A Place to Depart

"He that is discontented in one place will seldom be content in another."

Aesop

It had been a little over twelve years since the Lord's ascension to Heaven. Barnabas, John Mark, and I awoke at first light that June morning. We packed our cloth sacks to leave Antioch, and then I suggested, "Let's go to Manaen's house and bid farewell to those gathered there for the sunrise service."

Much to our surprise there were more than a hundred people standing outside Manaen's house. When we approached the crowd, a brawny man pulled out a butcher's knife. He began waving the long blade in the air.

Titus joined us when we reached the crowd and whispered in my ear, "Paul, as an apostle, maybe you should leave town now."

As we loomed closer to the man, he began hacking at something below his waist. Blood squirted everywhere.

"What's happening?" Titus asked in a state of panic.

"It seems the congregational members are making a covenant among themselves," Barnabas replied. "One of the butchers is cutting a lamb in half."

Then we heard the butcher shout, "Let's do what our Jewish ancestors did when they made a covenant. Let's pass through the two halves of the lamb's carcass to consummate our pledge to pray for Barnabas and Paul during their journey."

Titus mumbled, "That's a strange way to take an oath."

"It's a Jewish tradition," I informed him. "If anyone passes through the two halves of the lamb and breaks the covenant, they will be broken in half."

We prayed and fellowshipped for about a half hour, and then a vast majority of the crowd went to work. The rest joined us for our journey to Seleucia. Our entourage walked downstream, since the Orontes River was dangerously high from a late-night storm. Three young boys carried our four sacks of food and clothing. We had a paucity of provisions but an abundance of hope and faith.

It took us several hours to arrive in Seleucia. Before reaching the harbor's dock, one of our congregational members, Edrie, motioned for John Mark, Barnabas, and me to follow him to his shipyard. He was a successful Seleucia shipbuilder who lived in Antioch.

When we entered Edrie's cramped workspace, one of his captains was sleeping off a drunken binge on top of a few lumpy sacks in the corner. Edrie shook the sailor awake from his stupor.

"Get up, sailor!"

"Sir!" he mumbled, tumbling off the sacks and onto the sawdust floor.

"Find passage to Cyprus for my three friends."

"Consider it done," the captain slurred from all fours. "When we got into port last night, my drinking buddy was a Roman trade ship captain. His vessel is leaving tonight at high tide for Salamis, Cyprus."

"Alleluia," we shouted as the sea captain collapsed back on the sawdust floor.

"Plus, he owes me a huge favor." The captain snickered, rolling over on his back and spitting out pieces of sawdust.

Barnabas reached out his hand to help the man up and said, "God works in amazing ways."

"You men are sailing for free," he mumbled, then hiccupped and wiped at the spittle around his mouth. "This one is on Captain Regelus."

The three of us thanked him for his assistance and headed toward the dock beneath dark clouds.

We had only been waiting a short time in a vacant lot beside the dock when the Roman trade ship captain barked, "Prepare to board!" He'd decided to set sail early because a storm was blowing in from the northeast.

"We're probably the first group to send men out to share The Way with Gentiles," Manaen chuckled as we walked down the creaky dock.

"Where will your travels take you?" Titus asked over the harbor's noisy activities.

"Our first stop will be Cyprus," Barnabas said before stepping onto the gangplank. "That's my family's home. From there it's wherever the Holy Spirit leads us."

* * *

At high noon the crew raised anchor and the three of us christened our lives as those sent out to the Roman world. We left behind salty tears for the salty seas. We sculled out of the harbor, past colossal stone barriers. Our hull sat high in the water since it was loaded with empty barrels made of Lebanon wood. The ship was on its way to Cyprus to fill hundreds of barrels with salt-white gold, the crystalline currency of the Roman Empire.

After waving goodbye to our friends on the port side, we walked the deck to find a place to stow our belongings. That's when we heard a loud commotion in the ship's wooden hull. We went below to check out the ruckus while the crew raised the sails.

Before we reached the bottom step, we saw one hundred Roman soldiers drinking and lounging in the ship's belly. They were assigned the task of guarding the white gold's final leg from Cyprus to Italy. Several drunken soldiers lying against the ship's hull cursed at us. One shouted above the others, "We don't want you stinking Jews down here!"

John Mark looked around from the bottom step and couldn't find any room for us. I saw an inebriated optio's tattooed insignia arm resting on the bottom step. He raised his forearm and grabbed John Mark's foot. He shouted, "Let's run our swords through this Jew and see if he smells better dead."

Barnabas and I pulled John Mark from his grasp and he scurried up the ladder. We found a quiet place on the vessel's starboard deck and settled in for the trip. The journey from Seleucia to Salamis, a port city on the eastern coast of Cyprus, was about a two-day voyage.

