Life on the Beach: Kavala and Philippi

Hello!

A few Saturday's ago, Samantha and I took a trip to Philippi (modern day Drama) and Kavala. Samantha has a book that outlines all the modern places the Apostle Paul went, and we decided to take on a few of them.

We got up early Saturday morning and after a 2 1/2 hour bus ride and 13.5 euro later, we were in Kavala! We walked around the city for a while, hiked to a castle in Old Town Kavala

and enjoyed some fruit at the farmers market. When we got to Kavala we were planning on taking the noon bus, then kept hitting "snooze" until we took the 1:30 bus. We were the last stop on the bus, and got dropped off what seemed like the middle of nowhere. When we rounded the corner, we saw the old theatre and immediately started jumping up and down, hardly containing our excitement at all the cool stuff we were seeing.

We could climb all over the ancient stones, sit on the steps of the theatre, and to walk under the "Kamapa" (arch) like a triumphant king . I got to see, experience, and touch much of the stuff that was there when Paul was preaching in Philippi, it was truly amazing.

There were several areas that were still being reconstructed and retouched, roped off so we could not go in them. Thanks to Jared, I picked up the habit of not paying attention to detail, and climbed up on one of the roped off walls. Not only did Samantha warn me not to climb on them, but I was "clapped" at, very loud claps, by a greek security guard. oops! We walked along the "Via Egnatia" and through the remaining of many Basilicas. I think it is concluded that Paul is the founder of the Christian community in Philippi. This is the place where Paul wrote to in the book of Philippians, and where he walked and taught. This is where early Christians worshipped and prayed. Amazing.

Before we left Samantha and I wanted to make sure we would be able to see where Lydia, the first Greek convert, was baptized by Paul. We stopped by the information booth to ask the guard how far it was to walk, and before I could begin, he invited us in for some traditional Greek coffee. Of course, I can't say no to coffee, so we enjoyed a nice cup o' joe with... his name just slipped my mind. After many attempts at broken english/greek conversations, we said we needed to be on our way. About 1 km down the road we arrived to the place Lydia was baptized at. There is now a modern church in front of the stream. Samantha and I sat on the steps for a while, and read the story in Acts 16 of Paul baptizing Lydia. We sat on the steps and prayed for a while, just in awe of how lucky we were to be experiencing this!

God is good.

Here are a few pictures from our trip: