Monday (6/22) - Monasteries (and a little bit of Leonidas)

Wow! What a day! We started with some of the most beautiful vistas we've seen anywhere in this country and end it with our triumphal entry at last into Athens and our home base for the next 6 or so days. Here we go! We started in Kalambaka, and started the day by driving up into the Meteora area right next door. Here is the 2nd largest grouping of Orthodox monasteries, and the setting is beautiful and (by definition) ethereal, as they are all perched up on top of soaring cliffs and free-standing pillars that tower hundreds and hundreds of feet above the ground below. Here is one!



They were built up there specifically for the solitude and quiet. Pathways and roads weren't built until very recent times! Thankfully, we could take the bus up one of the mountain-sides most of the way and get views like this!



Folks, this place truly is amazing. I've just never seen anything like it. Maybe my favorite place so far, at least in the amazing vistas category.
You can visit multiple monasteries during certain hours, but we were only visiting the Varlaam monastery today, and let me tell you we got full value. Up until the 1920's (if memory serves), when a stairwell was cut into the rock face, this crane and basket system was the only way up or down!



The chapel inside the monastery hosts an amazing array of Eastern Orthodox artwork and icons. I particularly liked this one of IC XP (i.e. Jesus).



We couldn't leave without a group picture!



And once on the bus, we had to stop for a last shot of this amazing landscape. Wow.
(hmmm, I can't remember if that monastery in the center of the photo below is Varlaam or not... still, it's very picturesque all the same!)



How can you top such a place of beauty and tranquility? By visiting a place steeped in history and Hollywood testosterone! After our lunch (a fun roadside restaurant), we proceeded on to Athens, and the same highway that you have to take today is the same one that the invading Persian army once took in 480 BC, when they met a fierce (and doomed) little band of Spartans and Thespians who took a stand for freedom at legendary Thermopylae (or "Hot Gates"). Or so the story goes. These days people only remember the Spartans and ignore the poor people of the village of Thespia, but that's how these things go. The movie 300 was a popular film on the subject, but walking the battlefield really made things come to life for me. (no green screens anywhere to be found!) Here I'm standing on the hill that they took their final stand upon, and I'm looking west onto the narrow plain between the mountains and the ocean that the first stages of the famous Battle of Thermopylae took place.



There is of course a monumental statue of the Spartan general Leonidas that we all had to pose under, with a simply epic ancient Greek quote underneath. The Persians are said to have sent a messenger to Leonidas requesting that he surrender his weapons now that he saw how outnumbered they were. The quotation translates: "Come and get them." Awesome.



(Of course, the Persians did come and get them and the Spartans all died, but AHHH what an end...worthy of graphic novels and blockbuster movies!)

Now we made our last drive to historic Athens. Almost there!



We finally entered the edge of the city and came to Kifissia, a NE suburb where we are now staying for the next almost-a-week. Our new home is Bethel, the home of the Evangelical Scripture Union. It's kind of like a mini-retreat center with dorm facilities and a meeting room (with musical instruments that many of us are enjoying) and a recreation court out back with basketball and soccer and volleyball capabilities. What fun! When we arrived, we knew we were in good hands because we were greeted with ice cream bars! Yum! Surely a good sign of great things to come. :-) We celebrated our arrival by enjoying some recreation outside, and we quickly got up a game of Breakout (which I'd never heard of before but it's quite fun) that you see here:



Well, here we are in Athens! The real Athens of the history books and of Acts 17 and the 2004 Summer Olympics and all that! Can't wait! (but first, some sleep)

Tomorrow: Adventures into the ancient heart of Athens!

The Mission

One of the guiding strategies behind this part of our Holy Lands trip is to retrace Paul's footsteps on his 2nd and 3rd missionary journies wherever possible. The other day, right after we had visited Philippi, and Berea, and Dion (where Paul possibly set sail for Athens), I was sitting in the front of the bus watching the landscapes just roll by, and I began contemplating how these lands were the same that Paul crossed, and then others after him, and then the very first churches grew up in, and then passed the flame of the gospel on to others, and then to others, and they moved on to other lands beyond Greece, and then on to other lands, and eventually to northern Europe, and then on to the new lands of America, and someone passed it on to my great grandparents, and then to my grandfather and then to my parents and then to me -- and here we are representatives of Wheaton College coming back to the same lands where the fire of the Gospel first sputtered to a bright flame amidst the Gentiles.

Wow.

It made me think of this great song, and I want to share it with all of you. Listen to it and think about the power of the Good News of Jesus Christ, come to save the lost and bring a new hope, come to make all things NEW!

