Patricia St. John - Chapter 20 - In the Steps of St. Paul

hen 1 was about 13 years old, my imagination had been captured by the story of Onesimus, the runaway slave whose small history appears in the book of Philemon. I told my father that I wished to write a novel based on the incident, and without the flicker of a smile he accompanied me to the public library.

‘My daughter wishes to write a novel set in Bible times’, he announced to the astonished librarian. ‘Could you please show her the ancient history section where she can do some research on the period.’

I failed to see the wink that must have passed between them and felt very solemn and adult. I obediently researched and found out quite a lot about ancient Colossae and the Roman world. I wrote my story laboriously, mostly in pencil in a multitude of lined penny notebooks. The family applauded, but it never went further. Some years later the manuscript, almost forgotten, was lost in a move. But the idea never quite left me. And one day, when my sister Hazel was over from Beirut, spending a holiday with us in Tangier, I mentioned this old dream.

‘Why don’t you write it?’ she asked.

‘Because I can’t write about places I’ve never seen,’ I replied, ‘and when could I ever go to Turkey and Greece and Rome?’

‘Next year’, she replied promptly. ‘Come to Beirut in the summer holiday and we’ll drive back to North Africa together in my Volkswagen, and camp. We’ll visit every place St Paul ever set foot in’ (except the islands of the sea).

So in 1966 I left, with some trepidation, for Beirut. It was not my first visit. I had been there once before when I was still working in the mountains. After about a fortnight of enjoying the life of Hazel’s school and meeting some of her numerous Lebanese friends, we set off on the first stage of our journey. The little Volkswagen was well packed with the tent, sleeping bags, primus, provisions, water container and personal luggage. Crowds of excited friends came to the gate to see us off. It was quite emotional, but at last the gates closed behind us and we were out through the traffic, chugging east towards Damascus, with the great Lebanese range to cross. Up we climbed over the mountains with their stupendous views across the Bekaa plain, where to the south the snows of Hermon shimmered against the blue. Then down from that bright air to Damascus and on along the eastern plains of Jordan, arriving in Amman that evening, where we were welcomed and entertained by Christian friends.

Hazel knew everybody, and it was pleasant to tag along behind and be welcomed and entertained wherever we went. It happened again next evening after a thrilling day. I was seeing for the first time that place in the Jordan River ‘where there was much water’ (had Jesus really stepped down into that pool?) and dusty little Bethany. We got out and stood on the crest of the Mount of Olives, and looked down on the whole great panorama of modern Jerusalem, and then Hazel explained quite calmly that we were to stay with the keeper of the Garden of the Resurrection (the Garden Tomb) for three nights, and we would sleep in a little summer house a hundred yards or so from the grave.

The country was dry and barren in August, but the garden was lovingly watered all the year round. It was a mass of flowers. The Mottars had a delicious meal waiting for us and we sat for a long time talking and breathing in the sweet scents of the garden at dusk. Through the open window, half veiled by trees, was the tomb where Jesus may have lain. A few hundred yards away rose a little hill, seamed on one side with rocks which in certain lights bear a strange resemblance to a skull. Gordon’s Calvary they call it. And the General insisted that if it was the hill of the Mount of the Crucifixion, then there must be a single tomb very close at hand, for ‘in the place where He was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb’. Seven years after the General’s death, the garden tomb was excavated, solitary and empty, with the stone rolled back from the entrance.

The Mottars held us spellbound with the story of their recent lives. They were Palestinian Arabs who had come to Jerusalem on holiday with their nine children. While there, the war broke out between the Jews and Arabs and it became impossible to get back to their home. Their money was dwindling and the banks were unable to transfer. They and many like them were faced with the problem of real hunger.

Mr Mottar visited the bank daily, but nothing was coming through from his own account. A day came when they finished the last of their food for breakfast. So Mr Mottar gathered his nine children round him and read to them God’s promises of provision in the Bible.

‘We are going to see if the Bible is true’, he told his anxious family. ‘I will go out with a basket and I will tell no one of our need, only the Lord. If I come back with an empty basket, then it seems the promises are not true. If I come back with a good dinner, then you can know that the Bible is a book to be trusted.’

He went first to the bank and stood in the long queue. Like most others, he was turned away empty-handed. As he went out, he met a local acquaintance coming in. The man stopped and spoke to him.

‘How are you managing with all those kids, Mottar?’ he asked.

It was a temptation to tell and ask for help. But Mr Mottar remembered his promise. ‘We’re all right’, he said quietly, and went on his way. ‘That’s true’, he thought to himself. ‘With all those promises we must be all right.’

