Last Sunday we got a call that told us that we were going to Antakya, Turkey. In English we pronounce it Antioch. This is where Paul spent a year of his missionary work and where he had a church. This was also the first place that people were called Christians. This past week has been so great. We have been staying in the city center of Antakya but travel to a small village called Ova Kent during the day. We totally stood out. Word quickly got out that there were strangers in town and they were white. People would just stare at us. This is normal for us usually but this was really humorous. Our translator, Artun, would tell us that people were asking about us all the time. We met several new friends. They all invited in for tea and then invited us for lunch and dinner. We had what I like to call a day of eating. It was crazy. We had lunch at one house and dinner at another, not to mention that we stopped for Afghan ice cream and baklava in between. We had so much Uzbek rice, cucumber salad, bread, and fruit stuffed in us I was surprised that we didn’t get sick. Turkish tradition says that the more people that eat from the plate the more blessed the house is, well there are some really blessed people in Ova Kent. We were truly blessed by these people. They all wanted us to stay with them and have tea with them all the time. Tea is a huge thing here in Turkey. Everywhere you go someone wants you to come in and have some tea. The people of Turkey have taught me so much about hospitality this month. I don’t think that if you walked down the streets of Tuscaloosa, Alabama anyone would ask you to come in and take a load off and give you free tea. People just don’t care that much. They ask you in passing “how are you?” or “whats up?” but keep walking and don’t really care what your response is. The Turkish people seem to genuinely care about you. They want to get to know you and your story. I really hope that I can continue to carry this tradition with me for the rest of the race and the rest of my life. I want to always have my home full of people drinking tea and just doing life together. That is what it is all about.
Artun, our translator!!!
The Day of Eating!!! (meal #2)
My FAVORITE baklava!
The beautiful Mediterrean sunset!!!
