So … after a brief rabbit trail last week to celebrate the winner of my Bless Your Heart giveaway (and wait just a minute – now there’s yet ANOTHER great giveaway going on – catch the details Here), we’re heading back to Greece in this week’s post. Scroll back a couple posts to recall the first part of this 4-part series (called “My Greek Adventure”) regaling my recent Footsteps of Paul Greek tour of the earliest Christian churches that were planted throughout Europe.
As our tour bus lurched through the mountainous regions of Meteora on the way to modern-day Berea (also called Beroea in Acts 17), we stopped at several incredible monasteries and
convents built ages ago on the very precipice (tip top) of rocky formations isolated in the desert, hovering precariously above the earth, inaccessible without a massive effort to reach them by climbing sheer walls or using ancient pulley systems. I was so dumbfounded by the lengths these Christ-followers from olden times went to in order to find solitude and peace in God and only God, that I’ll save more of my thoughts on these amazing shrines to mankind’s attempts to achieve holiness for the final part of this series.
When we arrived at the ruins of Philippi (the biblical city no longer exists), it was hot, hot, hot (we’re talking Greece in September), with only a few shade trees available for our group, and other groups, to jockey for position beneath as our guides pointed out the foundation of the city jail in which Paul and Silas were sprung by a supernatural midnight earthquake before leading the trembling jailer to faith in Jesus (Acts 16).
Also easy to spot was the Ignatian Way – a well trodden ancient Greek public highway (dirt foot path) through the city and indeed, from city-to-city throughout the country.
Our tour moved on to Athens (currently a large bustling city that reminded me of a smaller version of New York) and Mars Hill (Acts 17) where Paul addressed the forum about the good news of Jesus and gathered together many new believers.
We visited the massive excavation site at Corinth (Acts 18) where Paul met Aquila and Priscilla, the husband and wife largely unsung heroes who became important leaders in spreading the early church across the known world, even after Paul’s death.
At the end of our week-long tour, we flew out of the Athens airport back to JFK in New York, where I met Father Frankie, the priest whom you’ll remember became my new heart-friend as we did church together in a plane suspended high above the clouds on the flight back to Tampa. (If you don’t recall that awesome story, be sure to scroll back and re-live that post with me – it’s called, “Sometimes When You Fly, You Meet Angels”).
So that’s it for this installment of the story. One last photo to leave you with that has absolutely no historical or spiritual value. But I hope it will make you smile. And before you ask, I don’t know what’s going on with my arm. The bottom half is still attached, I assure you.
Stay tuned for two more posts in My Greek Adventure series … I’m going to dedicate one whole post to Greek food (YUM!).
