Day 20: Winding Down in Istanbul

At the start of this journey, I set out to journal faithfully.  My intention was to put down sufficient detail that a reading of these words a decade from now would trigger memories that had slipped away and would enable me to relive these wonderful days.

So that’s right: This whole thing has been about me.

If anyone else out there has found any bit of pleasure or learning in these entries, then all I can say is “have at ‘em!”

That said, I’m thrilled to have made it to the end of this three-week marathon.  On top of our very full days, my journaling efforts typically added an hour or more to the end of every day.  Many entries were made when I’d have preferred to be doing pretty much nothing at all.  However, I trust that those hours will be well-spent in helping to maximize this trip for many days to come.

All that blabbing sets the stage to say: I’m tired of writing about our days.  So this final entry will be less-than-usual.

I found an online list of the top twelve sights in Istanbul.  These are the must-sees for any visitor.  In the past couple days, we’ve spent chunks of time (some brief, some significant) at numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11.  Eight-for-twelve: Not bad for two days in a city of over 12 million that has served as the meeting place of East and West, the junction of two continents, for its entire history.

If you care to see any of those sights, I suggest you head to the website and click away—my descriptive powers are simply done!  But a few simple highlights have come along in the past couple days…

  • A bit of quiet time in a Starbucks.
  • Some very fun haggling in the Grand Bazaar.
  • A fish feast on a quaint street filled with Turkish music and dancing.
  • Some leisurely meandering on a major shopping street near our hotel.
  • A Schweppe’s Bitter Lemon here and there.
  • A wonderful cruise along the Bosphorus.
  • Beholding religious relics ranging from Moses’ rod to David’s sword to Joseph’s turban to Abraham’s saucepan (that’s what the sign said!) to John the Baptist’s arm.  All these and more can be viewed in Topkapi Palace, the Ottoman equivalent of Buckingham Palace.  (For what it’s worth, Charles suggests that John the Baptist must have been a mutant octopus or something because he’s got hands and fingers and skulls all over the Eastern hemisphere!)
  • Some sweet “closing conversations” with a group of people who’ve become very special very quickly.
  • Having the right amount of money exchanged to Turkish Lira within about $5.00.
  • Successfully packing everything back into one bag.
  • The anticipation of meeting “my two girls” in just a bit over 24 hours.  The phrase “home sweet home” has been rolling through my mind for days now.

Thanks for sharing the journey from wherever you’ve been.  It was my pleasure to share it with you.  From Istanbul with love…

Day 19: Canakkale to Gallipoli to Istanbul

The bulk of today was spent on the bus.  We had ground to cover if we wanted to conclude with a couple days in Istanbul as scheduled.

Breakfast: 7:30.  Bags set out: 8:30.  On bus: 8:50.  Morning devotional: 8:55.  Bus rolling: 9:00.  We drove a short bit to the harbour of Cannakale, where we drove aboard a ferry to cross the Dardanelles to reach the Gallipoli Peninsula.  From there, we were looking at 6 hours or so to Instanbul.

However, we had a few stops to make first.

The Gallipoli Peninsula is covered with a national park.  If you’re a history buff, you may already know the name “Gallipoli”.  I’d never heard it before.  It’s a huge territory of memorial sites and cemeteries from WWI.  It’s especially sacred ground to Australia and New Zealand who lost vast numbers of soldiers here when they aligned with Winston Churchill’s armies.  Stops included a memorial site for the Turkish troops (then called the Ottoman empire), a cemetery for the ANZAC (Aussies and Kiwis) troops, and a spot where the trenches used in the battle for the shoreline had been restored enough to give you a sense of what the soldiers would have hidden in back in 1915.

A portion of our time was spent in silence.  Charles had requested that.  I needed no such prodding.  Sites from battles and disasters silence me by themselves.  There’s a heaviness and a stillness—even if I were in a chatty mood, it would simply be snuffed out in such moments.  When I was a kid, I remember once having a terrible fear of war.  I must have learned of the recruitment process that pulled young men into the world wars.  Whatever my age at the time, the thought of being thrust into the middle of a war, where any moment could be one’s last—that was just too much for my young heart to bear.  In some ways, it still is, and it makes me very grateful for having lived in peaceful lands during peaceful days.  May my children enjoy the same.