Sunday (6/21) - On the Move to Meteora

I'll make this quick, because I want to go to bed. Today we said our final farewell to the Olympus Bay Resort and headed north to Katerini for church at one of the very rare Greek evangelical churches.



We've been learning about the evangelical church in Greece; it's not very large and it's been frequently persecuted by the dominant Greek Orthodox Church--not violently necessarily, but I'm told that they've been systematically marginalized and/or legally pressured. Thus, the Greek evangelical community is often pretty excited when other Evangelicals from elsewhere come to visit and share relational community together. Here we see Dr. Perrin addressing the congregation and explaining who our group was.



We sat together and were given little wireless headsets connected to a translator back in the sound booth so that we could kind of follow along with the speakers and sermon. Of course, the translation was more of a summary, because after the speaker would talk for like 20 seconds, we'd hear three or four words, so perhaps we got the Cliff Notes version. :-) There was a guest speaker who spoke on the topic of fear and not letting fear keep us captive to its lies, for God has called us to freedom. It was a good reminder for all of us.

After the service, many of the younger Greek ladies talked to our girls and there was some swapping of email addresses. We then walked a short ways to a restaurant in the city where we packed in tight and ate wonderful plates of Greek meats and yummy salad for lunch. Finally we boarded the bus and then headed off to Kalambaka and the region of Meteora. This is the second largest community of Orthodox monasteries in the whole country, and we've been told that they are perched up on top of soaring cliffs! Can't wait.

Shortly before we hit Kalambaka, our stopping place for the night, we stopped at a genuine Orthodox icon factory. For those who don't really understand Orthodox icons, read this. It was pretty neat to see all the icons there in the shop with one of the painters there on-site creating one in front of us.



We learned about the full manufacturing process, and then we perused the icons there for sale. It was a fun challenge to try to read the highly-abbreviated Greek inscriptions on some of them, and I was successful in my own search for a good icon of that truly great hero of the faith: St. Mark. :-)

As we approached Kalambaka, we saw the mountains loom in the distance and the rocks of Meteora just on the edge of town. After finding our hotel rooms, many of us went for a leisurely walk around town to see what we could see. It was a wonderful night, cool temps and cooler breezes, and since it was a relatively small town there was only one main street and all the cafes were full of people just sitting there peacefully. It was a great experience. And look at our view! Up there is where we will visit tomorrow.



On our way back to the hotel, we passed by this one fast-food kind of place that had a few funny items on their bilingual menu. It was very spesial.



Tomorrow: Cliff-top monasteries and our journey to Athens!

Saturday (6/20) - Dion and a Rest Day

Today was a fun day, with a site visit in the morning to the nearby ancient city of Dion, a nice lunch, and then a free afternoon with opportunities to swim, walk the beach, take a nap, or even just check email or grab a seat near the pool with ocean views. Not a bad way to spend a day in Greece! On to the pictures:

Dion was an important port city in the northern parts of Greece, in what was in ancient times Macedonia. (there is also major controversy over the modern name of Macedonia, with the independent former Yugoslavian country named Macedonia and the Greek administrative district Macedonia fighting over turf...I won't get into that debate here though). Anyway, the site is pretty neat, with some temples and some cool ancient streets. I always like to walk the excavated streets, since we know for a fact that these are the same stones the ancient peoples walked on just the same way.



In the museum on-site, there were a number of interesting artefacts from the area. (okay, I'll admit that I find pretty much all this stuff interesting, since it's my area of professional study... but not all of us intrepid "Holy Landers" are finding museums the most fascinating places anymore... :-) Here are a really neat group of statues representing the children of the god Asclepius, a god associated with healing. It is quite rare to find these together.



I also really like ancient coins, and this is a good one of Philippos (or Philip), I think Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. Anyone able to read the Greek below? (it's genitive case)



There was also a pretty awesome tombstone with the below carving. It commemorates a husband/wife team who have died, and it mentions things that each of them enjoyed and were skilled at in life. The wife (left) enjoyed music and the husband (right) worked as a scribe/writer of some sort.



Finally we broke for a satisfying lunch and then returned to our resort for an afternoon of rest and relaxation. I took a little nap and got caught up on some emails. And baseball scores. :-) Such activities made me thirsty, and when I perused the beverage choices at the little store nearby, I found these little gems.



Hah! I find this so hilarious because the name of this Greek soda is in fact an ancient Greek word that means "youth" or "youthfulness." Looks like it survived into modern times too! Awesome.

Tomorrow: Church service (at a Greek evangelical church!) and then on to Meteora...

Friday (6/19) - To Mount Olympus!

I'm going to make this post more concise for time's sake and let the pictures do most of the talking.

