Eastern Turkiye, September 4, 2026
Everyone in our group of 8 made it safely to Istanbul yesterday. we had an early flight to the city of Van in eastern Turkiye this morning, where our plans begin. The heart of the ancient Urartian Kingdom 9th - 6th c BC (same as the kingdom of Ararat in 2 Kings 17:5, Jeremiah 51:27)
Our first stop was below the remains the Urartian Van fortress. Craig flew the drone around the south face of the cliff wall of the castle. There is an inscription by Xerxes in trilingual cuneiform old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian from approx 450 BC. Xerxes is the Greek version of the name of King Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther - the son of Darius the Great!
We then took a boat out to an island in Lake Van to see the ancient Armenian Church of the Holy Cross (915 AD). It has massive low relief carvings of Biblical scenes all over the exterior - been dreaming of seeing this place for so long and it was beautiful.
After the boat ride - and we should mention there are no OSHA / ADA safety concerns here at all 😱, but we didn’t lose anyone overboard - we went back to Van fortress and made the climb to the top. Stunning sunset photos!
Ended the day with a distressing incident in the van where Margery dropped the drone SD card (the size of a dime). It seems to have vanished into thin air! After everyone taking turns on hands and knees in a dark van with flashlights, we gave up. When dinner was over and Craig took off his jacket the disc fell out onto floor - thanking God for a nice little miracle!
Tomorrow we travel 2 hours north of Lake Van to the Mount Ararat region where we will see a number of interesting traditions and sites connected to Noah’s ark.
God Bless and we will send pictures from Ararat tomorrow!
PB and Margery
Church of the Holy Cross on Akdamar Island, Lake Van Türkiye