Along the way, we had a lunch break at a gas station and café area by the highway.  I ordered a plate of kofke, a fried meat dish something like mini hamburger patties.  It was good enough to enjoy with a Coke.  Cokes… they’ve become something of a staple during these days.  We walk a lot, often in the heat of the day.  I drink water most of the time, but there’s something about a cold Coke that just hits the spot.  I’ll join a 12-step program when I get home and see if I can’t get myself straightened out again soon.  Another little indulgence over here: Schweppes Bitter Lemon.  Yum!  This great little drink (still served in glass bottles) pops up in countries around the world for me.  My first taste was in Zambia in 1997, and it’s been a recurring affair for me whenever opportunity presents itself.  Today, I saw them.  I bought two.  One’s in my stomach.  The other’s in my mini-bar fridge.  Small pleasures…

While some of our crew tire of bus time, I must say that I am easy to please.  I brought four books with me, three of which I really wanted to read.  With our six hours today, I’ve now struck two of my list.  “Paul: A Novel” by Walter Wangerin was a great read, particularly with us passing through many of the locations as I read.  Today gave me time to finish Anne Rice’s autobiography “Called Out of Darkness”.  In case you’ve never read her novels on the life of Christ, you seriously need to.  They nudged me towards her autobiography, which describes her journey from faith to none and back to faith.  To be frank, the first 120 pages were very slow reflections on her childhood.  After that, it became what I had bought the book for.

With today’s events being fewer than usual, I’ll take a moment to say something else about the group I’ve been traveling with.  I have been thoroughly blessed by three weeks (nearly) with these people.  For one, they’ve been great traveling companions (nearly all the time!).  For two, my soul has been blessed by sharing this trek with them.  Our scheduled and unscheduled discussions have been enriched by the variety of people I’m with.  In terms of church backgrounds, there are people from Alliance, Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Baptist, Pentecostal, Anglican, Nazarene, and one little Church of Christ fellow.  And there might even be more that that!  Ages range from 19-60’s, with myself being beneath the average age.  There has been great chemistry within the group, and very minimal “rubbing moments”, which is something when you consider the closeness we’ve lived in for the past 18 days.  I’ve been especially blessed to be traveling with three other pastors (two of whom have their wives with them).  All three are old enough to be my father, and I feel fortunate for some of the conversations (from the very practical to the very abstract) we’ve had.  They are godly men and faithful servants, who are serious about their roles within their churches and within Christ’s Kingdom.  I’ve no doubt that I’m better for having crossed paths with these men/couples.

So here I am, on my thirty-second birthday, counting my blessings.  I just got off the Skype with Shannon and a chattier-than-usual Emmanuelle, I had a small flood of emails in my inbox today, and I’m enjoying rich days in a once-in-a-lifetime Turkish experience.  Truly, I am blessed, and I know it.

Good night from a grateful fellow in Istanbul.

Day 18: Assos to Troas to Troy

How did you spend your Pentecost Sunday?  Did you KNOW it WAS Pentecost Sunday?  As we’ve traced many of Paul’s steps over the past couple weeks, we’ve again and again come to the role of the Holy Spirit in the events recorded in Acts.  Today was no different.

We covered a fair bit of road again today, likely driving about four hours between and around stops at sites.  When we weren’t on the road, here’s what we were exploring.

1) Assos.
This city gets mentioned in Acts 20:13.  It was a spot where Paul and his traveling companions met to travel by ship together.  Leading up to that meeting, Paul had sent them ahead by ship, while he walked the road alone.  There is much speculation around why he separated the group for that short stretch (likely two days of walking)—much of it centers around the idea that Paul may have been seeking a personal retreat of sorts, preparing himself for what lay ahead and seriously seeking the Spirit of God and His revelation.

