Please pray for the country of Turkey.
Pray for the village we are currently in now. There are very few believers. Every time we try and meet altogether to worship and conduct church here…sickness keeps hitting.
The devil doesn’t want a church to be established in the village we are in.
Our team this month is praying for strongholds to be broken here.
Adventures at the Cheese Stand:
Every Tuesday and Saturday, there is a wonderful fresh market that is open all day long! A whole street is shut down for the market to be able to run. As a team, we of course had to check it out. We have a kitchen this month and are cooking a lot!
The market was wonderful- we greeted all of the vegetable & fruit sellers with a “Merhaba” and then would quickly let them know we couldn’t speak much more Turkish than that 🙂 But we certainly did try!
After making many veggie and fruit purchases, we came across…the one…the only CHEESE STAND!
You may be wondering why this was such a beautiful thing. Well the reason other than the fact that they SELL CHEESE (one of the Lord’s greatest gifts lol)…
IS the owner of the cheese stand…greeted us and would NOT STOP FEEDING US!
He gave us samples upon samples of cheese. And not normal store bought cheese…but the GOOD STUFF. And he gave loads of it…then threw in fresh bread…olives…more cheese…tea…more tea. We ate until we were beyond full. HE WAS SO GENEROUS.
We then of course had to purchase some of the delicious cheese! We have returned the following two Saturdays…last Saturday the same amazing thing happened and he wouldn’t stop feeding us!
The owner could not speak much English, but we used our Google Translate app…and asked if we could volunteer with him the following Saturday! We wanted to return the favor, for he has been blessing us sooo much!
So we return the following Saturday, ready to work in whatever way! He greets us with the traditional kiss…then…this happens!
He prepares a WHOLE platter for us…fresh honey, butter, perfectly warm bread, cheeses, olives, and tea! Oh my goodness! We thanked him and kept pressing to see how we could help him that day…
He just kept feeding us more…he even at one point just fed me a spoonful of honey! Lol.
We kept trying to communicate via google translate with no success. He just wanted to serve us and bless us with his amazing food.
So our goal now is bless him in some way this Saturday– we are figuring out as a team how to make a delicious dessert (on the stovetop, since we do not have an oven)! We are hoping to give him a piece of our literature as well. Please pray that it is all received well and that it opens up even more conversation towards the truth!
Turkey Fast Facts:
- Transcontinental, part of the country is in Europe (only 3%) and part is in Western Asia. (My team is on the European side, while the rest of the squad is an hour away in Asia)
- 9 out of 10 Turks are Muslim.
- Since 1928, Turkey has had a secular government.
- Became the Republic of Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
- The first ever church was established in Antioch, Turkey. Antioch was the first place where followers of Jesus were actually called “Christians
- St Nicholas – the historical figure behind the man we know as Santa Claus – was born in Patara, Turkey in around 300 AD.
Facts from Joshua Project:
- 45 out of 68 People Groups are still UNREACHED (66.2% of population).
- Only between .4% and .7% of the population is Christian
How to Pray for Turkey:
- Pray for our hosts, for strength and endurance that only comes for the Lord, and for their marriages and for their families.
- For the church to keep growing in the nearby city.
- And very importantly, for the funds to come in for a church building! (Having a church building to meet in is very important to Turks and is a great witnessing tool to have a church building). The Turkish people really like old church buildings. They are much more likely to come to church if the building actually looks like a church. (Very different than how it is in America today…where new churches are trying to not look like “old churches” but would rather meet in a movie theatre or venue of some sort)
- Please pray for the new believers in the village we are in. For their faiths to continue to grow stronger, despite opposition from their families.
- For a new house church to be established through the new believers in this village.
- For our friends at the cheese stand, for our neighbors, and for our favorite coffee shop owner! For us to continue to have opportunities to share the Gospel with them.
- We have recently been blessed with Turkish New Testaments and booklets; pray for our discernment and for more opportunity to give these away to people that we continue to build relationships with!
- Pray for the Turkish people to receive dreams and visions of the “man in white”.
- Pray more workers to come to Turkey and tell them the good news about Jesus — that He is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. Not just a nice prophet.
- Pray for strongholds of darkness to be broken here and for the TRUTH to be known.