1) Today we toured Thessaloniki a bit, which is a major city (2nd largest in Greece) and full of its own interesting history, although the connection with Paul's missionary journies are what interested us the most.
2) Then we drove to the site of Berea (Acts 17:10) and enjoyed lunch near a modern shrine to commemorate St. Paul's visit. In fact, they host every June a city-wide festival to St. Paul, which unfortunately we seem to have just missed.
3) After lunch we had a special stop at Vergina, one of the special cities in the ancient Macedonian empire and the burial place of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great! (yes, this place was great -- the objects of gold and silver found in the tomb are in the museum there and are among the most impressive artifacts I've seen yet on this trip!)
4) On to our destination, a full-blown resort in Leptokarya, literally right at the foot of Mt. Olympus where it descends in full majesty into the sea. Whoah! I have been looking forward to seeing Mt. Olympus for a long time -- the first lecture of my Classical Mythology course (which they don't teach at Wheaton, at least not yet) has a whole bit on Mount Olympus and on ancient people visiting it and how it was just fine in their minds to say that the gods lived there even if they were to go there physically and find no gods on the top, etc. Let's just say that Mt. Olympus beat the hype! (Even better than my other favorite Mt. Olympus... note the shirt I'm wearing in the first pic from yesterday's summary :-)

So, without further ado, here are the pictures from today:

Here we see the Forum at Thessaloniki, surrounded now by modern buildings. There's honestly not too much to see here, but Paul would have come here.



Now in Berea, here enjoy lunch at this shrine to St. Paul. The Greek was fun to try to read.



While waiting for everyone else to finish lunch, some of us invented a new game: No Smiling! You get a group of people in a circle, and when you smile you have to leave the circle; you can't look down or away from other people in the group. I lost pretty much instantly. But look at these two finalists! (Abby is the new no smile queen, awesome skillz there!)

Then we drove to Vergina, site of the burial tomb of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The tomb has been excavated, and below is the entrance. They built it and then covered it with a gigantic mound of dirt, making a hill! Now, the excavated tomb chambers are visible inside along with a whole museum showing the intact artefacts they found there. Lots of beautiful objects, including many of gold and silver. Very impressive!

As were driving to our destination, I kept asking our guide, "Will you tell us when Mt. Olympus comes into view?" And she kept replying, "Oh, don't worry, you'll know." :-) Then I saw it! And she was right, I didn't have to ask.



Over 9,000 feet of awesomeness. The highest peak in the land! It was shrouded partly in cloud in a very numinous, awe-dramatic fashion. One of Zeus's epithets in Homer's Iliad (go read it!) is "Cloud-Gathering Zeus," and now I know exactly why.



Our place for the next two nights is the Olympian Bay Resort, nestled at the base of Mt. Olympus and right on the water. What views! The buffet dinner was fantastic.



After dinner, some of us went strolling along the shoreline for a peaceful moment.



I think we will enjoy this place! We stay for two nights before continuing our eventual journey to Athens. Hope everyone is enjoying the pictures -- I'm sure most of you wish you were here by now! An embarassment of beauty and experiences to be sure. God has given us all many blessings on this study trip, to be sure.
Tomorrow -- ancient Dion and a free afternoon and evening! Sweet!

Thursday (6/18) - Walking the Philippians Road

Morning, as it usually does, came early today, but I took advantage of the morning sunshine to take a self-portrait on my hotel room balcony. The city streets of Kavala were already alive with morning business, but I was bidding it farewell.





Our first stop of the day was a rise just outside of town where we could see a small part of the ancient Via Egnatia, the original Roman road that connected this part of northern Greece eventually with the rest of the Roman empire. In the picture below, the ancient road coming west out of Neapolis (modern Kavala) emerges from the trees at the bottom of the photo, just left of center. It is neat to think that Paul and his companions walked this very same road as he climbed toward Philippi and the advancement of the Gospel into Macedonia.



We then got on the bus and proceeded a few miles NW to the ancient site of Philippi. Our first view showed us that the acropolis ("high, defensible point of the city"--left side of photo below) stood out from the surrounding plain and would have been visible from quite a distance. The main Roman city stood at the base of that tell.