Not knowing where to go next, he sat down on a seat by the roadside, his empty basket beneath his feet. ‘O Lord,’ he prayed, ‘all those little children!’ There was much more than their dinner at stake. It was their faith in God.

He looked up, for someone was speaking to him. His friend stood in front of him. ‘I don’t care what you say, Mottar,’ he said, ‘you can’t be all right with all that crowd to feed.’ He dropped a packet into the empty basket and walked away. It contained enough money to feed them for many days. The money came through, and later he was offered the job of caring for the Garden of the Resurrection, with a house on the edge of the garden. He did his work beautifully, for the place is a mass of flowers and shady trees.

Next morning at sunrise I ran out and sat beside the opening to the tomb and pretended I was Mary Magdalene on that first amazing morning when Jesus called her by her name.

We had just three days in Jerusalem; we drove south to Bethlehem, north to the Vale of Sychar, and back to Bethany and saw those old, old cave-like graves at the back of the village. Out of one of these Lazarus had come forth. We followed the road to Emmaus in the evening and crossed the Brook Kidron and climbed the hill to the Garden of Gethsemane where the twisted olive trees are said to be round about two thousand years old. It was hard to say goodbye to the dear Mottars and that quiet little flower-scented tomb. We shall never see Mr Mottar again, for during the Six Day War soldiers broke into the garden and shot him at close range. Perhaps he who had loved the spot so much would have been glad to die in the very place where death was conquered.

So on the third morning we drove again to the crest of the Mount of Olives and looked back on the holy city and started north for our first night’s stop in Damascus. The hospitality of Syria and Turkey is something I shall not forget in a hurry.

The landscape as one nears the Turkish border is incredibly lovely – hills and pine forests and far views. We stayed the night in Latakia with loving friends of Hazel’s and drove over into Turkey the next day. Our aim was to reach Antioch. We did not hurry. The roads were rough and the Volkswagen dusty. It was incredibly hot, and we bathed in a river. We were to stay the night with a well-to-do Turkish family whose daughters were boarders at Hazel’s school in Beirut. We decided to stop near the town and change and tidy up and rub over the Volkswagen.

We were just a little way from Antioch, looking for a suitable place to stop, when we saw the procession coming – two enormous cars hooting loudly. ‘I think the President is coming’, I said to Hazel. ‘We’d better get into the ditch.’ We squeezed to the side of the road, but the cars drew up alongside of us and the family poured out, laughing and shouting. It was the welcome committee come out to meet their headmistress. We followed them back in our disreputable little vehicle, feeling extremely scruffy, and they led us to the most expensive hotel in Antioch.

That evening we feasted in their home and in the morning they took us to see the sights of Antioch. It lies among hills – a small town; but in the days of St Paul it was the third largest city in the world. Here we saw what is probably the oldest known Christian church. It is cut in a cave, and from its mouth one can turn and look out over the little city and the green, well-watered plain of the Orontes River. Inside, when our eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, we could discern the worn mosaic floor, the spring of water in the corner, the rough carving of a cross on the rock. From the back of the cave a secret passage leads to steps near the city wall, for the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch, and to worship was probably a risky business.

The rest of our progress through Turkey was a dream of sunshine, sunflowers, rough roads and sleepy little towns, and kindly peasants in bright, artistic costumes, harvesting their crops along the way, and eager to have their photos taken. Sometimes they tossed us bunches of grapes and once they presented us with a melon. We visited Tarsus, once a great centre of learning, now a small, rather bedraggled little place, crowded with mule carts. Beyond, to the west, rose the Taurus Mountains.

One night we slept in a small hotel where all the residents, including ourselves, lit their primuses in the long stone corridor and for the most part cooked macaroni. On another night we set up our tent in a campsite where whole families were employed picking melons. The tents were enormous and elaborate, housing grannies, babies, relatives, and we felt a little ashamed of our simple contraption (it was too small, and in any case our legs stuck out of the doorway), but we were loudly welcomed at the crowded coffee shop that night, and invited to dance and requested to speak English.

I especially remember a blue misty morning when we turned a corner and saw Lake Egridir just ahead of us. Turkey’s weak point is its washing accommodation. We plunged in gratefully and picnicked on the little beach. I believe we found another camping site that night, for we were getting very close to one of the places I specially wanted to see – Homaz, the old Colossae and the site of my proposed book. Colossae, set on a high mountain above the gorges, the city where the slave Onesimus ran away from the service of Philemon and returned bearing one of the world’s most gracious and immortal letters – the Letter to the Colossians.

