Reflections on The METS 2003 Trip to Turkey and Greece
by Clare Whitfield (L '03)

Because it was too dangerous to go to Israel again this year, we followed the footsteps of Paul the Apostle across the broad expanse of Turkey and stood near where he preached in Athens and Corinth. Along the way we marveled at the architectural treasures of Istanbul, for a thousand years the official center of Christian Orthodoxy and for half a millennium more the capitol of the vast Ottoman Empire. In Sanliurfa we saw the cave where Muslims believe the patriarch Abraham was born. In Konya we visited the magnificent tomb of the ecstatic mystical poet Mevlana Rumi, originator of the whirling dervishes of Islamic Sufism. We climbed through huge crusader castles. We visited an 8 th century BC neo-Hittite site at Karatepe where we were surprised by thunder after admiring a portly statue of the storm god.

We went to the Apostle Paul's hometown of Tarsus where we saw a well from which he probably drank as a boy. We visited Perga, a port city were Paul landed with Barnabas in his first journey. We had a first-class tour by a Turkish archeologist through the ruins of Antioch of Pisidia in rugged mountain country where Paul preached in the synagogue until his party was driven out of the region and “shook the dust off their feet.” We marveled at the extensive ruins in Ephesus where Paul also preached. We had a grand time in Iconium (present-day Konya) where during Paul's first journey, he and Barnabas stayed a long time until they were forced to flee. We participated in a worship service in Corinth on the very spot where Paul preached. And we climbed the Acropolis in Athens not far from where Paul preached the “Unknown God” to the Greeks. I think we were all impressed by what long and dangerous journeys Paul undertook to spread the gospel. His commitment to the risen Christ couldn't help but inspire our preachers-in-training. In the long run, the deeply held convictions we shared with each other may have inspired or influenced fellow METS traveling companions in ways that we will probably never know.

Some highpoints of the trip for me were the hairs of Mohammed's beard and the jewel encrusted skull of John the Baptist displayed in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, the beehive houses in Harran, the Seljuk Turk caravanserai near Konya where 13 th century camel caravans could safely spend the night, the exquisite ornamental tiles decorating the mosques of Istanbul and the tile museum in Konya, the quietly sacred house of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus, and the magnificent views from the mountain-top sites of Pergamon, Mycenae, and Delphi. We agreed that the Greeks really knew how to pick fabulous sites for their towns. I also liked swimming in the Aegean from our resort hotel in Antalya.

The METS group was somewhat smaller than usual, only fifteen to each bus, so we had lots of room to spread out on the bus. Both groups were able to stay at hotels together and eat together at noon and night. And did we eat! Every day we were served splendid five course meals, leisurely affairs over which we discussed everything from biblical inerrancy to woman's role in marriage and in the church. It is hard to believe that Christians would have so much to disagree about. Finally, I think most of us decided to let each other be as wrong-headed as we pleased, and we liked each other just the same.