Helpful web page

Greetings everyone!
I trust that you all had a spectacular Christmas and Holiday break.
I found a very helpful web page and I thought I would post it here for us.

Take a look, I found the sections on helpful phrases in Turkish very good. I have always found that knowing a bit of the language makes things go well for the prepared traveler.

Here is the web page:
http://www.toptenturkey.com/index.htm

Or click here.

Finals, etc

I hope everyone had a good finals week and I am sure you will all have a great Christmas break. Take a look at some of the books I posted last time and think about picking one to read over break. I will let you know if we have enough people interested in the reading group in a January post.
I just got all my IOCC 201 finals graded and my grades turned in to the Registrar. As some of you know, I am also working hard on the Self-study for the college. I will make a point to post a few times over break and then hit it hard in the Spring semester.
Merry Christmas
Eric

Good Books

Recently, I have been going through book catalogs and ran across a few books that you may like to read before our trip. These are not required for the course but would be fun to work through over Christmas or spring break before our trip in May.

The Rise of Early Christian Beliefs: Heikki Raisanen

Reading Romans in Pompeii: Peter Oaks

Documents and Images for the Study of Paul: Neil Elliott

Christ's Body in Corinth: Yung Suk Kim

Paul and His World: Helmut Koester

From The People's History of Christianity Series: Late Ancient Christianity (Burrus) and Byzantine Christianity (Krueger).

All of the above titles come from just one publisher (Augsburg Fortress, there are others?). I will post more as I come across interesting titles.


I am going to read Documents and Images for the Study of Paul by Elliott and would be willing to lead an informal reading group on the book. Send me an email if interested.

Financial Aid is ready to go!

The Financial Aid office at Mac is all ready to go.

Please stop in as soon as you can, here is a link to their web page. Financial Aid at Mac.

You may take a maximum of $5,000 for the May Term.

This does NOT mean that the trip costs $5,000. What it does mean is that typically students have this much available to them.

The flat cost of the trip is $3770.00 however you will need to budget for some food, snacks, and anything that you want to purchase in Turkey and Greece.

Dr. Stewart has advised a budget of around $4500.00.

There has been a tremendous amount of early interest in the tour and it has a limit of how many students we can take so get this process started as soon as you can.

Basic Instructions

Here is a short list of very basic instructions that you can begin to work on for the May Term trip to Greece and Turkey.

1. Make sure that you see either Dr. Berg or Dr. Stewart and that they have your name on their list of persons that want to go on the trip.

2. If you are getting financial aid for the trip get the process started as soon as you can. Make an appointment to see either Pam or Debbie in the Financial Aid Office.

3. If you are not getting financial aid, please pay the business office the $150.00 deposit in January.

4. Register for the course, Religion 203, when you sign up for Spring courses.

5. Send for your passport. Information on this link.

6. When you have completed steps 1-5, see Dr. Berg or Dr. Stewart and fill out the official Trip Registration Form. You do not have to have your Passport to do this.


Future blog posts:

• Books I (Dr. Berg) recommend to put on your Christmas list.
• What to pack and what not to pack.
• A quick review of each stop on our trip
• Complete passport directions
• Language and money issues in Greece and Turkey.

The brochures are in!

The Brochures for the trip are in!

You can pick them up in Springer Hall.

Some things that you can do to get the process started:

1. Get on the list with either Dr. Berg or Dr. Stewart.

2. Visit the Office of Financial Aid and get that process started if you qualify to receive aid for the trip.

3. Make sure you register for the trip if you plan on taking it for credit. The course title is Religion 230 and you can receive a Humanities Breadth Component for this course.

4. Check back with this blog for more information.

Dr. Berg has a map of Greece and Turkey hanging by his office (Springer 114) , stop by and take a look at some of the locations we will visit in May!

Welcome to our Blog

The Philosophy and Religion Program at MacMurray College will be leading students on a May Term Study Tour to Greece and Turkey.

Stay tuned to this blog for all the important information.

Below are some images from Greece.

Here are some images from Turkey.