Grant is playing his guitar on the bunk
above mine. The top strings ring out clear as and shimmery, like I
imagine fireflies must look on a cool, fall night. He starts to
sing, his voice soft as the pillow my head is resting on as I listen
to him.
Savior, he can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
The low strings
buck and growl their big bass notes as he plays harder, with more
emotion. Liz sits cross legged on the bed on the other wall of this
small square hostel room we’re living. It’s nothing special. Ten
by ten foot room with three bunk beds and fusia walls. It’s small
but nothing we’re not used to. At least our team has its own room,
rather than being in a room with 20 like we had earlier this month.
Liz bends over the journal lying on her knee, scribbling with her
green pen, occasionally looking at the bible lying on her other knee.
Julia and April are
rummaging through their packs for dirty laundry. We need to drop our
laundry off later this morning. My own is in a backpack on the floor
already ready to go. The nice thing about Istanbul is that there is
pretty cheap laundry service, 4 lira per kilo, wash and dry and it’s
ready by 5 pm. The only bad thing is that our clothes weigh so much.
Last time we paid like 12 lira a person.
Liz and April start
to get ready to go running. April especially loves to be outside and
is always trying to get out and get exercise. Julia heads off to a
logistics meeting, probably about our time in Israel in a few days.
She’s one of the squad logistics people and always is working hard on
our behalf.
“Joe, you want to
go running?” asks April.
“I would love
to,” I say.
“Really?”
“Yes, but I
can’t.”
“I knew there was
a but coming,” she says, resigned.
Grant goes with
them, wearing his Texas hat backwards. It’s just me and Dez. I type
on my computer. Dez sleeps peacefully with her mouth open, curled up
in her brown and tangerine blanket and wearing a beanie on her head.
“Hi,” says
Julia. “Did they go running?”
I nod.
“Ah,” she says.
“Those active ones.”
“What does that
make us?” I ask.
“The relaxed
ones?” We chuckle.
“When are we
going to take the laundry?” I say.
“When they come back
and shed their stinky clothes, I guess.”
This is just a day
in the life of the World Race. Most of the time it’s not this
relaxed. We have ministries to work on, lots of meetings, trains,
planes, and buses to catch (Sofia traveled 3000 km this month), but
sometimes, all that is on the schedule is to seek God, write blogs,
do laundry. You know, personal stuff.
These are nice
times. Good breaks from the intensity of things like ATL ministry,
where we show up to a town where no one speaks English without an
idea of what we’re going to do or where we’re going to stay that
night.
I sip my Turkish
tea and type and relax in bed. Today is going to be a good day.
