I’m just back from a week in Turkey with other curates and the Bishop of Southwark. We went to Turkey as in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, you can read a letter to 7 different churches, and all of these can be found in modern day Turkey. We spent the week travelling to these different places. Some of them are still cities, such as Philadelphia and Smyrna (now known as Izmir). Others, like Ephesus, are sites where no one lives anymore but you can walk around and imagine what life was like.

I particularly liked visiting the places where you could picture the early Christians living there and Paul visiting them such as Ephesus which has some many sites you can see and there are places such as the market that are mentioned in the Book of Acts. We spent time there reflecting on what the early Christians would have been thinking and feeling.

There was so much to take in and there were times when my head was so full of information it was difficult to process it all! What helped me was at Sarah’s suggestion I had taken a soft toy, a little sheep, with me so I could take photos of him at the sites to help explain the concept of pilgrimage to school children. This also helped me to focus in a few key things I would want to remember from each site. You can read more about this here: Koyun and Waggle go on a pilgrimage – The Diocese of Southwark 

So we could get to all 7 places we moved around quite a bit staying only one or two nights in a place and then packing up and moving on. This did make my head spin a bit and I couldn’t remember my room number as we had 4 different rooms during the week! This made me think about what it must be like to travel somewhere you don’t know and not feel well prepared. I thought about how Jesus’ first disciples may have felt were sent out taking nothing with them and how they trusted and relied on God for all they needed. As I journey on with God this week of pilgrimage will stay with me as I continue to trust in God more each day.