Ephesus

What a day! We started at St. John's church where the disciple John is buried.


That is amazing! The church was built much after John died.


I baptized Kay in the church baptismal. It would be cool to have this at Trinity!


All that is left of the temple of Diana or Artemus. She was the god of reproduction and agriculture. This was one of the 7 wonders of the world. It is not much now.


We stopped at this family resteraunt and had awesome food. I had stuffed artichoke.


This is a cistern at Mary the mother of Jesus church. She and John lived in Ephesus till they both died. You might remember that Jesus asked John to take care of his mother while he died on the cross. Looks like he did!


This is St. Mary's church. It was peaceful and beautiful here, with birds singing more than any other place I have been. It is peaceful here.


There is no way to show how awesome Ephesus is. You just have to experience it for yourself. Not one picture does it justice.


The god of competition called Nike!


Do you see the Nike swoop in the middle? This is where it comes from. Phil Knight was not all that original!


This is the theater that Paul spoke in where he made the silversmiths mad because too many people were following Jesus and therefore not buying their silver gods. This is me and not Paul.


Men's toilet in Ephesus. My friend, Dan Erlander says that we have it on good authority that Paul went here. (sorry!)


Library at Ephesus .... 250,000 books were in here! Ephesus was incredible!

Smyrna

Today we went to one of the Revelation cities called Smyrna. Check it out in Revelation 3:1-6.


A water fountain that still works!


This is the basement floor of the Agora (market). Above it on the main street was another market with shops on both sides.


They have restored the part on the left to look like it did with marble. On the right it looks like they found it. They used marble like we use plaster, covering the raw stone.


We went to this Anglican (Church of England) for worship. Turkey is mostly Muslim, so it was nice to worship here. Although Turkey has not been a hard place for us to be. The people have been very welcoming.


Inside of the church.


Fellowship after worship, tea, coffee and goodies.


The youth group!!!

Philadelphia, Sardis, and Thyatira

If you would like to read in the Bible where we were today read Revelation 2:18 - 3:13.

It is three of the 7 letters to the churches in this area written by John who was imprisoned for not worshipping the emperor.


This is Philadelphia. Well, what used to be Philadelphia. This is a city block where they have done some excavation. The current city is on top of the old Roman city. When they dig out for a new building they always find pieces of a wall or statues. Turkey has 40,000 of these sites most of which are not excavated. 40,000! They are everywhere. This is one of the big surprises about Turkey. The other surprise is the people of Turkey, they are wonderful. Turkey is a total surprise.



This is a Jewish Synagogue in Sardis, the second city we visited of the 7 cities in the book of Revelation. The Synagogue was beautiful.


It had beautiful mosaics on the floor!


This is the gymnasium in Sardis.


Thyatira was another site mostly covered by the current city. There were however a couple of turtles there to greet us.

Thanks for following!

Dave and Karen

The seven churches in Revelation

We have started the portion of our church where we go to most of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation. They are mention in Revelation Chapter 3. Jesus speaks through John in a revelation. He speaks to 7 communities. In each message he says what is good and what needs improvement.



But first we went to the best preserved Roman theatre. This is Steve one of our trip friends. It is called Aspenos, it is still used for concerts.


It seats 15,000.


The stage. You could hear anything anywhere! Kay lead the group in singing Amazing Grace. We got a rounding ovation from other tourists.


Those Romans were amazing. Halit, our tour guide has been to several operas here and says it is an amazing place to be.


This is Colossae, the city the new testament letter Colossians is written to but it is surprising to go there because they have not excavated yet.


Here it is, just a big hill, but there is brick and pottery pieces all over the place and you can see large cut stones everywhere. There is a city under this hill!


Next to Laodecia.


This is the entrance street.


A Roman temple.


They are still excavating. Halit says every year he comes he sees new things.


An example of Roman plumbing pipes.


This is another Roman site near Laodecia that has mineral springs that the Romans thought could cure anything.


The springs leave white mineral deposits as the water flows over.


Outside the city walls is the Necroplis. Necro is Greek for dead and polis is city or people. Thousands were buried here from 600 BC to 600 AD. Don Cornell wondered why this was needed if the hot springs worked so well!

Santa Claus

This is Kay in a wool coat from the time of Paul. He could have worn a coat like this! He was not as good looking as Kay .... probably.




Today we drove up the coast to Ancient Myra. These are tombs carved into the rock. They started doing this well before Jesus.





Karen and I in front of the tombs.


Marvin and I in front of the amphitheater right next to the tombs.




I am not sure who is the better actor. This is a Roman carving in stone at the the amphitheater.




In the same town St. Nicolas was a priest. He lived in the 4th century and was famous for his generosity, especially to children. He was buried here but the Italians broke into his tomb and stole him. Thousands of Russians visit here each year. He is the patron saint of Russia. He is known to you as St, Nick or Santa Claus.


Marvin has a puppet he uses at church for puppet shows. His name is Barnabas, named after the companion of Paul on his first missionary journey. Barnabas is really enjoying the trip.


We are on the coast of the Southern Turkey it is often called the Turquoise coast. Can you tell why?



The water was warm! We all went swimming.



This is our hotel for tonight and last night. It is the nicest one we have stayed in although they have all been nice.

Kay took all of the pictures today. My camera battery was dead this morning. It is charged now.

Tomorrow we drive all day in the bus. It will be a long day. Love to all!

Pisidian Antioch

If you go to Acts 13:13 and following you will know where we have been today.

Paul sets sail to Perga and then goes up to Pisidian Antioch. There he goes to the Synagogue and preaches his first recorded sermon.

"You Isrealites and others who fear God listen ........"

I can't tell you how exciting it is to stand on the very spot he gave that sermon.




Here I am in the Synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia. This Antioch is on the hill looking over the valley. I can see why the Romans built there.




Roman road still looks good!





So much of this Antioch is still has 5 feet of dirt over it. Here they are doing the excavation. They work during the summer only.





This is the kind of mountains that Paul would have walked through. It is 200 miles from Perga on the coast to Antioch. Our bus took 4hours, Paul would need 10 days. In Acts it sounds like an afternoon walk. Paul was tough!





This is our tour guide Halit. He is wonderful. He used to be a professor, but he enjoys running tours like ours. The bus is his rolling classroom and we are his students. While we travel he gives lectures on all kinds of topics about Turkey. For example the other day we learned about shepherding both sheep and goats. He tells us about the agriculture, economics, history and politics of Turkey. We learned about Syria and the refugees on the southern boarder of Turkey.

In back of him is Perga, the coast town where Paul landed.








The Roman baths in Perga.




Kay in Perga. I thought the sign was funny.




Marvin and Kay in the theatre where the Romans had chariot races. This one held 20,000 people.


Here is the stadium from a distance. I am taking this at the other end of the stadium.





Last night we had the Whirling Dervish show us what they do and why. We were not allowed to take pictures. But we went to a museum and these wax figures are true to what we saw. They spin to bring Gods blessings, one hand facing up to take Gods blessings and one hand facing down to give the blessing to the congregation. God's blessing is passing through them. The spinning and the music put the spinners in the right spiritual mind. I will not be doing this when I get home.

Tonight we are in a very nice hotel in Antayla on the Mediterranean. We will be here two nights ... Very nice. Lots of stories to share when we get home. Miss you all and very sad to hear of Doris, what a loss to us all. I will miss her!

Blessings
Dave and Karen