Turkey makes nothing of the old Bible sites. It has changed the names of many of the old cities. Only because Hazel had done this trip before was she able to locate the place. We wound up a stony track, high above the road, and somewhat nervously entered the little marketplace.

It was a riot! Tourists were almost unknown in Colossae, and an excited crowd collected. They obviously thought us very funny, and we spent a little time simply laughing at each other. But it was kind, hospitable laughter, and they insisted on serving us with free coffee at a little wooden table in the local inn. Then someone remembered; there was one scholar in Colossae who spoke English, and a deputation set off to fetch him and returned triumphant. He also made welcoming gestures, but his English was limited to one sentence: ‘See you fellows in de mornin’.’

We left amid affectionate, amused goodbyes and drove a little way down the mountain. It was late afternoon, and across the valley rose the strange white limestone crags of Pamukkale. We stopped for a picnic supper, and it was just here that our butane gas container suddenly caught fire and blew up in a small way. It was really rather a tragedy, but we laughed and laughed until we were quite speechless.

We drove up the opposite hillside and spent the night in a little hotel at Pamukkale, and bathed in the hot and cold springs. It was late evening, and the sun was setting down in the valley in a glory of green and gold. A hundred miles to the west, at the end of the Lycus Valley, lay Ephesus, and somewhere just below us the ruins of Laodicea.

No one in Pamukkale could tell us exactly how to reach them, but when we gained the highway we stopped for petrol. The garage man knew no English and we knew no Turkish, but we threw out the word Laodicea and he nodded and pointed to a rough little track on the opposite side of the road. We bumped along it for a few hundred yards, then it petered out into a narrow path. We pressed on on foot and suddenly we found ourselves at the edge of a field where lay the ruins of the old, old city.

There was no mistaking it. ‘I would that thou wert cold or hot.’ Up above to our right lay the limestone crags, with heat emanating from the cataract of hot springs – a wonderful spot in winter. Over to the left, the ice-cold water from the cold springs cascaded down the mountain – a perfect retreat in the blazing summer weather. Kept apart, each stream proved a blessing. Mixed and lukewarm, they would have been useless.

There were clear signs, too, in the stones of rebuilding and new beginnings, for Laodicea was twice destroyed by earthquakes. After one of these the Roman Emperor offered financial help, but the proud little city refused. ‘We are rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing’, was the message they sent back. For me it was one of the most moving experiences of the journey, as though that sad, poignant letter leapt to life again in the pages of the Bible and that final offer of hope rang out across the centuries, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock’.

A long drive down the Lycus Valley brought us to Ephesus in the late afternoon. We explored for an hour in that special illuminating light of early evening, tinging the old stones with gold. We stood in the theatre where they shouted ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians!’ and followed the dusty little track up to the great temple of Diana, formerly one of the seven wonders of the world, now a few mildewed stones in a swamp where frogs sit and croak.

After two nights in Smyrna we crossed the Bosphorus. What a thrill to be in Greece! I remember the first view of ruined Philippi and the river nearby where Lydia’s heart was opened. At Thessalonica, we stayed at a children’s Bible camp by the sea and spent a never-to-be-forgotten evening with the children, sharing and singing and applauding their little dramas.

We crept out early for a swim and on reaching the apparently empty beach we removed our dresses and made for the sea. It was embarrassing to round the little sand dune and find ourselves suddenly in the midst of a crowd of modestly clad Thessalonians having a prayer meeting. However it did not seem to worry them, and again we left this little heaven on earth with real regret and almost a sense of tearing apart.

We reached Athens early in the evening, when the westering sun illuminated the Acropolis, set high and beautiful above the city. We were to stay with another friend of Hazel’s who had visited her in Beirut and kept a home for elderly widows. But we had not mentioned supper and thought we would eat before arriving. We were discussing the price of a hamburger when a charming young man came up to us and said in good English, ‘Can I help you?’ He negotiated the right change and we thanked him and sat down on a seat outside to eat. A few minutes later our friend returned. ‘Do you read the Bible?’ he asked. We told him we did, and he said, ‘I knew it’.

Then over our supper we really settled down to get to know each other. He had studied at Capernwray Bible College in the North of England. He ran a Christian bookshop in the town, where he sold books by Patricia St. John translated into Greek. He was actually in process of translating one of them himself, and he found it hard to believe that the authentic article was actually sitting opposite him, dusty, sunburnt and devouring a hamburger.

