New Photo Album

I have posted some new pictures on my photo albums page. Even though I saw many of the same sights as last year, I did see some new places, like Corinth. Click the "Photo Albums" link on the left and look for the Greece 2007 photo album.

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!

Back Home, Back to Reality

We landed back in Dallas Tuesday night and after getting the luggage that actually made it onto the flight we headed home. We arrived back at the house at 1:00 am Wednesday morning. I was beat after the 26 hours of travel from hotel to home. I slept in Wednesday morning and awoke to a yard that had not been mowed in over 3 weeks. So I stayed home Wednesday morning and cut the front yard. I decided to mow the back today (Saturday) and the whole yard needed to be mowed. Oh well, back to reality.

Our time in Greece was very rewarding. We photographed 13 manuscripts on Patmos and studied another 10. While in Athens we sere able to look at a total of 18 manuscripts this year. Our final day at the monastery on Patmos was spent meeting with Abbott Antipas and presenting him with 76 DVDs of manuscript photos, that's over 7200 pictures. Abbott Antipas was very warm and complementary toward us and our work. He told us that we are partners in the work of the Monastery and that he considers us "brothers" and a part of the monastery brotherhood.

But now back to work, back to classes in a few weeks, and back to mowing the yard... in other words, back to reality. However, even though my time in Greece can at times seem like a distant dream, it is a reality that I hope comes around again.

For some more insight into our time on Patmos and with the Orthodox see Dan Wallace's blog at http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/category/dan-wallace-posts/.

Just a Few Days Left

We are down to our last couple of days on Patmos. After 7 days in the Monastery and about 7000 photographs of 13 New Testament manuscripts, our job here is nearly done. In a couple of hours, we will present the Abbott with approximately 100 DVDs of the manuscript photograph that we have taken. I forget how tiring this job can be but it is so rewarding to know that these manuscripts are preserved so that they can now be studied anywhere. There is also the fact that the actual codex will be handled much less, hopefully increasing its life.

Tomorrow night we begin the first leg of our trip home. We will be in Athens for a few days and will study more manuscripts in the National Library. I hope we will also go to the Archaeological Museum there. Then we go home. I really miss my family so I'm ready to get back home. Patmos is nice, but Athens is pretty much a big, noisy city. I really wouldn't mind if we went straight to the airport from the ferry, but we will have to wait a few more days.

There are a few new things I have done this trip...

• Visited the ancient ruins at Corinth.
• Visited Hadrian's Arch in Athens.
• Visited the Temple of Zeus in Athens.
• Visited the ancient Agora in Athens.
• Attended the opening of a new museum at another Monastery on Patmos.
• Visited the Icon restoration room at St. John's Monastery.