The site of Philippi is important for two big reasons: it was where Paul visited, wrote letters to, got jailed and then miraculously freed, etc., BUT it was also the location of one of the most significant battles of the Roman world: the Battle of Philippi where in 42 BC Marc Antony and Octavian (the future Caesar Augustus) defeated Cassius and Brutus (the assassinators of Julius Caesar). This major battle during the Roman civil wars helped bring the young Octavian to a position of greater power, which eventually led him to defeat his once-ally Marc Antony later in 31 BC at the Battle of Actium. These events all led to the establishment of the emperors in Rome and the transformation of the Roman state from one led by the Senate to one led by single-man emperors. Which of course is how things are when young Jesus of Nazareth is born in humble Bethlehem. Most people don't realize that Caesar Augustus was the first Roman emperor and thus that the whole system of emperors was still pretty radically new when Jesus enters the world.
Yes, Roman history is sweet! And it tells us a lot about the world in which the Gospel first goes forth and early church must survive and move forward. Anyway, the big battle in 42 BC took place on the plain to the west and south of the city site, somewhere near where the above picture was taken (the pic looks north).

Archaeologists have uncovered a number of interesting remains here in Philippi, including the main Roman forum, the edges of some temples, the commercial agora, a Byzantine basilica, some ancient latrines :-), etc. The forum is a neat place to walk with all its strewn pillars and marble monuments, and also because it becomes just a tiny bit easier to imagine Paul and company walking these streets, getting in trouble for healing the demon-possessed girl, and then getting thrown into prison after getting hauled before the magistrate (politarchos).



Of particular note is a 4th century church they have partially excavated, because this makes it one of the (if not the) earliest-found church in all of Greece! They can date it to the early part fo the 300s because of the Greek inscription found inside mentioning a certain Bishop Porphyrios, and they know when he lived.



"Porphyrios the bishop made this adornment of the Basilica of (St.) Paul in Christ."
Reading inscriptions like this, it's fun to decipher these little clues to the past and unlock their secrets -- they're like my little Indiana Jones moments. :-)

They've also identified a structure as the "so-called Pauline prison" just up the very tall hill at our backs, but it's very unlikely that is the place -- most agree that the prison would have probably been near or at the top of the acropolis. We would have explored these places further, but for the first time on our whole trip, a rain storm popped up right before lunch and we cut the afternoon explorations short. Actually, it was more like a tropical typhoon -- it poured down! We kept wondering we couldn't have gotten a little bit of this while we were down in the Negev... :-)

We thus ate our lunch while trying to wring ourselves dry, and then we boarded the bus once more to finish our drive to Thessaloniki. The landscapes of Greece really do inspire the mind, and as one of the people near me commented, "It's easy to see how people thought that gods lived here in this land."



Our one stop on the way was to see a monumental lion statue called the "Lion of Amphipolis" at the ancient city of Amphipolis. It's really huge! Ancient travelers would have been properly impressed, I'm sure -- we were!



We finally made it to Thessaloniki and found our way to our hotel, the Grand Hotel Palace. When we finally arrived, our wonderful Greek guide announces that everyone can see our great hotel on the left -- which was nothing but an empty, dirt lot with some garbage in it! Then she said, "Oh, I mean on the right! Oh, I am so funny." (in the best Greek accent) And there it was! Pretty fancy-looking really. We had an afternoon lecture on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians and then settled into yet another 4-course meal. Mmmm...I don't think I've ever eaten better in my whole life than this last week.
Tomorrow: Thessaloniki and then down to a resort at the foot of Mt. Olympus! Can't wait!

On a final note, I'm happy to say that a picture I took of our group has made it's way onto the Wheaton College Image of the Week site! Click here (or at least you can for the next few days) for a Sea of Galilee moment -- still one of my favorite from this whole trip.

Wed (6/17) - Let's Drive to Greece!

Why, what a brilliant idea?

Today our goal was pretty simple -- get to Greece. And not by air. What fun! Check out the route we would get to enjoy: start at Izmir in Turkey and search for Kavala, Greece. Crossing continents and everything! On trips like this, I love the journey often as much as experiencing the destination. I love watching how the landscapes change slowly, or at times very dramatically. Our journey today began at Izmir, and we drove north along the coast, passing through mountain valleys and climbing up into them even at points. The landscape in Turkey is actually quite eye-opening -- an odd mix of mountains and fertile, flat valleys in between them.



Of particular awesomeness to me was the fact that we drove within a mile or so of the ancient site of Troy! But alas, we didn't have time to stop. The reason: we had to catch a vehicle ferry across the Hellespont! From Asia (where I'm standing in the picture) back to Europe (the other side of the very narrow strait)!



We boarded and said goodbye to Asia for the last time...until who knows when?



We enjoyed lunch in historic Gallipoli, right on the water where we could look back across continents, and then we traveled another hour or so until we got near the border. At this point, we had to do an odd drill: swap out buses with another bus company that is licensed in both Greece and Turkey, and then ride them only until the Greek border, then another little ways, then swap buses again with a Greek tour bus company. Ah, politics is alive and well! :-) As we approached the Greek border, I noticed that suddenly it was getting cloudy -- for the first time on our whole trip. Right at the very moment when we were re-entering the so-called Western world, even the weather changed! It was kind of symbolic somehow. The border itself was very uneventful...



