Wow!! Where do we start to summarize our trip. We are writing this
as we fly back from Rome to the US at 7am Tue. morning your time.
First of all, we want to thank our families for allowing us to
take this trip, and for each of you that kept us in your hearts
and prayers while we were in Turkey and Italy. I also want to thank
our host family in Turkey as they had our time there well planned
out and everything went perfect. What we saw will never leave our
minds or be forgotten.

Then we went to Rome the Liles had everything ready for us too and
everything went smooth there as well. Both Jim and I already had
relationships with both of your families, but we can now say our
relationship and love for both of your families will never be the
same.  We love all of you more then ever. We also had a lot of fun
spending time with your kids as well and they made the trip even
more enjoyable for us both. It was so evident that you love your
new countries and feel you are right where God wants you. And as
evident as that was, it was even more evident that you love the
people and look forward to building eternal relationships with them.

One thing that surprised us in Turkey was how friendly the people
were. Being from the US and not being very knowledgeable about this
area and the Muslim religion, we were a little nervous. But everyone
we met and worked with were as friendly as anyone we have ever met.
It is obvious that God will open doors there. We also were in awe
as we traveled throughout the country seeing sights in person as we
read about them in the Bible while standing at that very spot. We
are still amazed with all the cave churches that we went into in the
Cappadocia region. Istanbul was also an amazing city of 15 million.

Rome was amazing just for different reasons. Of course to go
and see the Vatican and Coliseum was amazing as you always hear
about them. Not to mention seeing so many other places that we
have always read about in history as well. But to get to go and
attend a church service with the Liles and stay for a dinner and
get to meet and visit people was maybe the highlight of our time
in Rome. We were also very impressed as they have a deaf ministry
and there were over 20 deaf people in attendance.

I would like to ask you to remember Sadat, Arasin, Nazla and
Anthony as they were our tour guides in different locations
and we were able to share with most of them and just ask you to
lift them up. They are all amazing people and hopefully we can
use them in the future when we take groups back. We do look
forward to taking groups back to both locations in the future
so that many of you can see the amazing things God is doing in
both of these countries.

I could go on and on but I hope we hit most of the highlights
each day on the blog. Thanks again and we hope you could feel
a little bit of what we were so privileged to experience through
our daily posts.

Gary & Jim

LAST DAY IN ROME

We finished our last day in Rome touring the Vatican City. Wow what a place as we were there over 5 hours and didn't even touch a small part of all you can see. We were able to see where over 2/3 of all the Popes are buried in what is called the Vatican Grotto. There are over 100 people including 91 Popes buried there. John Paul the 2nd that passed away in 2005 is buried there and has to have guards to keep people from trying to get near his crypt. The very main area in the Basilica where the Pope speaks from is directly over St. Peters crypt and is a Bronze structure 98 ft tall. This is called a Baldacchino which is a pavilion like structure immediately under the dome.

1 main entrance to the Basilica from St. Peters Square
2-3 in St. Peters Square
4 Entrance to Vatican City
5-19 Pictures of things throughout the Vatican
20 Nero's bath in Purple Marble
21 Purple monument. Over 1/2 of the worlds purple marble is at the Vatican.
22 Huge tapestry. There were about a dozen like this that were incredible
with detail
23-27 works of art by Raphael or his apprentice as he died before all of his art work was finished.
28-30 pictures from the Sisteen Chapel by Michael Angelo. I am not sure how I got these since they don't allow pictures in this room.
31 St. Peters tomb under the Baldacchino
32-33 Different Popes Crypts that had glass sides. Most Popes you could not tale pictures of their crypts.
34 Dome in the Basilica
35 the Baldacchino
36 Inside the Basilica

HISTORY OF ROME

Sunday afternoon we started out with the Liles family by stopping and touring the church of John which was even larger and more ornate then any of the ones we toured on Saturday. We then went to the Coliseum, the Palatin Hill and the Forum. Of course everyone knows all about the Coliseum and theForum is where all roads that led into Rome met. But the Palatin Hill is where the City of Rome actually was started and was very cool to see. On the top of the hill is where Julius Cesar's nephew Cesar Agustus built his house when he took over and ruled Rome. From then on all Emperors lived there but they all added on to this house until it covered over half or more of the entire hill which was very large. It is also supposedly where the founder of Rome Romulus lived as they found a stone with his name on it near the house that Cesar Agustus built. There is also a house that is still there that Mussolini built for his summer home and he and Adolf Hitler used to meet there.

