I walked into the loveliest hotel in Northern Cyprus, my new home for a month, and thought to myself “Am I really on the World Race right now?” When I applied I imagined sleeping on my sleeping pad every night, in a tiny cramped closet somewhere. The hotel was amazing. I wish I could write more about the hotel and the neat things about it, but I have to be vague online. The building is older than the United States, and overall it was beautiful and peaceful. Cyprus is a beautiful country and it brought me a huge amount of joy to live there for a month.
The hotel is run by a man and his wife, I’ll call them Vilkre and Kaya. My team (Trailblazers) was also with another team last month (Team One), in a tiny town in Northern Cyprus. The island of Cyprus is split into the Turkish side (north) and the Greek side (south). Northern Cyprus is not currently recognized as a real country by most of the world, except Turkey. There is a very interesting political and cultural tension on the island that would take a long time to explain here.
However, Vilkre said “It doesn’t matter to me, I am Cypriote. There is no North and South to me.” Vilkre is a native and has a huge passion for Cypriote culture. In fact, as far as I could tell, he has an incredible love for Jesus, his wife, and his culture. He is an influencer in his community, and uses his property to bless his community, and for God’s glory. I can’t write about all of the ways the property is used for Kingdom work, but to me, it felt like God was using the property as a beacon of light in that part of the country.
We had a ministry host who told us to see how we could help Vilkre. Vilkre had asked for help to fix and build things around the hotel property and a vineyard that he owns that he also wants to use for community events. Once we spoke with Vilkre, we realized that there was enough work around the property and vineyad to keep our two teams (11 of us) busy for a long time. Also, Vilkre could not contain his excitement about showing us as much as he could about Cyprus and Cypriote culture. He totally blessed us by arranging different tours and taking us to cool places on the island. My favorite fun thing that we did was when we visited Salamis, the ancient port city that was the first city that Paul traveled to in Cyprus on his first missionary journey.
We did have several different times or days when Vilkre arranged fun things for us, but we also did a lot of work around the two properties. We helped serve at many of the events he held for the community, which happened a few times a week. We also fixed a roof, painted, deep cleaned parts of the hotel harvested two olive trees (which, took the better part of a day for 4-5 people), laid concrete down in a walking path, reinforced the gate that ran around the entire vineyard, did weeding/trimming, built tables and chairs, built a greenhouse, plowed, cleaned the vineard, cleaned an old church that our ministry host wants to use, and I even helped to fix a fence! I think that it would have taken Vilkre months to accomplish what we did, and some of the projects he definitely couldn’t do by himself.
With the projects, the fun things Vilkre set up for us, and our team things like Bible study, worship, feedback, and team time, our month was very busy. We had a team of people sometimes able to go to the big city about a 45 minute drive away, to try to meet people, build relationships, and tell them about Jesus, but I found myself wanting to stay and work with my hands last month. I felt completely humbled to be able to be a part of God’s plan for this property in Northern Cyprus, for the our ministry host, and for Vilkre and Kaya. Every project we did felt like we were truly helping to phyiscally build God’s kingdom in Northern Cyprus. We were a huge encouragement to Vilkre, who I know was very touched by us coming to help, and I am so glad to know that we were able to be a part of improving the hotel so that Vilkre can continue to use it to bless his community and for God’s glory.
After we spent 3-4 weeks with Vilkre and Kaya, we had to say goodbye and then we headed to Southern Cyprus, to a little town right on the ocean for another debrief. Debrief is 3-4 days every few months that the whole squad gets together for a time of processing, rest, and worship. It’s several days dedicated to debriefing our last few months and seeking what the Lord has for us in the next few months. God did a few really huge things in my life right before and at debrief. I feel like I am walking in freedom from one major lie that I was living under, and there were a few other significant moments where I completely saw His goodness and sovereignty. I know that’s all vague, but my point is, that although I’m trying to serve Him and be a light in these countries, He still makes a point to pursue me. His love is unrelenting and I continue to be surprised that He cares so much about me. I am very grateful for the healing he has done in my life on the Race so far.
Also at debrief our squad had our first team change. I was with Trailblazers for the first 4 months, and now I am on an all-women team, Team Radiance.
Trailblazers, my team for 4 months. One of our teammates, Ross, left the Race in month 3.
Team Radiance
We arrived in Jordan on Thursday night. I could not be more excited for this next month that I have in Jordan with these awesome women of God! Each of them are so special and beautiful, inside and out. It is an honor to be on a team with them, and I’m excited to see how God will use us here. We are serving with another ministry host in Jordan (this to me is ironic, because when I signed up for my route, Expedition, I expected to not have any ministry hosts and now this is my third!). We have a very set schedule of outreaches and ministry work. I am glad that we can jump in with an established ministry. Our work is focusing on ministering to Syrian refugees. Please pray that God bless our work this month!
In Christ,
Elaine