One of the archeological highlights of Assos was a temple to Athena, which dated back to the 6th century BC.  This stood out just because of its dating.  We’ve seen Roman site upon Roman site, so anything older than that time period stands out to me.  Our stop at Assos wasn’t too long, as there is much that we don’t know about the city’s Christian community.  They’re not mentioned in Acts or elsewhere; the mention of Paul and his friends connecting there is all we’ve got.

The modern town of Assos was cool to walk through though.  It maintains an old village feel to it even today.  Walking through the peddlers, up steep rocky roads, it was easier to imagine days long past in this setting than in many that we’ve seen so far.

On our way out of town, we stopped to explore a short stretch of Roman road, still in remarkable shape for being two thousand years old.  This a stretch of road that Paul almost certainly walked upon as he walked to Assos to meet his crew.  It’s not often that such a high degree of certainty is found on “walking in the steps” of such an ancient character, yet there we were today, walking right where the text of Acts told us he walked.

2) Alexandria Troas
Here, by the ancient harbour, we read together the text of Acts 20:1-12.  This is the spot where fired-up Paul preached until midnight and beyond, and where weary-eyed Eutychus died after a fall out of the window.  Would you believe me that we saw the actual window sill?!  Just kidding.  No such luck.  But the shoreline of the ancient city provided us with a great venue for some discussion again around the Spirit’s role in the events of Acts.  Acts 20:16 mentions that as Paul passed through these two places, he was hurrying in the hopes of getting to Jerusalem for Pentecost.  And here we were, right here, on the day of Pentecost many years later.  So we shared about the significance of that event—both the first Pentecost and the importance of this festival through the history of the early church.  We spoke about the struggles of modern people to open themselves to the spiritual realm (or even to accept its existence) as more ancient people may have.  This emphasis on the Spirit has been a recurring theme (not really planned by any of us) as we’ve traveled.  I have found it to be one of the most major thought trains for myself personally, as it resonates with places I’ve been for much of the past couple years.  I’ve no doubt that my steps from here on have received significant fueling during these weeks in Turkey.

3) Our final site of the day was the ancient city of Troy.  Here, we learned of the archeological process of even finding this site in the last century.  Did you know that it was thought to be strictly a fictional location for much of history?  Upon its discovery, further tales of stolen treasure, wars, mystery, and still-unanswered questions followed.  The story, which I won’t write here, reminds one of an Indiana Jones movie, minus the zombies or aliens or whatever that he tends to run into along the way.

Troy wasn’t as impressive of an archeological site as some that we’ve seen, but if you’re nearby, you sort of HAVE to stop in.  We shot our photos with the giant wooden horse replica like good tourists do.  I think the highlight for me thought was another ancient artifact.  While the story of the Trojan was dates to around 1200 BC (which is equivalent to the time of the Exodus in Egypt!), Troy was a city long before that.  Today, we walked past an excavated wall, dating back to 2000 BC.  That means that whoever formed and laid those bricks was alive when Abraham was!  That’s the kind of stuff that just makes me shake my head—sometimes history just has a stunning effect to me, and those old clay bricks (in which you could still see bits of straw and stubble) just did that for me to day.

4) Our hotel wasn’t far away, in the town of Canakkale, on Turkey’s northwest coast.  It’s a little resort town.  A quick walk around after supper showed me some quaint homes that definitely have a “cabin feel” to them.  It’s likely that most of these homes are owned as second homes by wealthy Istanbul residents, I think.

Our final event of the evening was a group meeting in which our Turkish guide Dell told us the story of how he became a Christian.  He shared for over an hour, so there is definitely too much to put down here.  But suffice it to say that it is a wonderful story of how Jesus found a young Muslim man, disillusioned with his faith and his world, and revealed himself to him through all sorts of means: Visions, miraculous sets of circumstances, and the faithful lives of his followers.  Dell is bold and courageous, having not hesitated since day one to profess his faith and live as light in a nation not pleased with any of it.  He has guided us well in the past three weeks, and we ended our time tonight by praying that God will continue to guide him faithfully as he strives to walk the path of Christ in this place.  All in all, it was a powerful conclusion to another solid day.

