This past month has been amazing!!
We started out the month in Istanbul, Turkey. We stayed in Sultanahmet, which was AMAZING!! We were a two minute walk away from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. For those that don’t know, Istanbul used to be called Constantinople and was the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire….later to be called the Byzantine Empire. Anyway, Constantine, the Roman emperor who finally adopted Christianity and ended the persecution of Christians, built this church in Constantinople…which was rebuilt by Justinian later. It burned down and was rebuilt several times, but the Hagia Sophia dates back that far. It was eventually turned into a mosque. It is HUGE!!! So right across the street, in the 1700’s, the Muslims built the Blue Mosque…which is GORGEOUS!! They wanted to rival the beautiful Christian building. Needless to say, I was in historical geek HEAVEN!!
We got to spend 10 days in Turkey and I LOVED every single minute of it. The people were AMAZING. Well, excpet the dirty men that were constantly making comments. One the plus side, I did get a few marriage proposals. 🙂 Working it Turkey was just the most awesome experience. The people were so HUNGRY for the Gospel. The best afternoon I had was an afternoon I spent on the campus of Istanbul University talking with some students. We really just hung out for a few hours and talked about a little bit of everything. I was able to create some really amazing relationships with them that I am trying to keep up with.
We also went to a village for about 5 days to do some ethnography research. Our task was to interview Gypsies and gather information about them. The eventual purpose is to evangelize to them, but more information about them was needed in order to reach them the best way possible. So one day we go out with a translator to visit some Gypsies that we just randomnly found. We end up going to a few houses and getting some information and then we end up at the Gypsy leader’s living room. His wife serves us tea and he turns on the TV and plugs in a DVD. Through our translator, we find out that this particular group of Gypsies had been on Turkey’s Got Talent and they wanted to show us the video. Then the brought out their instruments and we got to try playing them. They gave me a copy of their video to show my students when I go back to the US. They called themselves the Tarzan Group.
The next evening, we find ourselves at a Gypsy wedding. We knew neither the bride nor the groom, but we were the guests of honor. They sat us right up front so we could see everything. The wedding took place in a parking lot. There was a red carpet in the middle of a circle of women and children sitting in chairs. The bride, groom, and wedding party were all dancing on the red carpet. The men were standing around the edges and watching. There was a sort of platform where they had BIG speakers with LOUD music playing. We were given seats RIGHT next to the red carpet. It was awesome. The couple invited us to dance with them and Gypsy dancing is a lot harder than it looks…let me tell you what!!
The next day, we went to visit some women who were spending the week preparing food for winter. We sat and talked with them in their basement while they rolled dough and cooked us some food. As in every single country I have been to so far, they asked me why I was so old and still single. I told them that God just hadn’t given me my husband yet. They informed me that I better hurry up because when I turn 40 I am going to expire. Then, they offered their sons to me in marriage. Ha ha ha. It was hilarious. My teammates still joke with me about that.
My experience in Turkey was just plain amazing. I loved the people and I loved the culture. The people were so open to talking with us. They were so excited when we showed interest in them. There is so much possibility there!! What is sad to me is that Paul did work in Turkey and it was the center of the growing Christian world. Now there is a really really small number of Christians in the country. People are ostracized from their community and families if they convert. When I talked with the students, they weren’t even devout in their faith, but they practiced because it was part of the culture. To turn away from it woudl be going against their culture. We were told that if we did nothing else in Turkey, that we should just walk down the streets praising God because the liklihood that someone had praised God where we were standing at any point was really low.
We have been in Israel for a few weeks now. We have been teaching English to Sudanese refugees that came from Darfur. That was probably the most amazing thing for me so far. Some of them have come to accept Christ, but many of them practice Islam. The first week we were here, we worked with them every night. I got so excited because all these teenagers came. They were so eager to learn and they were so nice. I just had the best time teaching them. They were the easiest students that I have ever taught. Last week I stayed with a Bedouin family and helped them with an after-school program and also helped them edit some documents in English.
God has been teaching me SO MUCH!!! I can’t even begin to know where to start. This past week, God has been teaching me about the POWER we have in the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8…but you will recieve POWER when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Eph 3:20…. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty POWER at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 2 Timothy 1:7…..For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of POWER, love, and self-discipline. Through the Holy Spirit, God has given us POWER. Wow. So often I just get caught up and frozen in my own head. But I have been given a spirit of POWER. Power to do what?? Power to accomplish the will of God…to accomplish what he has called us to do. This power that is at work (present tense) in us will accomplish MORE than we might ask or imagine…MORE than we can imagine. What does it look like to live in a spirit of POWER? Well…I don’t think it looks like holding back or running away from challenges. I think it looks like running forwards with boldness and courage and in the confidence that comes from walking the the authority that we all have as followers of Christ. I forget that God will not lead me where I cannot go. I might choose not to go, but he won’t call me to do something that I can’t handle. I’m so damn sick of doubting myself. If God sees my abilities and calls me up and asks me to do things…then who the heck am I to doubt what my Heavenly Father sees in me??? In the past two months, God keeps bringing me back to two words…OBEDIENCE and SACRIFICE.
