If you haven’t the slightest clue where Turkey is, get yourself a map! It’s a neighbor to Greece, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, and sits just above what we know to be the Middle East. It’s over 95% Muslim, and less that .1% professing believers.
Turkey is SATURATED in biblical history, being an area that the early Church spread rapidly to. Paul himself, was born here and foot trafficked a large majority of modern day Turkey during his multiple journeys. Since then, Christianity has dwindled to non-existent. Until 1960, when the first missionary couple moved to Turkey. In the past 60 years, less than 6,000 identify as Evangelical believers in a whopping 80 million citizens that reside here.
How does that happen? Well, the Church stops sending. The Good News gets lost somewhere in transition. This leaves entire people groups who have NEVER heard the name of Jesus, much less read any material in their own language, contrary to the roots in which it was founded.
This month, we are partnered with the only church plant within a 200 kilometer radius, founded by a brother and his family from Bulgaria. To put that in perspective, that’s only 1 church planter to 50,000 residents. That’s insane! So my team of seven is assisting in that.
What does that look like, Taylor? Awesome! Thanks for asking. It means travelling long distances, taking a ferry across the Mediterranean Sea to out-islands to meet in house churches. Our host brings reading material and gives a sermon around a table.
Let me frame this for you. We walk into a little house, and other than our host, not a one speaks English. There’s a table full of food, and the tea is on the stove. We gather in this quaint space that reminds me of a little Greek bungalow, and we fellowship (as best as we can through broken English), we eat, and then prayer starts.
And when I say prayer, I mean FERVENT prayer. And even though I don’t understand, I feel the Holy Spirit at work. I don’t know if I’ve ever prayed so hard for the gift of tongues in my life—I just wanted to hear the unbelievable heart cries of my fellow brothers. After a while, my host lifts his head and asks, “Taylor, would you like to pray?” I was humbled that they invited me into that space. The Lord reminded me that across every nation, and every tongue, this is my family. And I was being treated as such.
It was intimate, and moving to even be in that room with men who would never acknowledge that they are the pioneers of the Gospel in this area of Turkey, again. These faithful men gather around a table to pray for their country, the global church, and us in America. Our family is praying for the American church! How awesome is that?
A teaching was shared and questions were asked. None of which I understood, so don’t bother asking what I learned! But the whole experience changed my year. They then went to go look at a plot of land that a potential church could be founded on. Possibly the first to be established on that particular island.
Continue praying for finances to establish a new church building, for these fellow believers to get the necessary resources for knowledge and growth, and for more believers to flood into this area to expand the Gospel to return Turkey to its former biblical roots.
ps. There’s a part II, stay tuned.