At this point, it’s after 11 PM, and my contacts are melting on to my eyeballs.  Just the right time for a shower and a bed.  Tomorrow, we hit the road for a morning stop at Gallipoli, a world-renowned WWI memorial.  Then we’ve got six hours of driving to Istanbul, where we’ll spend our final couple days.

“Final couple days”… yes, that means we’re near the end.  Every day has been an absolute treat, but home is sounding pretty sweet to me right now.  I’ll enjoy Turkey all I can until Thursday; then I’ll turn my eyes homeward with some serious anticipation.

Good night from the tip of Turkey.  More tomorrow from the capital city.

Day 17: Smyrna to Thyatira to Pergamum

Today was our day to finish up the sites of the seven churches of Revelation.  The remaining three were Smyrna, Thyatira, and Pergamum, in that order.  Between these sites were drives of 90 minutes or so, so our day was quickly broken into smaller pieces.

Ancient Smyrna is modern-day Izmir, the place where we slept last night.  So our first stop was just a skip from our hotel.  Atop a mountain looking over Smyrna, we snapped some photos of the city and harbour, while talking some about the life and death of Polycarp.  He was the first bishop of Smyrna and one of the most famous martyrs in the early centuries of Christian history.  At age 86, he was told that he’d be spared and even honoured if he simply denied his faith in Christ.  His response has become a well-known example of faithfulness: “Eighty-six years I have followed Christ and he has never been unfaithful to me.  How then could I deny my Lord?”  At that point, the authorities stoked the fires where Polycarp was to be burned at the stake.  It is here that some of the best sources available speak of a miracle.  It is said that witnesses watched as the body of Polycarp did not burn.  It was as if a pocket within the flames formed around him, and the a scent of sweetness like incense was smelled.  Upon observing their failed execution, those in charge ordered soldiers to stab the flame-surrounded Polycarp to death.  So is told the story of the death of Smyrna’s great Polycarp.

Before leaving Smyrna, we stopped to walk around the ruins of the agora (marketplace).  This is really all there is to be seen of ancient Smyrna these days.  To be sure, there is much more to be found, but it lies beneath the new city so it’s never been excavated.  The agora looked like… well, a lot like the other ten agoras we’ve seen so far.  Charles said early on that the thing about seeing Roman ruins is that if you’ve seen one, you’ve sort of seen them all because they were serious about their city-planning and that makes their cities very patterned in some ways.

After a stretch of highway, we arrived at modern-day Akhisar (ancient Thyatira).  Besides Philadelphia, this may be the site with the least to see of the seven.  Within a fenced area of the modern city stand the remains of a 6th century church.  Behind it is a bit of a Roman road that might date back closer to the 1st century.  Besides that, the lot is filled with with fallen columns and other marble pieces of buildings long forgotten.  Apparently, Pliny the Elder had some very uncomplimentary things to say about Thyatira back in the day—he felt it to be a very un-special place.  As an archeological site, it pales beside most of what we’ve seen, but I’m glad that we stopped all the same—long enough to read Jesus’ words to the believers there and to have some discussion about the unique challenges that faced that congregation.  Interestingly, the Thyatira church is one of the few NT churches about which we have no idea of how they begun.  No shortage of speculation exists, but neither Scripture nor later tradition give us anything firm to go on.

Throw in a lunch break and another stretch of highway, and Pergamum (modern-day Bergama) awaited us.  Opposite to Thyatira, this is a serious site to behold, second only to Ephesus of the seven churches, in terms of size and excavation.  The setting here was pretty magnificent.  The ancient city’s acropolis (high place) is more impressive.  An approaching visitor in the 1st century and beyond would have beheld the steeply-inclined theater alongside temples for Trajan, Dionysius, Athena, and Zeus on the slope of the mountain—impressive indeed.  As well, the largest library in the region would have stood there, though its ruins today are limited to a basic outline of columns; much less impressive than the famous ruins of the Ephesian library.  As has become our custom, the theater provided with a spot to sit.  We read Jesus’ words to the church here and discussed his message to them.  The theme of compromise in a very pagan environment is central to that letter, and it wasn’t hard to make that subject relevant to our personal contexts.  We are in need of Jesus’ words to be faithful witnesses for him in our gives places just as our brother and sisters in Pergamum were 20 centuries ago.