After the crew set sail, we made our way west across the choppy Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus. Our eyes quickly lost sight of land. Within twelve hours of our departure, the vintage craft made of Lebanon timber bobbled atop the growing swells like an aimless piece of driftwood.

Between gastric burps, I said, "I'm not a fan of turbulent water."

"Maybe the choppy sea will be the only challenge we face on this trip," Barnabas encouraged, knowing that probably wouldn't be the case.

"Or maybe its simply a prelude of things to come," John Mark said, eyeing the stormy clouds above us.

"Life is never boring," I acknowledged, "when you're doing the Lord's work."

The three of us huddled on the damp deck while the Roman soldiers slept off their drunken binge in the dry, cramped hull. The cold ocean sprays kept us awake that night. So rather than fume, we knelt in prayer, asking for safety and quoting Ecclesiastes, while idle deck hands mocked us amid the heavy mist.

Hours later I was still awake, staring out into a fog so thick one could cut it with a Roman soldier's dagger. We had slowed because of the fog but were still sailing along when a voice screamed, "Spill the wind out of the sails!"

The ship's port side came alive in an uproar. I too jumped up and made my way to where I could see. The crew had turned their attention to a small, distressed coastal ship drifting in a strange manner. Smoke rose from its stern to signal the vessel's plight. The captain maneuvered close, allowing us to investigate the ship's status. Through the dense fog we saw five young maidens, crying on the deck. They were wailing, as though faced with great calamity.

Within moments I couldn't help but sense the sudden transformation in the behavior and attitude of our crew. Maybe it was the longing for female companionship or seafarers' concern for others that caused them to drop their guard and help the distressed maidens.

The crew threw several bronze hooks onto their ship's rails and brought the boat astern, then laid a wooden plank between the vessels. Several of the sailors crossed nimbly, ready to offer assistance to the women. To their surprise, the maidens jumped to their feet, ripping off their garments, revealing the firm bodies of young men rather than women.

Several of our crew yelled, "Pirates!"

Their muscular tattoos revealed they were Phoenician pirates. Within seconds, twenty other men appeared brandishing swords on the misty deck. John Mark and Barnabas silently joined me at our ship's rail. I sensed death's presence as chills sprinted up and down my spine. The feeling grew heavier when a voice yelled, "Take no prisoners!" Within seconds, ocean mist and death dripped from their swords as they slashed their way aboard our vessel.

The three of us had no weapons to defend ourselves. So we dashed to the starboard side and did the only thing we could do, pray. I heard both John Mark and Barnabas beseeching the Lord to spare the sailors who had stopped to offer aid.

Someone in our crew pleaded, "Have mercy on us!"

An exception to the crew's pleas for mercy came from the first mate, who opened the hull's hatchway and thundered, "We're being attacked! Get your drunken asses up here!" Those were his last words before an attacker grabbed his head, yanked it out of the hatchway, and slit his throat wide open.

The second mate offered himself as bait, cutting the ropes holding the boats together against the strong northeastern winds. Two men grabbed him by the back of the neck. They took turns running their blades through his chest.

"Easy pickings!" shouted what appeared to be their leader.

He seemed confident and strong, though not particularly old. Phoenician pirates seized and terrorized vessels across the Mediterranean Sea and had done so for years. They typically stayed a step ahead of the Roman navy. This man had probably stolen his share of rich cargoes.

I wondered how he'd feel to discover our ship was traveling empty.

His men were appraising their prey beneath a flapping topsail when the half-dressed, hung-over Roman soldiers came gushing out of the hatchway like an erupting geyser. Their swords swung in all directions.

The Phoenician captain bellowed at his men as he saw more and more soldiers pouring out onto the trade ship's deck. He didn't know the soldiers were on board and it was to late too position his men at the hatchway to cut them down.

The Roman soldiers were skilled in open field combat, not fighting on a slippery, confined deck. The soldiers outnumbered the brigands four to one, but the Phoenicians' swordsmanship nearly evened the odds. The soldiers struggled with their large, iron swords against the Phoenicians' thin, silver blades.

Nearly a third of the Roman soldiers were cut, sliced or pierced by the pirates' swords. The mayhem had the soldiers bewildered until their centurion finally got on deck. He'd had way too much to drink that night. He quickly sobered up, shouted out commands, and his soldiers started fighting like a trained Roman unit.

Meanwhile, Barnabas and I each had grabbed a couple of pieces of wood by the fore cabin to defend ourselves. Within seconds Barnabas walloped an attacker on the head. The man had been about to carve his initials on John Mark's chest. Instead, he fell to the deck with a grunt.

