2010: The Second Officer Study Tour

My appointment at the time meant that, in the days and weeks after the first tour, I had regular opportunities to express my ongoing appreciation for the experience to Lt-Col. Wilfred Arnold, and to drop the odd hint : "If you do happen to need an assistant for the next tour,..... I could possibly make myself available!"

It was always a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but the sentiment was genuine! There was, however, never any real expectation that it would ever come to be. Apart from anything else, I knew I wasn't the only one who was, only half-jokingly, expressing their willingness to make such a 'sacrifice'!

Because it was part of the 20 year review process, I had expected that another tour would be mounted the following year, 2009. However, a change of leadership in the territory brought a change of focus and no tour took place that year.

When the next tour was proposed, for 2010, there were some significant differences:

• First, it was no longer connected with a 20 year review. It was thought unfair that officers who had already passed this milestone of service would miss the opportunity to benefit from such an experience.

• Second, Wilfred was instructed to alter the timing of the tour so that he, as Personnel Secretary, would not be absent from the territory during the appointments consultation process.

• Third, the unthinkable happened: I was asked to assist Wilfred with the organisation and leadership of the tour!

The first change, the timing of the tour, was forced on us and the new territorial leadership wanted it to happen in March. It didn't take long, however, to figure out that the prevailing weather conditions for that time of year meant that a counter-proposal would be necessary. Eventually it was agreed that we would depart in late May - to catch the cheaper shoulder-season airfares, with most of the tour falling in early June. The weather might not be as warm as September but at least there wouldn't be a high risk of rain!

A second change came in the form a different guide in Turkey. Alper Avan was replaced by Ahmet Isçimen. Although this was not by our design, it would prove to be very significant as our journey unfolded. It became more and more evident that, although we had not known it at the time, we had not been very well served by Alper!

Third, I wanted to explore some possible changes to the itinerary:

• Could we make more of the visit to Izmir (Smyrna)?

• Could we visit Alexandria Troas rather than Troy?

• On the original tour it had struck a number of us as strange that we were travelling the wrong way through Greece: we were visiting the sites in reverse order to the biblical account! Could we not follow Paul's journey as it unfolded, from Neapolis, through to Corinth?

Early in 2010 I happened to be visiting a local Salvation Army Corps on a Sunday morning. At one point the congregation was reminded of a young man who had, some years earlier, been connected with the youth group. We were told that he was now living in Turkey, in Izmir, and we were asked to pray for his safety and that of his family. We were reminded that foreign Christians living in Turkey, a secular state but strongly Muslim culture, need to be very careful.

However, the possibly of meeting with Kiwi Christians living in such a setting was too good to pass up. The person sharing the prayer request was not comfortable simply passing on an email address but agreed to check whether they would be comfortable exploring the possibility with me.

A new contact was made and details of what happened will follow in the story of the tour below.

After the experience of 2008 I was determined to add Troas to our itinerary, if at all possible, but where exactly was it?

My research turned up a raft of conflicting information. Various tour companies seemed to indicate quite different locations. A range of resources offering Google Earth placemarks of biblical locations were equally confusing. Nothing I found pinpointed the exact location with any degree of confidence.

Adjusting the itinerary to follow the Biblical order in Greece proved to be more of a challenge. For a start the logistics of 'going the other way' meant we would probably need an extra night, adding significantly to the overall cost.

More importantly, I came to realise that a change would affect the 'psychological impact' of the tour. Ephesus is the most spectacular of the excavated sites and Patmos is, perhaps, the most spiritually 'charged' and certainly the most idyllic location. If these visits were made earlier in the tour, the final locations might feel somewhat anti-climactic. The benefits of ending with Ephesus and Patmos far outweighed the inconvenience of reading the Acts narrative backwards over the first few days.

Consequently, any thought of significant adjustment to the itinerary was abandoned and the overall structure of the tour remained unchanged.