But the products in the duty free shop sure gave us amusement!




Nothing like truth in advertising, eh? :-) Because we had all had a very long and relatively uneventful day riding in buses for upwards of 7+ hours, the leadership decided to boost spirits by spontaneously announcing there at some shops at the border: "MAGNUMS for everybody!" The cheering from the students was so loud and hearty that all the other shopkeepers came out of their stores wondering what on earth had happened! My rasberry and vanilla double-layer ice cream bar was delicious, let me tell you! I was especially glad for that, since I had no idea what the Turkish label said when I grabbed it. :-)

When we finally swapped into our Greek bus for the last time (whoo, that luggage was a tight fit!) we had another hour or so and Dr. J and I took the opportunity to have an on-bus lecture for about the history of ancient Greece (my part) and Greek Orthodoxy (Dr. J's part -- cuz they had a paper on the subject coming up). This lasted us until we reached our first destination in Greece: Kavala. This is the site of ancient Neapolis mentioned in Acts 16 and Acts 20. Many people in our group had been looking forward to getting to Greece for a variety of reasons (some because they were glad to leave Turkey behind, but not me -- I like Turkey a lot, but I've been studying Greece for the last 12 years!), and when we reached Kavala right after sunset, we all knew that we were in for some good times here in beautiful Greece! Voila!



Our fun little hotel was literally two blocks from the Aegean Sea, and we all settled in looking forward to our coming Greek adventures.

On a final note, one of our students has taken very ill with what looks like a rather severe relapse of mono, and she may have to be sent home early. She has been in contact with her parents, so if you haven't heard from your child about any sickness yet, don't worry it's not her. Please be in prayer for this student and the whole situation.
[FRIDAY UPDATE: Becky was sent home today on a special flight, and she is presumably closing in on North Carolina as I type this; this is good as her home doctor can now monitor her. Hopefully this will be the only health complication.]

Please keep praying for us: for unity, for consistency in spending more time in scripture and in prayer, for our attitudes, and for our joy. Thanks to all. Tomorrow -- Philippi and Thessaloniki!

Tuesday (6/16) - Ephesus!

In the footsteps of Apollos and Paul (and of course many others) we headed out this morning from our really nice hotel in Izmir and took the 1.5 hour or so drive south to the ancient site of Ephesus. This city in Greco-Roman times was very important; it was estimated to be the second biggest city in the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD at around 250,000+. That's a lot of people! And yes, like every good ancient or medieval city, they did it in a comparatively small area. The city is famous to Christians for its appearance in Acts 18 and 19 during Paul's missionary journies (and in the apocryphal Acts of John, for those keeping track at home!). However, for everybody in the ancient world it was famous both as a huge cosmopolitan city with a crucial harbor AND for one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world: the Temple of Artemis. That is also mentioned in Acts 19. This was one of the hugest temples in the whole world, a wonder to behold -- what would we "Holy Landers" see on our visit?

Cool things, that's what! There's a reason people come from all over the world to walk the ancient streets of Ephesus. The Austrians have been excavating here for over 100 years, and they've revealed lots of the city and partially reconstructed enough bits to really give visitors at least a sense of the grand scale of everything. And there are Greek and (a few) Latin inscriptions everywhere! Even an authentic ancient Roman latrine! :-) As I said to a student at dinner tonight: "It's like Disneyland for a Classicist!"

For time's sake, I'll just post a bunch of cool pictures from our day and give only a brief description of each. If you'd like more pictures of this place, check out this site. Now we're off to stroll the streets of Ephesus:



Whoah! This is the reconstructed grand facade of the famous Library of Celsus. Amazing! The big ancient cities of the Roman world were full of structures that evoked this kind of grandeur! Can you imagine a rural country farmer coming to the big city for the first time? Or a Texas boy (hi Michael! :-)?

Next is our trip to a hillside where they are still conducting current excavations of wealthy homes built into terraces in the mountainside. I've studied Ephesus before in classes, but I had never heard of the gorgeous frescos inside that have survived in fragments inside these places! WOW! Most people don't realize that living in the ancient Greco-Roman world would have been a FAR more colorful experience than our world is today. True. What you see here are genuine ancient wall decorations.



Now we're off to the gigantic Theater of Ephesus -- we've heard there is a hubbub going on down there about some foreigner named Paul...



Above you see Dr. Perrin teaching us about the story of Paul from Acts 19 while sitting inside the very place that the text describes. Nice. But the above picture doesn't give you even a fraction of the real scale of the place, which could hold practically 24,000 capacity!



