[by Charlie]
The heat and humidity were back with a vengeance today. By 10am you’re all sweaty and sticky, and you stay that way for the rest of the day and night. Then you have to decide if you want to take a shower so you can sleep comfortably...but then wake up already sweaty and sticky before the day has started. Or sleep miserably all sticky and sweat and then take a shower in the morning so you can start the day feeling fresh and clean. Either way, by 10 you’re all sticky and sweaty again anyway. One could shower in the morning and evening. I started off a night showerer...switched to morning...and now I’m back to nights. The hotter and more humid the weather – the better the night shower feels. (Not a particularly inspiring start to this entry...but it just happens to be my state of mind at the moment.)
This morning I walked to the church (St. Paul’s Cultural Center). That felt really good. Wish I had done it sooner. It puts me out and among the people. It took about twenty minutes and took me through the town. I stopped by a fruit stand and picked up a big peach, and after washing it with my water bottle, ate it as I continued my walk to the church. By the time I reached the church I was dripping wet...but it still felt good. After our debriefing and lunch, Suzy and I worked on our Parenting Class presentation, and then I spent several hours working on the handouts and a few other things for the class. We had 8 participants, all women except for one man. It is hard to assess how useful it was. Definitely it was for a few, but I was introducing some new concepts I believe. Teaching Logical Consequences can be challenging enough in English – imagine having to work through a translator. But we got through most of it. One mother in particular asked some very specific questions about certain behavior problems, and she became the ‘example’ for the logical consequence principles, and in the end I think she received some very helpful suggestions and a better understanding of how she needs to approach how she responds to her daughter. At the end, we all wrote the names of our children on slips of paper and put them in a basket in the center of the room, then gather around them and held hands in an act of dedication while Erkan prayed over each family present and for the children represented by the cards in the basket. While we were teaching the class, the rest of the team was providing child care for the children of several of the parents. They had their hands full!
That was the Good. The Sad part was that early in the day a young couple went through the devastating experience of losing a baby four months into the pregnancy. Mike and Suzy accompanied two of the pastors to the hospital and spend the later part of the afternoon and early evening with this couple. They have one young child of six and wanted this child so badly, you can imagine the disappointment and pain. It was a powerful time of just being with them and grieving alongside them. They spent time at the hospital and then went to the cemetery for the burial, as this is something they do immediately here in Turkey. I could say more based on what Suzy and Mike said to me, but I will let them tell their story, if they so choose, in another blog. Clearly, though, God used them in a special way today for a deeply hurting couple.
I came home and was greeted with a new fan in my sweat box (aka bedroom), so I am pretty excited about what looks to be a more comfortable evening.