After we rescued John Mark, I noticed our captain abandoned the rudder to put out a flaming headsail. I dashed to the afterdeck around battling warriors to man the rudder, but one of the pirates was there ahead of me. He was trying to swamp our sturdy boat. There was no way to engage him in swordsmanship, so I blindsided him with a flying tackle. My momentum carried us both into the ship's rail. The pirate tumbled overboard into the cold sea as I grabbed hold of the slippery rail. I dashed back to the rudder.

The captain shouted from the bow, "Leeway a point, Leeway a point!" I looked over my right shoulder to find the pirates' boat headed straight toward us.

Turning aft, I saw two pirates picking up Barnabas. They were about to toss him into the sea when two Roman soldiers ran their swords in tandem through their chests. The pirates' corpses, along with Barnabas, tumbled overboard into the Mediterranean's cold surges.

John Mark, who had been hiding beneath several nets, jumped out and began looking for rope. He found mooring line and threw the rope within Barnabas's reach. Barnabas grabbed hold of the rope as he drifted away from the vessel. John Mark, two brawny Roman soldiers, and I pulled Barnabas, as well as one of the crew, back on deck.

The two soldiers returned to the bloody conflict, while John Mark and I tended to Barnabas and the deckhand. The shaking crewmember was the ringleader who had been orchestrating the catcalls and insults upon us before the skirmish.

The shivering sailor's teeth chattered. "I c-c-an't b-believe you risked your lives to s-s-save me after what I said to you."

"We forgave you before you even said them," I remarked, wrapping my shawl around him. "Withholding forgiveness hampers the Lord's mercy."

The Roman soldiers were now fighting side by side, advancing across the deck like a huge swell. The clash quickly turned into a rout. The seasoned, organized soldiers clearly outmatched the remaining Phoenician pirates. Within moments, the conflict was over.

Our captain made a pass by the burning Phoenician vessel to rescue Roman soldiers and crewmembers from the sea. We pulled five soldiers and two sailors back onboard. The fifteen-minute conflict resulted in the death of four veteran crewmen, eight seasoned Roman soldiers, and all twenty Phoenician pirates.

John Mark, Barnabas, and I watched red flames engulf the pirates' sail, gunwale, cordage, and hull. We could feel the heat from the flames, even after the waves and wind separated the vessels. Just as the ship had appeared out of nowhere, it disappeared into the foggy abyss.

The captained shouted, "All able bodies on deck."

He put all of us to work. I sewed the numerous wounds among the crew and soldiers while Barnabas and John Mark helped toss bodies overboard. They paused to say a prayer for each soul before their sea burial.

Once the deck was cleared, we knelt in prayer. Barnabas prayed, "Thanks Lord for our seasoned crew and gallant soldiers."

"We praise you for our vessel and letting it remain seaworthy," added John Mark, while several crewmembers and soldiers joined us.

"Also, thanks for our captain and centurion and their wisdom during our battle," I concluded our prayer as the captain screamed at us to reset our bearings, trimmed the burnt sails, and leveled the vessel. He hoped to stay in front of the approaching storm.

Hours later after we had eaten some freshly caught fish, drank some rainwater, and rested, we heard a sailor bellow, "Land."

The three of us, along with all the crew and soldiers, made our way to the rail, peering into the fog and dimness until we made out a silhouette of land, Cyprus.

"It's a beautiful island," Barnabas boasted as John Mark and I held onto the ship rail fighting the pitch of the stormy sea.

"I'll take you at your word, since I can't even see it," remarked John Mark. Then all three of us turned, looked into the pounding rain and gusting wind, and couldn't believe what was about to happen.

A Place to Begin

"The beginnings of all things are small."

Cicero

Huge waves swamped the deck as our vessel sailed into a harbor. Even when we were within shouting distance of the dock, we could barely see the rows of grape vines that embroidered the hillside or mountain ranges in the background.

We peered through the heavy morning rain and hardly saw the city's wooden dock. "This is our first stop on Cyprus, Salamis, my hometown," Barnabas told us as the crew scurried about the deck preparing to dock the boat.

"Never been there," I said over sailors cursing the weather.

"It's the busiest harbor and largest city on the eastern side of the island," added Barnabas. "I learned how to sail a boat on these waters."

"Hopefully in calmer waters than this," John Mark replied, trying to settle his seasick stomach. He stared at the horizon, attempting to get his mind off the boat's rocky motion and said, "Tell me something about Cyprus."

"For centuries my hometown and the rest of Cyprus have been under foreign domination," Barnabas added. "Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Persian, Greek, and Roman rule. Still, regardless of who holds jurisdiction over Cyprus, it is known as the Mediterranean's delight."

"Are they're many of our race on this island?" John Mark asked while the crew and dockhands tied down the boat.