The Patmian Theological Biker Gang

In good Greek fashion, the ‘niceties’ of the law regarding scooters were quickly circumvented by us knowing the right Greek man. Our landlord Mihalis had a friend who owned a bike rental place, and we soon had two more mopeds.

(Of course, there is only one gas station on the whole island and we were given the bikes without gas, so our first order of business was to hope we could make it all the way to the gas station to fill up. After that, my bike broke down, and a little while after that, I was issued with a working bike, with gas, and we were ready to go.)

We spent the rest of the daylight hours exploring the island, under the beautiful sun, on the bikes. In Skala, we saw the ruins of a baptistery from the first century, where St John baptized some of the locals.

Incidentally, I should mention that I am reading right now a great book on Patmos called “A Place of Healing for the Soul” by the British convert and reporter Peter France. Don’t worry – it’s an easy, non-theological read – and it is absolutely hilarious and spot-on in its depiction of the cultural differences between the British (and other northern European cultures like the US) and the Greeks. Anyway, I highly recommend it – here it is on Amazon.

In the top photo, our gang stopped in Skala after we spotted Patricia walking along the streets.

The middle photo was taken from inside our house at sunset, and the bottom photo from the porch.