1 Church of John exterior
2 - 3 pics of the coliseum
4-5 Entrance on two of the roads leading to the Forum

6 Palantin Hill

7 Mussolini summer home,

8 Marker where Romulus thef ounder of Rome's house was

9 the Forum area

CHURCH IN ITALY

We went to church at the Chiesa Christiana Evangelica Berea in Rome with the Liles this morning and it was a very nice service. It was in Italian so we didn't understand much but we did have an interpreter so at least we knew what was going on. This service was special as the Pastor Bill Standridge is the one that helped get the Liles their letter they needed to get into Italy. They also had a special time of prayer just for the country of Ethiopia that lasted about 20 minutes. They pick different countries to pray for periodically. It was exciting to see that they are involved in Missions in this way. They then had a church wide lunch and it was good to get to visit with the people and to eat a lot of authentic Italian foods. They take their time as the service lasted about 2 and a half hours and then lunch lasted about the sane amount of time. But it didn't seem that long as it was very nice.

1-2 The church service and showing country of Ethiopia to pray for

3 Lunch photos

4 Spinach pie. It was ok as we tried it but I am not sure if it was adesert or part of the meal

5 Pastor And Mrs. Standridge

6 a nice couple we met Damian and his wife. He brought the message this morning. He is from New Orleans and she is from Argentina

7 Our Interpreter

8 The Liles Family

9 Their church sign

FIRST DAY IN ROME

Wow! what an afternoon we had in Rome. I can't believe the size of the churches we went in and we have not even gone to the big ones yet. Also the huge Plaza's and Fountains as well. Jim and I really enjoyed spending time with Jon Liles today during all of our sight seeing. After our tour we went out to eat pizza with the Liles family. I have to say that their true Italian Pizza was out of this world. I can't wait to try spaghetti and hopefully Lasagna before we leave. We even happened to be walking up to a church right when a wedding was starting. And you know us... we snuck inside to watch the ceremony and take some pics. We thought about crashing the reception but we decided that we better not.

1 Ikea store near Jon and Becky's house. It looks like it is about two blocks long
2 Jim, Jon and myself in front of a Baptist church near the Pantheon

3&4 The Pantheon. Built 31 BC originally and rebuilt after a fire in 125AD. In 609AD it was given to Pop Boniface the 4th who converted it into a Catholic Church. There are several people buried there including Artist Rafael and two Kings and one Queen of Italy. It is the oldest standing Dome structure in Rome
5 The Spanish Steps - A tourist attraction
6 A lot of people below the Spanish Steps

7&8 Piazza Del Popolo and Church in the Plaza. This is a large area they have outdoor concerts and gathering since the open area is so large.
9-21 All the churches we went inside

22-24 The wedding we watched
25 Trevi Fountain - all of this was carved out of one piece of marble

WE ARE IN ROME

We made it to Rome safe and sound from Instanbul after a flight through Frankfurt, Germany. Jon Liles picked us up at the airport at 1am. After just a few hours of sleep we went to the Liles apartment and enjoyed a nice brunch that Becky fixed for us. As you can see from the photo above, they loved the suitcase full of stuff you sent for them. Jon, Becky, Ethan, Kent and Natalie want to say THANK YOU to all of those who brought the items they had asked for or for those who gave money for us to purchase what they needed. It brought big smiles!!

We will have more from Rome soon!

OUR LAST DAY IN TURKEY

We finished up our time in Turkey by visiting two additional churches and one Grand Bazaar shopping area with over 3600 shops in Istanbul. We may have went into two of the most ornate and beautiful churches we have seen on our trip. The first one was the Chora Church and it was built as a church in the 5th century but was converted into a Mosque during one of the war times when the area was turned to Islam. They covered many of the Icons of Christians but they did it in a way that when they went back later to see if they were still there they were able to remove the plaster covering them and there was very little damage - except earthquakes had done some damage. Many of these pictures are using mosaic tiles which would have meant they spent many weeks or months making each picture.

The second church was a Catholic church and that had ornate pictures and areas all over. The most intriguing thing was they have a Column type post they say is a post that Jesus was tied to when he was being scourged on his way to be crucified. We have no way to confirm or dispute this but they have been saying this for many years and no one has been disputing this is not real.

The last photo above we are with our tour guide Nazla. Remember her as she was asking a lot of questions about Christianity and we were able to explain a lot of things to her from personal experience and not just her reading abou it in her tour guide class.

I want to finish this part or our trip by saying that Turkey was out of this World and neither Jim or I could have imagined how friendly the people are or how beautiful the country is. But most of all our host family had everything lined up and could not have picked better locations for us to visit. Our bond and love with their entire family will never go away and we can't wait to see them again.

We flew to Rome Friday night and Jon Liles picked us up at the airport and we are now going to spend time with Jon and Becky and their family. We will also start our tour of Rome Sat. afternoon.

FINISHING UP TOUR OF TURKEY

1 Entrance to the Palace we toured

2-4 From the kitchen in the palace. They fed 5000 totalincluding the workers every day at the palace plus with guests it was ashigh as 10,000 people they had to feed on many days.