The other site needing a visit in Pergamum was that of the Asclepion.  At first thought, I figured we were visiting a temple to the god Asclepios (the god of healing).  That was only partially right.  There was a temple here, but it was only a sliver of the site.  The Asclepion was basically an ancient medical centre.  It was surprisingly holistic in nature and involved a wide range of therapies: Massage, drinking sacred waters, mud baths, and use of herbs and ointments.  Diagnosis was often pursued by dream analysis.  Charles mentioned several times that some historians claim that if Christianity had not come to dominate the region, Asclepios likely would have been the god of choice.

Even today, this site is used by groups for conferences and meetings about alternative health approaches and therapies that wouldn’t be considered “mainstream” by most of us.  This, along with the history of the site, provided us with some good discussion on the place of healing with Christianity (both “back then” and today), along with an emphasis on the holistic sense of salvation that is described in the New Testament.  The Greek term for “save” that so often gets taken to speak only of sins being forgiven and a spot in heaven being reserved is a much wider word in its historical usage.  It speaks of healing and wholeness and wellness and health—all in the fullest senses.  THAT is an intriguing line of thought to talk through.  I sense today won’t be the last of that discussion for this fellow.

One more stretch of road led us to our hotel and a great supper.  We’re spending the night in the city of Ayvalik.  Tomorrow will see the end of our biblical sites, I believe.  We’ll wrap up that portion of the itinerary at Assos and Alexandria Troas.  Throw in a visit to the site of Troy, and that should round out another fascinating day.  If I see Brad Pitt hanging out around the Trojan Horse, I’ll say “hi” for you.

I hope this finds all at home exceedingly well.  I’ll send word again from our next stop.

Day 16: Patmos to Miletus to Izmir

We bid a sad farewell to Patmos at 8 AM.  It’s not hard to get used to Greek island living—friendly and laid back people, beaches and hills, gleaming white buildings, and tasty food—not hard to take!  But Turkey was calling us back, so we hit the sea and made the four-hour passage back to Kusadasi.

To be honest, my list of things to write about today is shorter due to some unforeseen circumstances.  A couple of my co-travelers are a brother and sister (maybe 19 and 21 respectively), named Jonathan and Jennifer.  They, along with a couple others, rented scooters yesterday to explore Patmos in our free time.  Near the end of the day, Jonathan had a wipe-out on some gravel.  While he’s very fortunate that it wasn’t worse (he WAS wearing a helmet, and it wasn’t a terrible wipe-out), his skin took a real beating.  Shorts, T-shirt, and sandals—More information isn’t needed.  His foot especially got torn up.  The Patmos hospital did a good job of cleaning him up and wrapping wounds, but he’s not got a routine of dressing changes and cleaning wounds.  He’s not walking that well either.  So, a decision was made by Charles and Thomas (a doctor who happens to be traveling with us) that Jon and Jen’s trip is done.  Arrangements were being worked out throughout today to see how they can get home.

I say this just because it affected our day’s flow a fair bit.  We spent time in Kusadasi that we wouldn’t have otherwise so that Jon could get to their hospital for some more attention.  Besides further cleaning, they actually grafted some skin on to his foot and toes to help with the healing there.  During that time, the rest of us were dropped at a local mall.  I thought some people were going to pass out when they saw a Burger King and a pizza place.  Any who know me know that food isn’t that big of a deal to me most of the time.  It just doesn’t do the things for me that it does for a lot of others I know.  Turkish food hasn’t been the greatest I’ve had, but I could happily get by on it for a long time.  Not so for some!  In fact, a few of our crew are downright funny.  Anyway, I wasn’t complaining about a slice of pizza, so we ate.