Ruined columns and paving stones and random bits of marble or limestone were everywhere. A wonderful place for anyone, but especially someone like me who studies the Greco-Roman world for a living!



We brought our Ephesus excursion to a close by visiting the old ruins of the Church of Mary Theotokos. Evangelicals typically don't get excited about churches to Mary, but the Mary tradition in Christian history is something we should learn more about and wrestle with at the least to understand things better. Historically, there is a church devoted to Mary mother of Jesus here because one Christian tradition places the last resting place of Mary before going to heaven right here in Ephesus, and this is connected to the strong tradition that John the disciple of Jesus was buried here. Mary aside, this church visit was especially significant for our group because of a very important even that took place here -- the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in AD 431! This is the one that declared Nestorianism a heresy, which was rather important to the development of Christian doctrine on the nature of Jesus Christ and thus the nature of our relationship with him and thus the nature of our salvation. If you've never heard of any of this, take the opportunity to educate yourself on a key event in Christian history. Here you see Dr. J teaching us about the Council and the theological implications of what was decided -- right in the very place where these events took place! A glorious day.



Okay, it was also a hot day where many folks started to run out of water, get dehydration headaches, have a hard time focusing, etc. But that all comes with the territory of a trip like this, so it's not a huge deal. By the afternoon we had eaten a full lunch (with water to wash it down!) and set off visit the large ruins of the Church of St. John, the Ephesus Museum, and then finally drive back to our hotel in Izmir. This was our last full day in Turkey, as tomorrow we have the joy of facing a 8-10 hour bus drive up the western Turkey coast, across the Hellespont on a ferry (sweet!), and then on into Greece! Whew! It will be glorious. We'll even drive within a mile or two of the ancient site of Troy along the way (the location of the legendary Trojan War, told so excellently by Homer in the Iliad -- read it :-) and also the site of Gallipoli of WWI fame, but we'll have to be content this time with just driving by them as we have no extra time
tomorrow.

When next I post, we'll all be in Greece!

Live from Istanbul!

Hello friends, I am writing this from a hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey! We are approximately somewhere here. Istanbul is such a change of pace from Jerusalem and Israel, but we've taken to it quite nicely -- especially the more relaxed pace of our days! We feel much more like tourists and less like students madly cramming for the next exam. There is a danger in letting our guard down and becoming tourists only interested in comfort rather than in learning about our surroundings, studying the places we visit, and challenging our minds and perspectives. But at least for the moment, I can safely say we are glad we are visiting museums and eating lunch at restaurants rather than trudging around abandoned, dusty archaeological mounds all day and making pita and hummus and carrot sandwiches for lunch every day. :-) It's a good break.

I am on another laptop right now than the one I store my pictures on, so you'll have to wait for pics until another post. Sorry! Some highlights so far include the Blue Mosque (largest mosque in Turkey), the church of Hagia Sophia (now a museum), the former Ottoman imperial palace (Topkapi), a visit to the national Archaeological Museum (which had a *sweet* collection of Roman/Hellenistic-style burial sarcophagi, so great!), attending an evangelical church here in Istanbul (placed ingeniously inside the Netherlands consulate, so that the government of Turkey can't shut it down or touch it), taking an almost 2-hour boat tour of the Bosporous and sailing under the two bridges that connect Europe with Asia, and even attending an authentic Whirling Dervishes dance. Wow! A group of us capped tonight off by drinking apple tea at a restaurant on a bridge in the middle of the Golden Horn, the bay that separates southern from northern Istanbul, with the full display of city lights twinkling all over the waters and distant hillsides as far as the eye could see. So fun. Istanbul is such an interesting place...part European, part Middle Eastern. There's a reason for that -- it really is the place where Europe and Asia meet. Literally.

(For those readers who like such things, I took a picture on the boat tour today of the point of the mythical Symplegades that Jason and his men finally defeated on their quest for the Golden Fleece -- I was terribly excited. Even if nobody else knew or much cared! :-)

Of special importance was the private audience we had yesterday with Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch. He's kind of like the Orthodox Church's "pope"-figure, even though the comparison isn't really accurate since he's more like the top spokesperson rather than the literal guy at the top of the chain of command. Still, very cool. He spoke to us some words of greeting and well-wishing, then had to go prepare for a church mass, so he asked a deacon (who is ironically a Chicago native!) to speak with us longer and answer any questions. Since the students had been assigned to read a book on the Orthodox faith and write a paper on it due that morning, of course we had many good questions. To his credit, the deacon Niphon represented the Orthodox Church position quite well. One of the questions that I know many of us are still pondering was on the idea of church unity, across the subdivisions of Christendom. Can there be real unity without all of us compromising on so many things, or do we all just have to become like one branch of the faith, whether that is Greek Orthodox or Assemblies of God or Roman Catholic or Evengelic Free or something else we've not even thought of yet? What makes or "marks" real unity among all believers, among all those who are truly counted by heaven as belonging to the universal family of God?
We have all been challenged in many theological ways on this trip, for sure. That can only be a good thing, however confusing or disorienting it may be right now for some of us.