I think there is nothing like the fellowship of Christians who simply recognize Christ in each other and reach out to Him in joy. We found out that he was going to preach in Corinth on the following day. He had no car, so we offered to take him. His name was Angelikos, and he translated for us as we had no common language with anyone else, but the welcome of these people and their hospitality went right to our hearts.

The epistle seemed to come alive as they took us round the ruins of the old city, and we imagined other little churches surrounded by sin and temptation, yet battling through to victory. Once again we parted, probably never again to meet on this earth, but with the strong sense of permanency of the whole family in Heaven and on earth. What interested us most was the cripple boy we met there, who had been alone in his room for some years, unable to get out. But people visited him and one by one he talked to them of the Lord, and the result of those times was the forming of this little church, which was growing well.

We crossed by ship a day or two later to Italy and watched Greece receding against the soft sky that reflected the sunset ahead of us. We landed at Brindisi late at night. Next day we drove through the beautiful Italian countryside with its vineyards and grape pickers and fascinating little white towns on the tops of the hills, and reached the suburbs of Rome in the late afternoon.

There seemed to be no camping site or friendly cottages that let rooms, and I wondered what to do. We knew no Italian. I had a little Spanish and I found it rather a help. I marched into a shop and asked where we could find an inexpensive lodging. The effect was remarkable. The shopkeeper went straight to the phone and as far as I could make out started talking about some Spanish Catholic Signoras. She returned smiling and nodding and told us to wait, which we did, totally mystified. An enormous car suddenly appeared and we were told with some ceremony to follow. We protested, but we were helpless against the waving of hands and the nodding of heads, and a chorus of ‘Si, Si, Si’. We protested even more when the car stopped in front of an enormous, palatial building and the driver told us to get out.

‘It must be the biggest and most expensive hotel in Rome’, we whispered, preparing to flee, but there seemed to be no escape. He waved away every objection as irrelevant and we were led up the steps and greeted at the door by a sweet-faced Mother Superior, who had come to welcome her Catholic guests from Spain. We had been brought to the local convent.

We felt dreadful frauds. We produced our British passports and tried to explain that it was a mistake. We were only Protestants. She seemed a little surprised and disappointed, but remained welcoming and hospitable. We slept for two nights in a beautiful guest room under an enormous picture of the Pope and talked with the nuns, to whom our coming seemed a sort of exciting novelty.

I can’t think how we packed so much into two days in Rome, but Hazel as usual knew her way round. I remember most vividly the roof of the Sistine Chapel, the carvings and inscriptions in the Coliseum and the catacombs, especially that little picture of the Good Shepherd scratched on the rock. How those early Christians must have felt their need of that shepherd care!

As we left Rome and set off north, I felt a sense of liberation. As far as Rome I had taken notes copiously of every place that concerned St Paul. Now I could stop studying and merely enjoy myself: Florence, Spoleto (where we stayed with friends) and then a hot, enchanting morning in Assisi.

That evening, as we travelled on through the high hills above Assisi, we had our first taste of really bad weather. The rain poured down, the road was twisting and treacherous. We had no plans for the night. Somewhere in the district lived a kind, welcoming friend who had taught at Clarendon, but we had lost the address and could only remember the name of the road. The town might have been anywhere. We had no hope of finding her. We cruised along in the dark, feeling lost and rather frightened, when Hazel suddenly gave a yell of triumph. She had seen the name of the road. Of course it might be in a different town, but it wasn’t. We did not even need to ask more than once. Everyone knew the Roncos, and within a very short time we were safe, warm and dry, camping in the sitting room, again enjoying wonderful hospitality.

At Monte Carlo we stayed with more friends who worked with Radio Monte Carlo, that vast broadcasting station built by Hitler to announce his victory over Europe to the world, but now beaming Gospel programmes all over Europe and to North Africa, Russia and beyond.

Now we were heading for home along the south coast of France and into Spain. Camping sites were plentiful and luxurious, the weather was perfect. We reckoned we had two more nights to go before crossing on the ferry to Tangier, when apparent disaster struck us.

We were waiting stationary at a busy crossroads a few miles north of Tarragona when there was a tremendous crash at the back of the car, jolting us forward and hurling us against the windscreen (it was before the days of seat belts). An enormous truck, whose owner had apparently fallen asleep, had rammed into the back of the car and cracked the Volkswagen engine in two. At first we were so thankful to discover that neither of us was hurt (although my arms and hands remained numb for several days) that we scarcely realized the predicament we were in.