When we picked up Jon and Jen afterwards, we hit the road to Miletus.  Miletus doesn’t get much mention in the Bible (only once that I know of), but it IS the venue for one of Paul’s passionate sermons, found in Acts 20:13-38.  Miletus is not a very excavated site, so we spent the bulk of our time exploring what IS a very impressive theater, complete with a great relief (carving) depicting the gladiatorial games that were once held there.  As well, this theater was especially impressive in its corridors beneath.  Grand arches and corridors, like the ancient versions of what you might find in modern sports stadiums, showed what a glorious structure this would have been in its day.

Also of fascination was an inscription that Charles pointed out to us on one row of seats.  It read in Greek, “For the Jews and God-fearers”.  Whether that’s speaking of one or two groups is debated, but such a term is familiar to the book of Acts.  Though this inscription is likely from later than Paul’s time, it just goes toward sketching that a Jewish and/or Christian community once called Miletus home.  And apparently they were influential enough to get some decent “season tickets” to the city’s theater.

Further exploration of the site (much of which is flooded right now) showed us the locations of its significant markets as well as where the ancient harbour would have been.  Much like Ephesus, Miletus is nowhere near water today.  The same silt problem that caused Ephesus’ downfall had the same effect here.  The coast now sits 5 miles away.  However, as we walked the area, we saw a stone lion (a very weathered stone lion) that apparently marked the entrance to the harbour in the 1st century.  Translation: After his passionate sermon in Acts 20, Paul’s eyes would have beheld the same lion that mine beheld today.  If only stone lions could talk…

By this time, we were already at 4 PM (I told you today didn’t quite go according to plan), so we hit the road to Izmir (ancient Smyrna), where we’ve sleeping tonight.

Supper was waiting for us when we arrived, as was an evening presentation by Dr. Mark Wilson.  Mark is actually a mentor and teacher to our Turkish guide Dell.  He’s an expert on Christian history, with particular interest in Turkey and its historical sites.  He had been one of the speakers at the Ephesus Meeting last week and had agreed to share something further with us when we were in Izmir.  So tonight was the night.

Right after supper, he shared on the topic of Divine Guidance in the Book of Acts.  Much of what he said wasn’t mind-blowing, but it was a stimulating focus on the role that the Holy Spirit played in how the events of Acts did (and didn’t) play out.  Even a casual reading of Acts (which has long been the favourite book of my faith heritage) makes it blatantly clear that our early brothers and sisters experienced the leading of the Holy Spirit in significant and powerful ways.  As I mentioned a few days ago, I can’t help but think that we need this as much today as they did back then.  Somewhere along my road, I grabbed the idea that such communication doesn’t happen anymore today.  Whether that thought was passed to me in spoken or unspoken ways, I’m not quite clear.  What I am clear on is this: If God no longer communicates with His people through His Spirit, then we may as well throw in the towel.  Left to our own wisdom, innovation, and organization, the church has no chance at being what it was created to be.  So a serious prayer has begun in me these last few days: “Father, fill us and re-fill us with your Spirit.  Flood us and surround us.  Reveal things we cannot otherwise know.  Empower us and lead us.  There is much that we will simply go without if you do not provide it.  And within that ‘much’ is everything that we need to live up to your calling.  So come upon us, Holy Spirit.”

Sigh.

Tomorrow, we depart at 8 AM, and as usual, I’m not in bed by midnight.  Definitely have to drop this habit when I get home, or I won’t make it half a week!  Our hotel here tonight is very comfortable—likely the nicest of the whole trip, so I’ll enjoy it as much as I can in the next 8 hours.  I can’t even tell you what the itinerary is for tomorrow.  I just know we begin with a look at a bit of the ancient site of Smyrna.  After that, we’ll leave Izmir and continue north along the coast.

Grace and peace to anyone reading this.  May you be swept away in a quest to be sensitive to God’s Spirit today too.  Much love from Izmir.