New family member

So as an apartment we adopted a new family member... It may seem weird that its a member of the male population, but I'm sure as soon as you see him, you'll understand why.  His name is Juan Pablo, but his Turkish name is Tarkan.  He has the bluest eyes and dark hair.  We're so happy we made this decision and its been fun to have him around our apartment.  :) Introducing Juan Pablo! :)

He's so tiny! He loves his kitty food, loves meowing and getting as close to the human face as possible! More updates to come as we watch our little guy grow! :)

On the Mountain

Yesterday as a team we took a trip up the mountain in our city, Uludağ (historically known as Mt. Olympus).  We wanted to go to a place where we could pray together and individually over the city and to be as high as possible to see as much as possible.  We took teleferik (a cable car) to the top and then went farther into the forest and found spots to pray along a shallow stream surrounded by large, smooth boulders.  It was a great place to meet with the Lord and begin to ask big things of the Lord for our city.  I was reminded of Ezekiel 37 when he receives the vision of the dry bones.  Only God has the power to bring to life the bones, to make them into a working body and to breath life into the lifeless form.  In the same way, in this place, only God can move in the hearts of students we've met and will surely meet.  Only God can transform their lives, give them purpose, satisfaction and life.  One of my teammates was sitting on a rock and clouds suddenly came in and enveloped her.  It grew dark and cold.  The Lord brought to mind the thought that there is great darkness here but light is coming.  Isaiah 9:2 "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of shadow and death have seen a great light." 

Someone Thought I was Turkish!

I was sitting in Starbucks spending time alone and with the Lord when an elderly gentleman interrupted me.  He asked me if I spoke English and I nodded and smiled.  He then asked if he could bother me a bit and ask me questions about the area and what he should see.  I began telling him all the places (the names of course are in Turkish and written in turkish) and wrote down all the places.  He paused, looked at me and said, "My, your English is so good.  Wherever did you learn it?" It was hard for me not to laugh so I tried my best to hold it in and said, "Well, I'm American." And he bluntly said oh, gathered his stuff and politely excused himself.  Every time I thought of that for a week it made me chuckle!

Bayram, cheese fights and moving

We have just finished experiencing Ramadan here.  Our time experiencing Ramadan was full of drummer man beating drums outside our apartment at 3am in the morning and trying not to eat in front of people during daylight hours.  But the last few days were the Bayram (called şekerli bayram).  This is where nothing happens in this country, people eat a lot of sugar and spend time with their entire family.  Before this holiday started we were wanting to find a new apartment and move.  Amazingly we did accomplish that.  The Lord provided for us a beautiful new apartment with loads of space for visitors and future teams here in this city.  We are also in walking distance to all main modes of transportation, the Eaves, and anything else we need.  Our apartment also doesn't flood from bad kitchen pipes.  We're so happy! 


We also wanted to purchase a few things before Bayram started as well.  We went to Carrefour (which is like a Target, but still doesn't have everything in one place) and we saw something I'd never thought I'd see here.  There were two families waiting in the check out line and it appeared the first family had budged.  They were saying to the second family that it was a sin for them not to let them go first because they had so few things in their cart.  The woman of the second family began yelling back that it was wrong that they budged.  Then a bystander came by and told them to be happy because it was the holiday but they pushed him out of the way and began arguing again.  So now, its the two wives of these families and one woman takes cheese from her cart, raises it above her head and begins to hit the other woman over the head with the cheese for budging.  Needless to say they both got kicked out of the store, it was quite shocking to see behavior like this at all let alone during the holiday which most resembles our christmas!


We are just finishing settling in and are happy to meet with students soon.  University begins on Monday and we've been so happy that we've been able to connect with a few students from last year that were in the city this summer but can't wait until others come back and we can begin to meet contacts made over the summer trips here!

Rejoice!

Today we began some orientation and went through the contacts of new students from the summer.  It was a lot to go through but was so exciting to see the students we will be meeting very soon! The majority part of our day was spent with the new people on our team and our team leader Dave talking to us about his heart for working here.  It was such a great reminder! He first read from Luke 10.  After Jesus sent out the 72 and they came back and reported all they'd seen they were so excited.  Jesus reminds them that they should "rejoice that their names are written in the book of life."  We were encouraged to be people who always remember that, that whatever the circumstances, whether we find ourselves wanting or lacking nothing we have so much and need nothing more when we're found in Jesus.  What a great reminder and mindset to strive for while working here, sharing the gospel with Muslim students! Praise God for a leader who desires our relationships with the Lord to be the priority and from there our ministry can stem through the work of the Holy Spirit.

waiting, waiting. waiting...

Tonight we had a great night with the Eaves (the long term family living here).  After dinner, dessert, and a game we left their home around 8:50 expecting a bus to come between 9 and 9:15....we waited...we waited and talked, told jokes, entertained each other and waited some more....we waited and thought of ridiculous things we could do, watched it start to rain...we waited and watched the minutes tick by...we waited and thought of other ways we could get home...we waited and waited and waited.  We said finally we'd wait until 10:20 and at 10:19 the bus finally came! We made it home!! We made and only after just a little bit of waiting! :)

Doors that won't open, floors that are wet!

We arrived back to our city last night from our Staff conference in Istanbul. We were excited to drop our bags off and head to the grocery store so we'd be able to eat in the morning.  Not suprising to us, we couldn't get into our apartment right away.  Usually it takes us a few trys to get our lock jimmied and opened.  But last night after 25 minutes of trying we called our apartment owner.  He was doing his prayers so our neighbors were nice enough to let us in and wait!  He arrived and let us in though as soon as he opened the door and begain talking about the apartment we knew we were seeing things that weren't there when we left!

He was explaining the family below us had called him while we were away because they were getting water in their apartment.  Well, it appears that a pipe in our apartment burst! We go into the kitchen and see that there is a bag tied to the pipe under our sink and is completely full and overflowing with water.  The floors in the kitchen and living room were drenched, people's clothes rugs, suitcases, etc. got the brunt of the flooding. 

They called someone to come in and fix it, though its not quite fixed.  We turned the water off for a while so now we only get water in the back of our apartment.  We have much to be thankful for though! Nothing was seriously damaged or destroyed, the men who came in to fix it were honest and didn't take any of our valuables that may have been sitting out and we can still stay here until we find our new apartment!

We are praying we'll find it as soon as possible and hopefully be moving within the next week! Please pray!