Tuesday and Wednesday - Days 3 and 4

[Blog by Charlie]

So far no one else since we arrived in Turkey has had the time to sit down and use the computer to contribute to this blog. I don’t want to hog all the space on our blog, but since I am the only one with a computer, it seems I am in the best position to make the time, even at odd hours, to write about our experience. So here I go again!

Yesterday our main activities were home visits – one in the afternoon and one in the evening (each visit was about 2 hours). These are times to get to know members of the church in their homes, share testimonies and stories, eat, laugh, pray and be a mutual witness of the work of Christ in our lives.

Our first visit was to a couple in which the wife became a believer after the husband, and after she became pregnant with their son. The father is currently having a difficult time because he lost his job in large part because the employer wouldn’t pay him because he was a Christian. And in addition to being unemployed, is suffering from complications from diabetes. We spent time talking (Bobby shared his story), drinking lemonade and praying for them. Bobby Holmes has been quite a hit. They’ve never seen a large, white-haired, white-bearded Caucasian man quite like him before. If fact he looks like Santa Claus, so they’ve nicknamed him “Noel Baba” (Father Christmas). We’ve started to call him that as well. We concluded the time by praying for the couple together and ministering the healing grace and power of Jesus to them.

Then we drove outside the town to another family – a couple from the church with five children. That was a delightful time spent drinking Turkish tea, eating plates of various cookies and crackers, topped off with a large platter of fruit. I’ve haven’t tasted such consistently delicious fruit since my own childhood. We heard a powerful testimony from the mother who became a believer during the pregnancy of their last child. Complications in the pregnancy resulted in a diagnosis of permanent paralysis whether she had the baby or not. Through a dream God told her she didn’t need to be afraid, and when she woke up the fear was gone. She gave birth and there was and is no paralysis.

We spent the day today sightseeing the ruins at Perga (where Paul landed on his first missionary journey) and at Aspendos (where there is the best preserved amphitheater in the world). Amazing experience to see and walk amongst such history. At the Aspendos theater, Mike stood in the center of the stadium floor and launched into a soliloquy from Hamlet. Everyone in the theater grew quiet and watched and listened, and the team (who was up on the topmost row) could hear every word clear as a bell. The acoustics are amazing. Anyway, it was a fun moment which drew a nice applause from the other tourists present, and shouts of “Bravo!” from the IMPACT team.

I’m finding this experience to be increasingly revealing. People – regardless of nationality, ethnicity, customs or culture – have the same struggles. We all use different sounding words, but the human experience is the same. The desire for meaning and peace and hope and purpose – we all share that. An awareness of our not being the good-enough people we should be (sin) and a yearning to know the source of our existence (God) is something that is universally shared. And in every story I hear, it comes out again and again. And what also comes out is this realization that God, if he is to be a God worthy of our devotion, must be a God of love. And when the people of God reflect this God-love, it is attractive, if not irresistible.

And, out of a conversation with one Turkish believer today, I realize even more I know nothing of what it takes to trust in Christ apart from the religious freedoms I have known all my life in America. I have never had to think twice about the risk my faith poses to my family, my job, my safety...or my life. Do we really know what we are singing when we sing the song, “Blessed Be Your Name?” (Matt Redman song)

With my eyes and heart seeing new things every day,

Charlie


The first family we visited. It should be obvious who Noel Baba is. :)

The second family we visited, along with one of the pastors and his wife. The hospitality of the Turkish believers is amazing.