Friday, June 20, 2008

Celebrating in Greece




Sandy and I traveled to Greece for 10 days to celebrate 20 awesome years of marriage. We had such an incredible time together in perhaps the most beautiful place we've ever been (Santorini) one of the Greek islands. We landed in Athens. Spent a day and a half in this ancient city that now has 5 million in habitants. We went to the acropolis, a rock outcropping on which the Parthenon was build in the 5th century b.c. along with other temples. Between the acropolis and the the agora (where the Athenians lived in the 1st century) is a rock we call Mars Hill where Paul was invited to meet with the leaders of the city to discuss this faith in Jesus that he had been talking about in the agora (the marketplace). Its so incredible to walk in the places that are described in the Bible. Much of the New Testament is rooted in Greece: Philippi, Thessoloniki, Berea, Athens, and Corinth are all located in modern day Greece. Not only do we have the historical descriptions of Paul's ministry in these cities in Acts we have the books of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, Philippians, and 1st and 2nd Corinthians all writtten to churches in this area.

We then took an 8 hour ferry in the Aegean Sea to the island of Santorini, perhaps the most beautiful place we've ever been to. This is probably the location from which the legend of Atlantis comes from. In 1650 B.C. a volcanic eruption caused about 60% of the island to colapse into the sea. Villages are built up on the cliffs that surround this area called the caldera that this now filled in with the sea. What an incredible view from our balcony in the cottage that we stayed in. Below are some pictures from our time in Santorini. We then returned to Athens for another day of sight seeing. I am posting this blog from Prague as we then flew to Prague to visit Jerry and Lis Lillard, our missionaries in Prague. We traveled to Dresden as well to stay with Jorg and Claudia, our friends. More later on our time in Prague and Dresden with pictures. For now here are some shots from our time in Greece.