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Following St. Paul

Eastern Menonite University professor Linford Stutzman sails into Pozzuoli, Italy, the final port of the voyage in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas.
Courtesy Photo

By Luanne Austin, Daily News-Record

The story starts off a 5-year-old boy sitting in a Sunday morning church service studying the maps in the back of his mother’s Bible.

Then jump to 50 years later. The boy is a man now. His basement walls are plastered with huge maps of the Mediterranean Sea. The man is dreaming of the day when he will sail the Mediterranean, tracing the missionary journeys of St. Paul, sailing the book of Acts.

Linford Stutzman has been home for more than a year from his year-long voyage. His adventures are beautifully detailed in a new book, "SailingActs: Following an Ancient Voyage."

Stutzman will sign copies of "Sailing Acts" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble bookstore at Harrisonburg Crossing. The book costs $14.95.

Sailing the High Seas

Stutzman’s voyage was taken during a sabbatical from his work as associate professor in the Bible and religion department at Eastern Mennonite University. Not many professors get to spend a sabbatical year sailing the high seas. Maybe not all of them want to.

"If Paul described his sailing experiences as full of hardship and peril, what made me think that the same sea routes would somehow be pleasant and fulfilling?" Stutzman writes in the book’s prologue.

Indeed. Stutzman and his wife, Janet (who had to leave her EMU job to accompany him), experienced many of the same hardships as Paul on the unfamiliar, unpredictable, uncooperative Mediterranean. The couple’s experience and training in sailing stood them well.

The plan was to depart in June 2004 and sail for 15 months, stopping to explore all the places Paul visited as described in the New Testament. The couple planned to spend the winter (when the sea is too stormy) writing while docked in Israel. The voyage, like Paul’s life, would end in Rome. Stutzman decided to produce two books from the experience, one academic, the other a travelogue, "Sailing Acts."

Journey Begins

They shoved off at 1:30 p.m., June 18, 2004, and sailed out of the Volos, Greece, harbor.

Janet and I were still congratulating each other when we noticed dark clouds rolling in from the north. Thirty minutes, later, the sky turned black. We stared uneasily, then with alarm, at the dense sheets of rain pouring in the north, then around us, and finally directly on us from above … I’d never been seasick in my life, but on this day of many firsts, I got seasick instantly. This was not good.

From his first vision of sailing Paul’s journey, to the purchase of his sailboat, to his friendship with the Greek Captain Steve, to surviving squalls, accidents and equipment failures, to the understanding he gained about the Apostle Paul, to deeply spiritual moments of contentment, Stutzman takes the reader along on his journey in words that do their job well.

No matter what happened, Paul was never far from Stutzman’s mind.

As the couple visited islands in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, they began to appreciate Paul’s passion that Greeks and other non-Jews be included in God’s kingdom. This is why Paul is so greatly respected in these places, they found. As a matter of fact, June 29 is a national holiday honoring the Apostles Paul and Peter, both of whom were called to bring the Gospel to gentile nations. The Stutzmans were docked at Samos that day, so Linford Stutzman went to a café and watched the celebration in Athens.

A large crowd of Greeks — church officials, political leaders, politicians, guests, and thousands of Athenians — were gathered at the Areopagus where Paul preached his famous sermon. Choirs sang, priests chanted scripture readings, and flags flew. The focus seemed to be on Paul … Greeks have such an awareness and pride in their historical connection with the great apostle.

An Honest Account

Stutzman is an honest reporter. One time, leaving a port in Mytilini, Greece, to sail into Turkey, a customs official was being difficult. The process was taking an unnecessarily long time, he writes.

We were more than an hour behind schedule, and my response, which I shouldn’t have made, instantly caused his face to turn a deep red. He immediately dispatched a police officer to escort me into a back room, away from the crowds waiting in line, who were clearly delighted with the exchange.

Am I actually going to get arrested? I thought with alarm. I found some comfort in remembering that Paul had often been arrested for what he said, but I knew in my heart that there was a big difference here.

Another time, when the boat was taking in water and they couldn’t figure out why, they spent the whole day pumping it out and trying to avoid sinking.

Janet and I discussed that night how Paul had experienced these kinds of moments a number of times while at sea. We realized that in spite of the momentary terror we felt, this had actually been a memorable way to understand Paul better.

Stutzman ended his journey in Rome, visiting the prison where it’s likely Paul spent time awaiting his first trial. His oneness with Paul’s experience is exquisitely depicted — from his sweaty trek on the Appian Way to the coolness of the dark cell — as are all the events in this adventure.

The book includes dozens of photos, a list of all the repairs and replacements Stutzman made to their aging boat, an itinerary of places they visited and the resources he used to learn more about Paul.

And, of course, maps.

— article by: By Luanne Austin, Daily News-Record; posted November 27, 2006