There's much more I could say, but I'll let this suffice. We are here and mostly well, and enjoying ourselves. We've started to have our first real bouts of illness though among a few, so we would appreciate your continued prayers for us. The municipal water is a known problem here, so we are drinking bottled water all the time. We are also in general recovering slowly from pushing ourselves so hard in Israel, and our bodies are now craving that long-denied sleep! You know, there is a reason the ancient Greek poets called it "sweet sleep" so much of the time.

Tomorrow (Monday) we will visit the Grand Bazaar (should be quite grand!), doing some fun shopping (the dollar goes pretty far here, which is great), and then heading back to the airport for a quick flight down to Izmir to get ready for our big site visit to Ephesus. Can't wait! Again, I'm not sure when I'll have internet again, but until then..

PERGITE CVRSVM CVRRERE

Off to Istanbul!

Well friends, Wheaton in the Holy Lands is about to leave the Holy Lands. To go to other Holy Lands. That's right, we're finishing our last day in Israel here at JUC in Jerusalem (can you believe that our almost-3 weeks in Israel is already done?!) and packing up feverishly for our 6:30 am bus ride out to the airport. Our next destination: Istanbul, Turkey!

Yes, I know, it's not Constantinople. I've heard. :-)

Since I don't know when I'll have internet again, here's our very rough schedule for the next few days:
Friday - travel to Istanbul, orientation
Saturday - main sights in Istanbul, interview with Greek Patriarchate (rather important)
Sunday - worship with small evangelical congregation
At some point, we head out to Izmir as a base to see sights like Ephesus and other places like that. There is some confusion whether we head out on Sunday or Monday, but I'll try to provide quick updates about things. I rarely have time for the detailed daily posts I had been doing, but as time allows I'll provide you insight into our days here and there.

And now, "To bed, to bed!"

Sunday (June 7) - From Sea to Shining Sea (of Galilee)!

Hello from the Sea of Galilee! We are on a 4-day trip up to the northern parts of Israel to explore the Galilee region and the places that Jesus and so many of his disciples called home. What an experience it is to be typing this right now a few hundred feet from the shore of the lake where Jesus and his disciples lived and taught. Today is Tuesday June 9, and I'm almost hopelessly behind on detailing each day on the blog, but hey I'll do the best I can. :-) As you can imagine, we're staying so busy and having so much fun that at the end of the day, there's not a whole lot of leftover energy. Hopefully at some point I'll post some things about our 3-day trip to the southern wildernesses, but that will have to wait. To try to catch up everyone with where we are right now, welcome to Galilee, land of crossroads!

Let's jump back to Sunday (6/7) and our trip up here:
Today dawned especially early for our 7am bus ride up to the north for our 4 day Galilee and Golan Heights study trip. The general mood I think is that we've only just started recovering from our previous 3-day trip down to the furnaces of the southern wildernesses, so we'd like some more time to recuperate and process what we're learning. BUT there's just so much to do and see in this rich land, and trying to do enough in just 3 weeks to really start to _understand_ this land instead of being a religious tourist requires a schedule that is more demanding than that of a regular tourist. And besides, we're Wheaties! So we soldier on. :-)

As we headed out of the Judean hill country toward the coastal plain, we could see the marked differences in landscape as we went. We finally emerged onto the coast at the very famous and important site of Caesarea Maritima. I was particularly excited to visit it, since this is the first place we've gone to that is a fully Greco-Roman city! It was built up by Herod the (sort of) Great, and it soon became the provincial capital from which Rome exerted its might over the land. We sat down right on some ruins overlooking the water and heard from Dr. Wright that the building we were sitting in was in all likelihood the very place Paul was held while awaiting his trip to Rome. What a classroom! Maybe we'll call it "Wheaton East"?



We were given a chance to explore the massive site for a bit (oh, but not nearly long enough for a Classicist like myself!), and most of the students enjoyed splashing around in the nearby remains of Herod's seaside palace before heading off to the other sights of the city--such as the massive Hippodrome!



