The altar at Laodicea

We drove the circuit of the seven churches of Asia in two days, about 1,590 kilometres from Istanbul and back: Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia on the Saturday, then Smyrna, Ephesus and Laodicea. On the road south Ekaba recorded a few words: “I'm praying over them for the restoration, because the God who came and took their candlesticks can build it, plant it back again.”

Laodicea was a rich city of bankers, black wool and a famous eye-salve. It had no water of its own; its supply came by aqueduct and arrived tepid. To this church the Lord wrote that it was neither cold nor hot.

The God who came and took their candlesticks can build it, plant it back again.

In 2010 archaeologists began to uncover a large church of the early fourth century in the middle of the city, with its baptistery and its mosaic and marble floors, one of the oldest church buildings in the world. It still stands: not a ruin scattered in a field, but the walls and floor of a church of Laodicea. Beside it stands a board with the letter to the church of Laodicea.

There, in the church, Ekaba had the opportunity to pray at the altar. We prayed for Türkiye, and for the seven lampstands and the land to which they once gave their light.