My final post for this L-O-N-G trip.
We started off to Greece at 12:30AM! Our luggage had to be outside our hotel room door by 1:00am and we needed to be loaded onto the bus at 1:30AM to be at the Tel Aviv airport by 3:30AM in order to catch our flight to Athens at 5:30AM! Talk about an early start! You can't get any earlier than this!
Once we arrived into Athens we immediately hopped onto another plane to fly to Thessaloniki to visit the Berean Synagogue. Paul, Silas, and Timothy ministered to the Bereans here, after Paul fled persecution in Thessalonica (Acts 17).
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| The marble steps of the synagogue are said to be the original ones from Paul's time. |
We stopped in Philippi.
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| It was a very beautiful church. |
This church was built in honor of Lydia, the first Christian convert in
Europe. The stream (below) is the traditional site where Lydia and her
family were baptized (Acts 16, Philippians 1).
We also visited the Ruins of the Roman forum and where Paul and Silas were imprisoned.
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| The cell where Paul was imprisoned. |
In Athens, we saw the Panathenaic Stadium which held the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
In front of the Parliament is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
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| Standing guard with the guard. Their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is so different from ours back home in DC. |
In Corinth, Paul spent significant time here, along with Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18). He often preached about the judgement seat, or bema seat, which has been reconstructed (Romans 14:10, 2 Corinthians 5:10).
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| Pastor was sharing on the importance of the bema seat indicating that we will all be judged when we meet God. |
The Acropolis in Athens was probably the most crowded place of all the places we visited in Greece.
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| A lot of this area was being retrofitted and worked on. |
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| On going restoration at the Parthenon |
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| The ruins of Corinth |
Personally this whole trip was the most meaningful of all the vacations I have ever taken. It really deepened my belief in Jesus and my personal relationship with our Lord and Savior. To have visited the same places where He lived and walked was remarkable. So again, I urge those of you who have a personal relationship with Jesus to GO! You won't regret it!
Thanks for reading!
