To Macedonia

            We had an early start to the morning, leaving the compound before seven in order to get the airport. After only spending a few days in Athens, we are already off on a four day excursion to northern Greece. We flew out of Athens and landed in Thessaloniki in the early morning. This is the city of the Thessalonians, whom Paul wrote two of his letters to.  We entered this crowed city of 2.5 million people still early in the morning. As we went through the streets of the city, it was so interesting and bizarre to see ancient ruins, churches and buildings dispersed throughout the modern buildings, streets, technology and people.  All the modern buildings in the city had been built after WWII, when the city had taken a heavy toll. We first went to the ruins of the Roman forum, we sat in the amphitheater, and Dr. Cohick lectured to use on 1 and 2 Thessalonians. While we were here, we read through both letters, discussed the historical background, and went through the theology of the books. It was a really helpful experience to go through these texts in some detail and it was awesome to be in the spot these letters were written for. As we were reading through 1 Thessalonians, I was really struck by a note I made in my Bible in chapter  5. I had made the note after one of my readings from “My Upmost For His Highest.” The note was in response to verse 17, “pray continually,” 1 Thessalonians 5:17. God always answers prayer, and He answers it perfectly. This is often hard for us to see because God will answer the prayer in His own time, not our own. God will answer our prayer with His infinite wisdom, which may not make sense to us at the time.

We went to St Demetrius church, which was in the heart of Thessaloniki. It is the oldest church in the city. The church was a beautiful Greek orthodox church, and that still resembles the original church. The inside of the church had icons on most of the walls and was ornately decorated. While we walked through Dr. Kalantzis explained to us some of the meaning of the architecture and design of the church and he also explained the significance of some of the icons. It was a really great experience to learn about the Eastern Church hands on.
We made a quick stop for gyros before going to a Macedonian history museum in Thessaloniki. The museum was filled with ancient Greek and Roman sculptures and jewelry. It was really incredible!

We left Thessaloniki and drove to Kavala, a nice seaside town. Our hotel was right across the street from the water, and after dinner we got to explore the city. A small group of us went out to see what we could find, heading towards the remnants of an old fort on top of the hill by the water. Along the way we passed the church that remembers Paul's arrival to Europe from Asia and the spreading of the gospel to this new continent. A mosaic represented the story of this travel that is in Acts 16. We got up to the top of the hill near the fort, climbed down the cliffs to the sea, and explored for a while. We hung out there at the water as the sun set and then slowly wandered back to our hotel through the long way back through the city.