Turkey. It was on the route, off the route, it was a maybe on the route, and then finally a firm yes.
And boy am I glad it was.
Way back when I first signed up for the World Race, when Turkey was on the route, I knew I wanted to come to the west. In 1915, the New Zealand army was involved in a battle on the Gallipoli Peninsula. And I wanted to go there. But Turkey is a big (read: massive) country. What were the chances? Slim, for sure. Or so I thought.
We found out in Azerbaijan that we would be in a city called Çanakkale. Well, I had never heard of that. A quick google search later and what do you know- Çanakkale is just across a strait from the Gallipoli peninsula. A 25 minute ferry ride. What are the chances? Much bigger than I first thought, apparently.
Paired with this city and it’s location, is the excitement I have for our ministry. We have a host who runs the only Church within 200km. And we get to help them (hopefully) increase on the 6,000 Christians in Turkey.
We’ve been to house churches, run worship in one of their church services on Sunday (they run two: One in Farsi (they have a reasonable Iranian population in Turkey) and one in Turkish). We also help with the background tasks- such as setting up the sanctuary on Sunday morning, and setting out the tea and biscuits for after the services. Let me tell you, they love their tea.
We also help support one of the young families at the church. We will babysit for a few hours each day to give her some time to clean, to rest, or to just give her someone to talk to. We have also been able to repaint the Church. Hands on work is something most of us have been looking for, so we thoroughly enjoyed it (even when we had an equipment malfunction and the roller fell off and bounced down the stairs, leaving large yellow spots all the way down).
Outreach has been a cool time with them, also. We have gone to such places as the ruins of Alexandria Troas, where the Apostle Paul received the Macedonian Vision in Acts 16. Although locals dont speak much English, we have been able to see the Pastor and another staff member in action.
We’ve been here for almost 2 weeks and it has been such a relief to be able to settle down into our accommodation! We are loving Turkey and are once again so thankful it was kept on the route.
