July 3rd ~ Sunday

Hmm so we had church this morning, but before church a scholar in Biblical Turkey walked around old town and answered our questions. This was really enjoyable, we we ere able to see the harbor that Paul sailed into and then also get dome of my questions about the older buildings answered.

We then had a great service and headed out on our Biblical sites tour with Ismet, Turkish tour guide, and James. We had about a four and a half hour drive, people we still tired from Olive Grove so there was a lot of sleeping people. Ismet was giving us the history of Turkey but we were all so tired that people kept dozing off even though it was really interesting.

The first site we visited was Colossai, which is an un-excavated site. So we were able to climb up on the huge heap of ground and kinda of see the tops of the walls under our feet but you could not see much more. James read from Colossians and brought some of what was said to life and pointed out the geographical locations.

After this we headed to Hierapolis. This was a really amazing ruins that were on top of a calcium mountain, it was all white with pools of hot water. The calcium was cool in itself. This was also the location of the temple of Apollo and a chasm which was known as the entrance to the underworld. It would release poisons gases that would mess with peoples heads and eventually kill people if they stayed to long. It was a part of the temple. There were actually many other places similar in the city where people would go to receive visions and messages. I believe that this was the place Alexander went to and also the place Dr. Rick was telling us about in ancient history class. James was saying that the apostle John knew this place well and he would have thought of it as he wrote Revelation 9:1-12.

There was also tons of tombs, roads, pillars, and fallen buildings. We were rushed through rather fast because it was after seven when we arrived and the light was failing fast.

We then went to our hotel, ate dinner, and crashed...