Article December 8, 2003 Issue

Churches without Walls

By Gloria Onyuru

We Were A Group Of Christians touring through Turkey (ancient Asia Minor). Our guide, a young Turkish woman, had agreed to lead us in the footsteps of St. Paul for 13 days.

On the ninth day of our tour, a Wednesday, we visited the ruins at Ephesus, where the Apostle Paul had lived and taught for more than two years. Then we traveled on to Izmir (ancient Smyrna) to spend the night. Since almost all of the people in our group were Christian Scientists, we wanted to hold a church service that night, so we requested the hotel to issue any one of us a room larger than normal, where we could meet after dinner. Everyone who was interested agreed to meet around 8:00 p.m.

At the appointed time, about a dozen of us gathered together in the room. The group included our Muslim guide and a person of another Christian faith. The room did have slightly more space than usual, but only two chairs. So most everyone sat on the floor.