Greetings from Canakkale!

Our day started off with the pleasant surprise of bacon during breakfast. In all of our previous hotels, there was a full breakfast buffet but no bacon to be found. Instead, we were greeted with hot dog chunks that were presented as “breakfast sausages”. So you can imagine my excitement when there was a stack of bacon waiting for me at the restaurant. Professor Weima reminded me that “too much of a good thing is not a good thing.” Although this may be true for most things in life, I don’t think this applies to bacon. I guess we can agree to disagree.

After breakfast, we gathered at the lobby to load up the bus and head to Pergamum. Even though it was lightly snowing outside, most of us were excited to visit one of the most impressive archeological sites in all of Turkey. Pergamum apparently has a 10,000 seat theatre and a massive library that is only second to the Library of Alexandra. I say “apparently” because we never made it to the site to witness it for ourselves due to snow. Our tour guide was speechless; never had he seen snow in Pergamum, let alone enough snow to warrant the entire place to close for the day. Even though the plan was to learn about Pergamum at Pergamum, Professor Weima gave his hour long lecture while we made our way towards our next site.

Professor Weima talked about Pergamum being the “church of idolatrous compromise.” Long story short, they were praised for being financially poor and living in a place where Christians were persecuted. However, they were condemned for partaking in eating food sacrificed to foreign gods. They were encouraged to repent of their sins and to focus on Jesus above all. We were challenged to think about what we idolize, such as our work, family, sports, etc.

We continued our trip to Assos to see the temple of Athena and the ancient harbor on the Aegean Sea. Once again, the site was closed due to the snow but our tour guide was able to sweet talk the guard in giving us 20 minutes to explore the site. The significance of this site has to do with Paul being reunited with Luke during his third missionary journey. To the north, there was the city of Troas which we were supposed to visit but didn’t due to the snow.

All in all, today was a pretty mellow day with long hours spent in the bus. At this point, I should also note that there are a few members of our group who were not feeling well this morning and throughout the day. Given the similar symptoms and time frame, we suspect it might have been something we ate yesterday. Hopefully they can sleep it off before we get to Greece tomorrow but until then, please keep us in your prayers.

—Daniel Joo