We have been in Turkey now for about 3 weeks. It has been nothing short of blessings from the Lord; I have continued to experience more personal healing, had the privilege of helping babysit a toddler and a 2 month old (which by the way has been some of my favorite moments this month), and have had some divine conversations with people about Jesus.
It was Tuesday, September 25th. My teammate Shelby has had it on her heart to visit the University since we’ve been here and this just happened to be THE perfect day to do so.
We started off by asking the Lord to guide our steps and direct us where he wanted us to go. But first, we had to find a place to drop Shelby’s phone off to get fixed. It was 11:50am when we stopped at a coffee shop and chatted while we waited. We had such a good talk about this year and what the Lord has done as well as our plans for after the race. We also walked around the city in search for some tasty baklava and ended up meeting this really sweet lady who sat down with us and showed us pictures of her village near the Black Sea.
Once the phone was finally fixed, we started our long 2 hour walk to the University and again, asking the Lord for guidance. At about 2:00 I had to use a bathroom and generally finding a public bathroom is rare when there’s no mall around. However, as I was asking this man at a store where I could find one, another random man rode up on his motorcycle and said “Toilet? You need?” I said yes. We followed him to this Mosque where he actually waited there for me as well as paid for me to be able to use the bathroom (that’s very common to have to pay to use any public bathroom). When I came back out, I saw the man talking to Shelby and taking selfies. So typical. I laughed to myself as I approached them. Before I even said a word the man took a selfie with me as well. He then asked if we could both get coffee, but we continued to make our way to the University because the Lord had put that heavy on our hearts and we still had a good walk ahead of us.
We then enjoyed a beautiful walk along the beach where there was literally nobody around. As we passed a mall area, Shelby kept looking at this building we were walking by. It looked like it may be some kind of building where students would be? So we asked a few people waiting at a nearby bus station and one girl mentioned it was for University students. We thought we may as well walk in and see what’s happening even though our phones still said we had about an hour to go until reaching our destination (the actual University). I noticed as we were walking up to the building that there was security and everybody walking through had to check in. We really wanted to get inside…. so we just walked on by as one of the security guards got distracted. We made it inside! But we still had no idea what this place was and why the Lord called us to go in. Not many people were walking around, but those who were definitely looked like students. We continued walking around until we came to this large area outside that had a bunch of doors with different “blocks”. I saw “J Block” written on a door and immediately said, “Shelby, let’s go inside Jesus’ Block.” We opened the door and started to walk up a flight of stairs. We were definitely in the dormitory for the University students. So, we started to pray out-loud as we walked through the halls, going from J Block to I, H, G, F…and so on. We then came across a student and asked her what this building was (even though we already figured it out). Her name was Cigdem. We chatted with her for a little bit and told her we wanted to find the University. She told us to follow her and she ended up taking us to security. Shelby and I both looked at each other and said, “Oh no oh no were going to get in trouble. Jesus please guide us.” As she talked to security for awhile, we were just standing there listening and not knowing how to respond at all of the eyes staring at us from behind the security desk. I was then given a phone and asked to speak to a man who talked very broken English, but enough to be able to communicate that we were looking for the University. After I got off the phone, Cigdem told us to follow her back outside were she was then yelled at by the security guards who we had initially ‘snuck past’. Even though we felt really bad, Cigdem seemed to have a lot of grace and wanted to help us out. She walked us to the bus station nearby and had asked a couple girls who were waiting for the bus to help us get to the University. You need a bus card to be able to ride the bus, so these girls were our only way to get anywhere. Shelby and I exchanged numbers with Cigdem then she departed from us.
For about 5 minutes Shelby and I were waiting for the bus with these two girls named Kebire and Tuba, who kept looking at us as they were taking, but again, not being able to communicate. Once we got on the bus, it was about a 10 minute drive up a lot of hills (praise God we didn’t have to walk up all of them) and we noticed many different University buildings along the way. Finally, we reached our destination and the girls waved us to come off the bus with them. They walked us to the ‘hangout’ area where students could by snacks, hangout, and do their work. Kebire and Tuba told us to wait there for them so Shelby and I sat down at a table. Both looking at each other we said, “Well, we made it! I wonder what the Lord will do with this situation.” Then all of a sudden, people started to come over and talk to us (at least try to). A lady named Cansu came and sat down in front of us and smiled. We tried talking with her, but she didn’t understand us. Thank you Lord for Google Translate on our phones! Little did we know that would be our means of communication for the next couple of hours. We chatted with this lady for a little while before others started to approach us. She was the banker at the school and was probably wondering if we were students and why we hadn’t paid for anything yet, haha! As people started to approach us, we were being asked why we were here. Valid question. I told them that we were praying this morning and the Lord gave us a vision visiting this University. They simply just smiled at us, not saying anything. Kebire and Tuba then showed up a few minutes later, waving for us to continue following them. They took us to a cafe close by where we met three more of their friends and eventually one of the girls boyfriends. For the next hour and a half we chatted with these girls about their lives: what they were studying, where they lived, if they had boyfriends, and so on. They asked us what we were doing here and again, we got to share Jesus and explain how he wanted us to come here and meet them. At one point Shelby and I looked at each other and laughed saying, “Wow, the Lord really provided today. He brought us, through many random occurrences, to this exact place with these people in Turkey, to share his name! I wonder how he will help us get back.” At this point, Shelby and I had a meeting with our team coming up so we had to leave. Kebire and Tuba said they would help us get back, praise God! It really can be a struggle getting from point A to point B without the ability to communicate so whenever somebody offers assistance, I don’t see that as a coincidence, that’s the Lord providing! So we followed our friends onto the bus. As the girls sat in the back seats, they pointed at the two seats in front of them for us to sit in. As we were heading back, we set up another time this week that we could hangout and of course took some selfies (PS I never thought I would conform to this terminology). Kebire and Tuba ended up having to get off the bus before us, so they asked another girl close by to help us out and show us when to get off. Once our stop came, the girl waved at us to get off with her. She happened to be going to the same place that we were going to meet our team (Thanks Lord). Shelby and I actually ended up getting this girls number because she wanted to hangout with us later this week. After that we met up withour team and got to share this awesome day with them!
What started off as an unplanned day turned out to be one of the best because we asked the Lord to guide us. I’ve noticed that every time I do this, he doesn’t just provide good talks, but sometimes even food and transportation! I am always learning how relational and loving our God is. He cares about all of the details of our lives and wants us to be constantly inviting him into our space.
Also, another praise report: I only have $2,100 left until I’m fully funded!!!!!
