Getting Started

Blog from Charlie

Today was spent mostly in with an orientation to the church, the ministry and Turkish culture. In addition we spent time planning our schedule for the next two weeks with the leadership of the church, and then spent a decent amount of time going over finances, both past and future (anticipated) in order to be sure we don’t end up in the red.

In our orientation we learned words not to say such as “peach” or “sick” as they sound like very bad words in Turkish. We should also avoid pointing or blowing our nose in public, and be sensitive about looking women in the eye. Simple things we might do in America have much different connotations in other countries.

Financially we appear to be in good shape. We made the decision today to spend some of our IMPACT budget money to subsidize a water rafting trip for the church. We hope to have 40 members of the church participate.

Tonight is our first night in our host homes. I had a great time getting acquainted with the couple I’m staying with, but because they both speak English well enough for us to communicate. Some of the team are with people who speak only Turkish, so it will be interesting how that works out.

After only 6-8 hours of sleep since I got up at 6am on Friday, I’m desperately hoping to sleep soundly...and long tonight.

Charlie