Monday, July 30, 2012

The Corinthian Museum

The artifacts in this museum represent all periods of the ancient town's history. Some  artifacts date back to 6th  - 7th century BC.

Here are some photos of my favorite statues and artifacts.
This is the Emperor Nero.



 Ancient Egyptian influence on Greek art.








 2 Corinthians 4:7
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this 
all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.



 There were more beautiful statues out on the courtyard.



Sunday, July 29, 2012

Corinth Canal

On our way to Corinth we stopped off real quick to take a look at the Corinth Canal....unfortunately we left the camera on the bus but Jon used his iPhone to take a picture.
Pictures don't really do this sight any justice. It literally takes your breath away when you stand on the bridge looking down on it. Construction of the canal began in 1881 and it was completed in 1893.  The canal connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It's main purpose now is really only for tourists!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Philippi

My favorite site was Philippi. One of the best things about this ancient ruin is that it wasn't disturbed by any modern buildings. Some facts about Philippi:
-it was the largest and most prominent region in all of Northern Greece
-Caesar turned Philippi into a Roman colony
-Paul was beaten and imprisoned here because he removed a spirit from a slave girl whose owners were using her for a profit



 Jon among the ruins of Philippi!



And here I am amongst the Philippi ruins.



This is the traditional sight of Paul's prison but our tour guide
told us that he believes the actual prison is yet to be excavated.




Here's the theatre........mainly used for plays but was later used for persecuting and killing Christians.
In the center of the stage there is a square opening (now covered) that was used to bring up lions, and other animals via a levee system. It was quite sobering standing where Christians were martyred. 



This is the area where beasts were brought
into and then raised up to the center
of the stage of the theatre.



After our Philippi tour we all had a real yummy lunch!!!


I absolutely love the book of Philippians! Being in Philippi has given me great insight to the book of Philippians and brought the book alive to me.


Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Lydia

Right before our trip to Greece, one of the gals in my small group taught on Lydia from Philippi (we were studying John MacArthur's 12 Extraordinary Women). I have always loved this character from the Bible and Philippians is my favorite book of the Bible so it was such a highlight to visit this area of Greece.

        We started the day listening to the account of Lydia in Acts 16 and a reading of Philippians.


Lydia was a seller of purple fabrics and the purple dye came from these sea snails.........hundreds were placed on a fabric and then crushed.....once crushed each snail would release 2 - 3 drops of purple dye.


                                       That's me trying to be a modern day Lydia by the river!


     This was a real cool mosaic in the small Greek Orthodox church by the river of Paul's missionary       journeys.

                                        Pretty stain glassed windows in the Greek Orthodox church

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Thessalonika Part 2

Before we headed to our hotel we stopped by the city walls of Thessalonika. It was really quite a view.



Our friends Gus and Melissa





We then headed over to our hotel. Our room was on the 7th floor so we got some cool shots of the city of Thessalonika!







Friday, July 13, 2012

Berea

After being persecuted in Thessalonika, Paul and Silas were sent away to Berea. As always Paul headed over to the synagogue. Acts 17:10-15

The following pictures are of the current synagogue in Berea. This synagogue is not an antiquity but the location is most probably where the synagogue in Acts 17 was located.



Acts 17:11 Now these(Bereans) were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so!


During World War II, the Nazis exterminated about 800 of the city's Jews. Only 2 Jewish families remain in the town of Berea today. 



Thursday, July 12, 2012

Thessalonika


In Acts 17 verses 1 -9 we read that the Jews became enraged with Paul and Silas and found wicked men from the "agora" (our English Bibles say marketplace but the word in the Greek is actually agora meaning town square) causing an uproar and attacking the house of Jason.
And this is the agora in Thessalonika. It was built 1 century before Christ. Only about 1/4 of the agora has been excavated due to lack of financial resources. The idea was for one to walk through the site.  There is actually a brand new museum also on the site but the economic crisis hit Greece and there weren't enough funds for this to open properly! So sad!



The agora has a basement which was used as a food storage for the entire city. The arches to the right are the entrances to the basement.


Sunday, July 8, 2012

Ancient Delphi

Our first stop was Ancient Delphi. This city is important as there was an inscription found which introduced the new pro-consul Galileon. This inscription is of great importance because it has allowed the letters of Paul to be dated.

We headed to the museum of Delphi first which houses many of the artifact which were found in the ruins of Ancient Delphi.

These artifacts date back to 2000 B.C. It's interesting to see the influence of Egyptian art. This is a statue of Artemis the sister of Apollo.



This sphinx statue was brought from another Greek island but once again it's so cool to see how Egyptians influenced Greek art.


This beautiful bronze life size statue is called the charioteer The statue was commissioned by a Sicilian tyrant named Polyzalos to commemorate a chariot victory in the Pythian Games in 478 B.C.!  It really was so amazing to see such ancient artifact. As a side note the Pythian Games tok place in Delphi.

Then we walked to see the ancient ruins of Delphi.....
This is the temple of Apollo. These remains date from the 4th century B.C. The temple is where the god Apollo spoke through a priestess (who was basically "high" all the time). It is called the Delphic Oracle and worshippers would come to the temple to hear the priestess.

This is the Atehnian treasury which was built after the Battle of Marathon.......this was reconstructed in 1906 and that's why it looks intact.


Saturday, July 7, 2012

Back in Cali.!

We made it safe and sound to California! Our time in Greece was amazing and as soon as I have a chance to get on my hubby's Mac, I'll start posting about our time there. Our trip was pretty uneventful aside from the screaming baby, the drunk non-stop cursing Swedish man who sat behind us, and of course the cute little girl who sat behind me and kicked my seat non-stop! We always look forward to watching a movie on the long flight home but my monitor was broken! It was actually almost humorous, the flight attendent kept trying to re-set it to fix it but it never worked. I was real cordial about it and took it as a "sign" from God that instead I should be doing other things such as praying or reading instead. To my surprise the attendant came back with a 50 euro voucher for me to do some on flight shopping! Wow-what a treat......I defintely didn't expect that!!! Since we've been back we have really just been trying to get acclimated to the time change, gone to Target, trying to fight off whatever virus Nathan picked up at the conference (poor guy has a very high fever), Jon's visited the urologist for his kidney stone which is actually 2 stones, and last night we ate from the food trucks that park on Friday nights near my mom's home(post to come). We've also realized how our kids have been so used to living in another culture. Even in their young age they don't quite get some things. Nathan has adamantly told us that he only likes Russian hot dogs, and Russian pickles. He also doesn't understand why the grocery stores here don't sell Kinder eggs! The funniest thing is that yesterday I fed the boys some Kraft Mac and Cheese and they had no clue what in the world it was!!! Nathan is anxious to get back to Samara and he keeps putting aside some toys that he recently bought to take back with him!!! We're happy that that the boys enjoy living in Russia and have their favorite things there. I'm sure they will discover some new favorites here in California too!