundreds of lives. That's just a lot more energy we'll need to refocus the timeline. When can you get out of there?"
"I guess a few more hours won't make much difference. Unless there's a secret rabbi carpenter around here".
A few hours later I was walking south a few hundred yards behind a caravan. They were strewing garbage as if they needed to unload ballast. "What a waste, this is such a beautiful place." I pulled off the road at the town of . This time it was worth it. A poor family outside of town offered a crust of bread. Chatting with them I learned of a carpenter up the road named Yeshua. He had finished rabbinical training and was on the verge of moving to Caphernaum. His mother's named was Mary and his father had died long ago. When I took my leave I left behind a gold coin, probably enough to feed them for a year. And I accidentally left a second in an obvious spot.
Whistling as I neared town I found my heart beating wildly. It was really him. In preparation I loaded 2 of the locusts and attached them to the edge of my cloak. They should last 5 years before they burrowed into the dirt for their 2000 year nap. I would release them near Jesus and walk away and go home and wait for them to be dug up.