It is a cave. Simple. Cold. A few pieces of church furniture are dotted around it. A cross here, a candle burning there.

A small group of people are singing a hymn – I think in Italian.

I am in Antioch – a bustling city, deep in the South of Turkey. On the edge of town, there is a church. The Church of St. Peter. Not really a church as we might think of it…but a cave in the hillside, where in the earliest years of the Church’s story – Paul and Barnabas worshipped and prepared for mission to the world.

But now it is 2000 years later. The area has changed character and Antioch is now a predominately Muslim city, crammed with people – buyers and sellers…

And on Sunday morning a handful of pilgrims gathers on the hillside, in the cave/church of St. Peter’s.

I am so far from home. I feel so very far from home. And yet here in this church, the very place where the New Testament tells us – “Christians were first called Christians,” I feel very close to home.

The sweet singing of the Italian pilgrims embraces and enfolds me – and I cannot stop the tears. This is a most precious moment. The most precious moment of all my three months travels…in touch with something of the very beginning of the faith – something profound for my faith.

And there in that simple, cold, first church of Christendom – I pray for you. I pray for the men and women and children of Belhaven and Spott - my home church - so very different, so many miles way, so many centuries away from this little sanctuary – and yet part of the same thing, the same story, the same faith.

I thank God for the people – and I recall the people whose prayers were sustaining me on the Study Leave experience, as they sustained me through all the years of ministry thus far.

I thank God for the blessings and encouragements that were so beyond my deserving.

I pray for the future of these congregations – that we might serve him well, and with full hearts.

I pray for you.

Nothing - of all the places I saw, the historic sites I visited, the great focal points of faith I was privileged to brush against – touched me as deeply as being there – standing in the very place where Paul and Barnabas committed themselves to mission to all the world. I was there – all those dark centuries of turmoil and sacrifice later, because of the decisions they had made.

Belhaven and Spott were a direct and unbroken link with that brave past. And now I was back there – breathing in the Spirit of those great champions of the faith – and having my tired and thirsty soul refreshed and revived by the gentle singing of these Italian pilgrims…one with me in Christ – one with all of us in faith, love and worship.

It was a special thing.
I wanted to share it with you.

Laurence Twaddle.