Today we arrived in Istanbul (also called Byzantium and Constantinople in history) in the early hours of the morning. I was able to share about Christ with two friendly Turkish men on the plane. Arriving in Istanbul we slept a few hours and went to the Hagia Sophia, the largest church in the world for almost 1000 years before it was converted into a mosque for almost 500 years and has now been a museum for almost 100 years. In Acts 16:7 when Paul came to the borders of Mysia that was the closest he came to Constantinople. I believe Istanbul is the only major city that exists in two continents (the W side of the city in Europe and the E side of the city in Asia). We went from there to the Hippodrome where 100,000 people watched the horse races in the fourth century. We ate a Turkish donor (shaved meat sandwich) for lunch, then went thru the Basilica Cisern which originally was also a church. From there we went to the Istanbul Archeological Museum. The Ishtar Gate Reliefs from Babylon were on display there as was the Kadesh Peace Treaty (oldest peace treaty with surviving copies from both nations - Hittites and Egypt). It was a good day. Tomorrow, we head out early for Antioch, next to Syria (first time for me), including the port of Seleucia, where Paul departed from on his first missionary journey.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 19:18:56 +0000
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