4-6Items in the palace. Most rooms had no pictures were allowed so we could not get pics of the best stuff.

7-8 A couple of the many large cruise ships that dock in the Harbor

9-11Former Palace's that were actually built after the one we toured as a couple of the Sultans wanted to get more modern ones. One is now a hotel and they say it is the most expensive hotel to stay in Istanbul.

12 Another angle of the bridge

13 Former government building

14 Army building still being used as that today
15 The Palace we toured from the wate

16 We were very close to touching as we went under a small bring when we docked

We went past several water front homes on this boat ride that sell for $50 to $60 Million. This is a very expensive area and the houses go for outrageous prices. I think this is it. We tour another big church tomorrow and a few othersights and then catch a flight to Rome at 5:50pm.

MORE AMAZING TURKEY

Today we started out by touring the Topkapi Palace which was built in1478. It was amazing all the artifacts that are there. They no longer havean active Palace so it has been turned into a museum. We have no way to know what is real or not but they had John the Baptist's arm and head, Moses rod. Also 86 and 55 carrot diamonds that were incredible. I could go on and on about the Palace as it had so many incredible items and things to see.

Second we took a boat tour that went up the Bosporous Straights that separates the part of Istanbul that is in Asia from the part that is inEurope. I bet most of you had no idea that the city is split up this way as I didn't know until recently. It was incredible as we went by two former palaces, a fort from the 14th century, as well as many other government buildings and other countries Embassies. There is also a huge bridge that connects Asia and Europe which is the most famous bridge in Turkey.

As great as these two things we did first were the rest of the afternoon is my highlight of the day. We went over to the newer part of the city that is much more European and modern. It is only new as they tore down some old buildings are built newer ones in some areas. But most of it is still veryold. But the Highlight is we were able to go into a Greek Orthodox Church, two Catholic churches St. Anthony's and St. Mary's and also saw a few other churches while walking. When you consider that Turkey is at least 98.5% Muslim we did not expect to see these other churches. We also met a man atthe Greek Orthodox Church and when we asked him if he was Turkish he said no I am a Christian. He was of course Turkish but wanted us to know he was a Christian first. We really didn't expect to hear that on this trip. We also drove by one building that was used as a Mosque and also as a church so it had the dome and minaret for Islam and also a Cross for the church. I asked the tour guide and she said that is a very unusual situation and of course they don't use the building at the same time. I also cannot even attempt to tell you how many people are in this area we are staying in. When we went out walking the last two nights there are at least 10,000 people in about a 3 or 4 block area. Of course in a town of 15 Million this is everywhere all over the city I am sure. It is Ramadan so alot of Muslims are fasting during the daylight hours. So if they don't eat or drink from before it gets light until 7:30pm a lot of people are coming out to eat at 7:30pm and people are everywhere.


1 Picture from the Palace Grounds
2 Fort from the 14th century
3 Turkish Flag
4 Underneath the bridge that connects Europe & Asia
5-7 Pictures of a few of the churches we went inside of and walked by
8 Christian man we met today
9-16 More pictures of the churches we saw

ISTANBUL

We left Cappadocia (they pronounce it Cappadokia) early on Wed. morning and flew to Istanbul. We spent Wed. touring the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia Museum (which was originally an Orthodox church that was turned into a Mosque before it became a museum) and then a huge underground cistern system where they would store water so if any of the enemies tried to poison their water. They had a large amount stored until they could finish any war they might be engaged in. Then we just went and waked around the main area of Istanbul Wed. evening to see a lot of the sights after dark.

One interesting side note - we were talking with our tour guide in Cappadocia about how friendly we have noticed the Turkish people are. He said that in Istanbul they are not always as friendly and they fight more. Well, while we walking around last night we saw a fist fight so I guess he was right. We also saw a van run into a motorcycle and the poor guy on the motorcycle was sure shook up but he was ok.

1. Exterior of Blue Mosque
2-7. Inside the Blue Mosque
8-9. Blue Mosque
10. Outside the Magia Sofia
11-20. Inside of the Hagia Sofia
21. Column at an angle on the Hagia Sofia that is this way from earthquake
22. From the underground cistern
23. people on the street. It was this every street you went on and every direction. There are over 15 million people in Istanbul
24-25. Exterior of Hagia Sofia

TURKISH CULTURE

We ended Tuesday by going to a Turkish cultural show for dinner. It was very interesting to see Turkish traditions come to life. You can also see they joined in on the festivities.

UNDERGROUND CITY IN TURKEY

We started out this morning touring what is called the Red Valley where many Christians lived in the cave dwellings. There were also many pigeon houses which were very important as they harvested the dung to fertilize the fields for the crops. Back then you were also considered wealthy if you had pigeons.