This arena for chariot races and other large community spectacles sat right on the seashore (just off pic to the left) and would have been a great place to take in an exciting race! Next we headed a little ways north to the wonderfully preserved remains of an ancient Roman aquaduct that brought fresh water to the city from distant highlands to the north. Aquaducts are just plain cool -- especially ones that are beachfront property!



The technology is simply amazing to think about, that they could build artificial highways and underground canals to funnel fresh water from springs and mountain streams upwards of 60+ miles so that city dwellers could have water for drinking and bathing. For a bumpkin from the hills--where water is always hard to come by--coming for the first time to a place like Caesarea, the realization that Rome had such power to create rivers of stone out of thin air must have blown them away.

As we headed north after that, we slowly made our way up into the Mt. Carmel range. But lo and behold! Right off the highway we were driving we suddenly came across a genuine 1st-century hill-cut tomb, complete with the original round stone that would have been rolled in front of the opening! When they built the modern highway, they uncovered it and now it's just here by the side of the road with no fanfare at all. To quote one of Dr. Wright's favorite phrases: "Can you believe it guys?"



We eventually came to a ridge of Mt. Carmel where an aptly-named Carmelite order Monastery (Catholic) looks out over the expansive plains of the Jezreel Valley. We found seats for ourselves on the rocky hillside hundreds of feet above the plain and looked for the first time out towards so many places of Biblical significance: Mt. Tabor, where King Saul is said to have died, the famous ancient tell of Megiddo, and especially the Nazareth ridge, just behind the lip of which is where Jesus grew up. Wow.

Jesus himself surely looked out across the same valley many times. He knew his scriptures very well, and everywhere he looked he couldn't help but think of all these stories associated with the places he saw. It's very refreshing and interesting to think about Jesus as a real person in this way, walking the land like I am, except as a native to this soil and in a tradition that stretched back a thousand years. He was the one to fulfil the covenant, the memories of which were embedded in the landscape itself!

Once we descended into the Jezreel Valley, we headed to the ancient and significant site of Megiddo. It was a major city in ancient times, given that almost all the major international highways anywhere in three-continent region went through the Jezreel Valley, and Megiddo had the best location in the south-center of the valley. It also has the reputation for being the future site of "Armegeddon" (the final battle of history, not the movie :-). That moniker is very likely symbolic, since many major and decisive ancient battles were fought here, but it's still interesting to think about. Much of the ancient city site has been excavated, as you can see:



And Megiddo also boasts a very clever underground tunnel system that connects the city up on the hilltop with a source of water lower down. When we all found out we were going through underground tunnels to check them out, our reaction was one of speechless amazement.


:-)

We continued eastward and finally crested the lower Galilee ridge to find ourselves looking down for the very first time onto what will be our home for the next 3 nights: the Sea of Galilee!!



Like the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee is below sea level, but not nearly as far. It was an impressive sight -- this is where Jesus lived, and walked -- and walked on water! We were blessed with a very clear day. Our destination was the Kibbutz resort of Ein Gev, on the eastern side just south of the midpoint of the lake.

People, it's a resort! After our previous accomodations, which have admittedly been decent but otherwise not glamorous, for the next 3 nights we are going to be living in comparative luxury! All you can eat buffet dinners, sunsets over the Sea of Galilee, swimming at the beach just a few hundred feet away from our cabin rooms, each and every night. Wow. (A-style!) Naturally, as soon as we found our rooms most of us jumped into the lake for a swim, and what a venue. The sun majestically sinking lower and lower behind the western hills, frisbee flying back and forth over the gentle waves, people on the seashore journaling or reading their Bibles or just letting the reality and presence of it all sink in. And as I stood there in the waters of that lake, that's when it hit me.

Jesus was real. He saw these same hills. Looked at the same sea. Fished and sailed these same waters. This is no abstract Sunday School Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth lived here. And I'm here too. Wow. It's a subtle, almost imperceptible, but absolutely real shift -- Jesus is really real to me now. I get that sense much more powerfully up here than I did down in Jerusalem. Down there in the Old City you see the crowded streets of what is essentially a medieval city, and the ancient places, if preserved at all, are preserved in medieval or later churches and other shrines. But up here it's different -- this lake isn't much different than when Jesus and Peter and John and Bartholemew and all the others walked these hills and sailed these shores. The place is hardly developed at all. I've not seen a single recreational boat on the whole lake since we got here. No jet-skiing or pleasure boating that I've found yet (maybe on Friday or Saturday?) You really get the sense of being sent back in time somehow. What a special feeling. Jesus is real to me now in a way he simply had never been before...maybe couldn't be before.

I guess this is precisely why you come on a trip like this.

Parting shot, to make you wish you were here. :-)