The excitement and noise was indescribable. We were some way out of town, but crowds seemed to spring up from nowhere, quarrelling and arguing with Spanish heat. The police were screaming at the traffic jam, and the lorry driver seemed to be trying to turn our wheels. We discovered later that he wanted to prove that we were turning left and had not indicated. After a lot of wrangling and shouting, in the end a pick-up truck appeared and hoisted our car on top and took it to a garage in Tarragona, the nearest town.

We were taken in the truck and dumped on the pavement. It was quite dark now and starting to rain, and after ten o’clock at night. As we were nearing the end of our journey, we had very little money, and the campsite was far outside the town. Nor could we have carried our gear. We enquired about hotels, but were assured that every hotel was full, as it was a fiesta (a remarkably common occurrence in Spain). No one seemed to care, and we stood in the little street with our hand luggage and prayed. Just then a boy came up to us and said, ‘I think I know a house where you could sleep’.

He seemed like a small, bright-eyed angel, but as we followed, the streets became narrower and we began to wonder. We had obviously reached the poorer part of the town. He stopped at a tall house and beckoned us inside. He led us up a very dimly lighted stone staircase. By now we were definitely feeling scared. But he kept turning round and making encouraging noises. At last he knocked on a door.

An elderly woman opened it and after a few words of explanation she admitted us a little doubtfully into a small living room. We looked round. There were Spanish texts on the walls. We showed her our Bibles and within a couple of minutes we were all in each other’s arms. The bond of the love of Christ is seldom felt more strongly than when Christians meet in a strange land with little common language; it overrides all barriers. That night in that humble little home we instantly knew ourselves to be one in Christ Jesus.

In a city of over 60,000, there were just 60 Protestant Evangelical Christians, and she and her family were among them. They were kindness itself and though she could keep us for only one night, as her families were arriving next day, she took us to the church and we met with a little group. They escorted us and our belongings to a small chapel by the beach, not yet registered for use but containing a tiny kitchen and toilet and ample space to camp. It was quite luxurious, and we were detained for four days while the garage searched in vain for a Volkswagen engine, much hindered by two fiestas.

Then we gave up in despair and decided to travel on by train and leave the car to be picked up later when it had been mended.

Why? we wondered. Everything had gone so well. God’s guiding hand had been in evidence. Why should this delay have been allowed? We were almost at the end of our money. We had to go on the first morning to visit the British Consul, who could not speak one word of English. We needed funds sent out urgently from England. We needed to give a true account of the accident for insurance purposes.

It was here in that dingy office with a bored-looking Spanish official that I was given the gift of tongues. I knew very little Spanish, but I suddenly found that I could ask for what we wanted and give a lucid account of all that had happened. In spite of the lies told by the lorry driver, we were awarded full insurance costs six months later. Then as we left the office, somewhat dazed by the whole experience, we met the reason for our being in Tarragona.

An English lady stood on the pavement crying bitterly. When we spoke to her in English, she seized hold of us and sobbed out her story. She had never been abroad before and knew not a word of Spanish, but her elder sister, a school teacher, had persuaded her to fly out for a week’s holiday. She had not enjoyed it much – the crowds and the cheerful jostling in the streets at night scared her. But her sister was there to look after her. Then on the fifth day of her holiday her sister had a severe stroke and was taken to hospital, paralysed and speechless. Marjorie hovered helplessly at her bedside. The nurses told her to go and buy suitable food, but she dared not enter a shop. She wanted to arrange to take her sister home, but the air company was miles away in Barcelona and there was no one to help. She was in utter, hopeless despair. God heard the cry of the desolate. When we should have been back in Tangier, God guided us to her.

We went to the hospital and visited the sister and took Marjorie shopping. We were able via the Consul to get in touch with the air company and arrange for her sister to be taken by ambulance to the plane and flown home within five days, when another ambulance would convey her to hospital. She was well insured, so there was no problem. We kept Marjorie company and stocked her up with what she needed, and we left her confident that all had been arranged. A later letter from England confirmed that the plans had gone straight ahead.

So often we simply have to believe that all things work together for good, without seeing the guiding hand that traces the pattern. Like the workers in the weaving shed who see only the reverse side of the roll of carpet, the disastrous situation appears a tangled muddle, but you have to wait for the whole beautiful design to be unrolled up there with Him. Just sometimes, to confirm our faith, He answers our questions now and shows us the reason why.

We travelled back to Tangier in the slow, hot Spanish train, with hearts full of praise, and in the months to come, with those sun-drenched, carefree memories of our journey clear in my mind, I settled down to write Twice Freed – the story of Onesimus.