Day 6 - Konya to Antalya

(The Via Sebaste)

I couldn't get through the connection at the hotel last night, but here is a post I wrote yesterday on the bus.

Today was a good day. We left Konya, which was an interesting city. The landscape around all these cities are beautiful, to call the the Taurus mountains, which these cities are in gorgeous, would be an understatement. But it is kind of cold here, while we’ve had nice days, the last few days have had a lot of snow and ice. In Konya, (which was Iconium in Biblical times) I guess they burn charcoal for heat, and the smoke just sits everywhere in the city. I’m sure it isn’t helped by the fact that all the Turks smoke non-stop. There was a haze that was everywhere, from the hotel lobby to the mall. It must be weird to buy clothes that already smell like smoke.

Since today was Sunday, we had a little worship service as we drove out of town, Dr. Rigsby preached and we sang. As we were driving up in the mountains out of Konay, I was looking down on the city, a city that had a church planted there by the Apostle Paul, a city that was most likely one of the cities that the book of Galatians was addressed to, and now it is a city that has one catholic church, which has about 10 members, and the rest of the city is Muslim. We were singing Holy, Holy, Holy, and as I looked down on this haze filled city that had turned away from God, we were singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, tho the darkness hide thee, tho the eyes of sinful man, thy glory may not see…” And I was really struck by the fact that God is still great, God is still holy and glorious, even when people are sinful and Satan seems to win some places, God is still the same, God is always holy and good and glorious, regardless of how we respond to him.

We saw a few things today, but the best things were the Via Sebaste and Pisidian Antioch. The Via Sabaste was one of the main Roman roads that ran through this section of the road, and it is the road that Paul took as he travelled from Pisidian Antioch to Iconium. It was really cool to get out of the bus and walk along a section of road that Paul and Barnabas walked on as the planted churches and Paul and Timothy walked as they visited and encouraged those churches.

We also saw Pisidian Antioch, which is a really well preserved archeological site of the city that Paul visited in Acts. It was really cool to walk around and get a feel for what the city would have been like, and as all these places in what was ancient Galatia, the scenery was stunning. The ancient cities were all built on the tops of hills, I’m not sure if they did that just in imitation of Rome, if they did it because they were more easily defensible, or if it was because they were more visible to travelers.

We also saw a Hittite water shrine, which was cool, and I was on the losing end of two snowball fights, usually because of Jin, who is one of my Korean nu-nas (older sisters.) Even with snow in my ear and inside my shirt I still ended up less wet than our teacher, Dr. Mark Wilson, after warning us to be careful around the Hittite water shrine, he slipped and fell into the little pond around the shrine.

Anyway, thanks for reading and until tomorrow…