Then this afternoon we went and toured an underground city. There were several hundred people living in this cave city and there are several cave cities in this region where Christians had to hide out during war times. This was so amazing to understand how they had to survive. Of course back then with no electricity it was pitch black without a candle lit. But when they lit hundreds of candles and started the fires for cooking it would deplete the oxygen not to mention the smoke in the caves. So they drilled several air chambers to get fresh air into the caves but had to be careful as they could not be noticed outside.

The Roman soldiers used the first floor to live in so they could protect the Christians below them and go out and fight the enemies trying to kill the Christians. So the Christians all lived on the bottom 4 floors for protection by the Roman Soldiers. Keep in mind they only built these underground cities during the war times and then they would move back out to their normal cave houses.

Another great day to see the history of Christians in Turkey but to also understand the culture much better.

1-6 Drawings in churches from the 7th century
7 -8 Area where we went to see more houses where Christians lived, cave dwellings, churches and pigeon houses
9-11 More drawings in churches from the 7th Century
12-17 Old cave city including a mosque and one pic of the inside
18 Cool mosque in front of a cave city on a big rock(you can't see it all in this pic)
19 A huge cave city
20 Entry to 5 story underground city where Christians had to hide to not be killed. They had to stay underground for as long as 5 months at a time on many occasions
21 One of the churches in the underground city
22 Stone that would roll in front of an entrance to keep the enemy out. They had one at each outside entrance of course but also strategically placed throughout caves so if the enemy penetrated an area they could keep them from getting to everyone and also trap them and kill them. Notice the hole in the stone this was so they could poke a spear to kill the enemy if they did try to move the stone.
23 This was to hold drinks when they all were eating meals in the cave
24 A sign that shows many of the areas to visit in the Cappadocia region - Cappadocia not just a city but an entire region
25 Jim and I are going to start a High Street East

MORE FROM TURKEY

We left the region of Smyrna this morning early and flew to Cappadocia which is in the middle of Turkey. We spend most of the day looking at all the cave dwellings. It is amazing as there are literally thousands of them all over the place. We went into several cave churches as well. We are also staying in a cave hotel ourselves which is pretty cool. Tomorrow (Tue)we are going to go and tour the underground cities.

1 Our cave hotel we are staying at
3,4,5,&6 Abandoned caves that we went inside and then afterwards found out the are abandon due to an earthquake and now they are unsafe
7 Our cook where we grabbed a snack this morning

8 The police station in a rock formation
9 Jim making pottery at a pottery factory we stopped to take a look at

10 Cave restaurant we ate lunch at today
11,12&13 Some of the cave churches we went inside of
14 Our guide today. Lift him up as we had a lot of discussions today
15&16 More of our Cave Hotel

SOME HISTORICAL SITES OF TURKEY

1. Gate to the city of Hierapolis.
2. Columns at Hierapolis.
3. This is where the thermal waters of Hierapolis (also known as "The Travertines of Pamukkale" in this area) come out of the ground and form this crystal formation all the way down the mountain side.
4. Columns along a road in Laodicea

5. Area of Ephesus

6. Ornate carving in Ephesus

7. More ornate carvings on this archway in Ephesus

8. Front of the Library in Ephesus

9. Amphitheater in Ephesus that held 24,000

We started the day at Hierapolis and saw the ruins there. There are many graves all with ornate above ground tombs. We also saw the sight where Phillip was murdered and buried. It is amazing to see how much work went into building all the structures. The aqueduct systems that got water to so many areas of the city and these systems were so ahead of their time. They continue to do excavation work here as they keep finding more areas of the city that are buried under the ground.

Next we went to Laodicea. I was a little surprised to find it is in the very early stages of being uncovered by archeologists. So there is not much there to see at this time but has so much written about it in the Bible.

Last we went to Ephesus and it was amazing. How big of an area it covered and how much of it is still to be uncovered that is still under ground. Everything was so ornate and the huge library and the incredible amphitheatre, as well as the senate chambers that was a covered amphitheatre type that held a couple of thousand as well. We set at the top of the amphitheatre and thought what it must have been like with 24,000 people there chanting and stomping their feet against Paul (Acts 19:26) and wanting to kill him. It was amazing even after all of these years how you could stand down on the floor and talk to someone at the very top like they were standing right next to you.

I have to say that as great as it was to see these three sights that we read about in the Bible it was also very sad to see all the people that mostly were there to see the ruins and the architecture and had no real idea the biblical history and importance that took place in each of these cities.

WE MADE IT TO TURKEY

We have had a great time since we arrived in Turkey on Friday evening. Our guest hosts have been wonderful and their kids are so much fun to be around. We have enjoyed the last two nights getting to go eat dinner with them and getting to get to know the kids better. They also have a guest from the states staying with them that is a dear friend of ours so it was good to see her as well. In this picture we are standing at Hierapolis Graves.