Blog 3 (outreach)

Hello,
My second journal will focus upon my second-third week in S0ke, T-rkey. I had many opportunities to learn during the nine days spent in S0ke. It was a once in a lifetime experience for me.
I will start by explaining my anticipation of this time. I was told that these weeks would be the most cross-cultural weeks of our trip and would present many opportunities and challenges. I anticipated a hard and eye-opening experience and was apprehensive of the potential difficulties. I was worried, but I knew that I had been doing all I could do to prepare for this.
I prepared by learning different ways that I could respect the people while here. I researched the norms of T-rkish culture: basics of the language, religion, family life, hospitality, friendship, history of the people and other general norms. I focused on the language because I wanted to be able to learn from the people here. Now, in T-rkey, I have been intentionally placing myself in the position of a student because the past two months have made me aware of the box that I use when I encounter something I don’t understand. I subconsciously constrict people as inferior to myself. This judgment shows my pride and fear of people who might know something that I don’t. I have been working hard to break these constricting judgments. I know that in judgment I limit my own ability to be a man of peace and understanding. I spend time in prayer and have been journaling about my experiences with a goal of understanding and valuing people who are different than me. These preparations have proven very important in the small city of S0ke, T-rkey
S0ke has been specifically challenging because of all the cultures I am around. The workers that we are with are very dynamic and different than what I am used to. The mom is from Uruguay, the dad from Germany and the kids are being raised in an isolated place of traditional T-rkish culture. We arrived Nine days ago and have gone on a crash course of culture.
We started right away on Friday night. We went out to see the town in our respectful clothing (women in long skirts and men dressed nicely), we were looked at in ways that would be slightly inappropriate in western culture and learned about life in a traditional T-rkish town. We arrived at the one small church and found four M-slim men, one whose wife had been recently converted to Christi@nity. It was our first day and to see M-slim men step foot in a church is remarkable. We all greeted in the normal way of touching cheeks and kissing the hands of the elderly, upon sitting we all had our tea and time of socializing. We are learning the unique ways of visiting. In the course of conversation we told our f@ith and explained that we can sing to our L0rd. The men wanted to hear us sing so we did. We had a whole w0rship time for about forty-five minutes and were able to experience the H0ly Spirit in the room. I learned a lot about the r-ligion these men held and learned that one had experienced a dream of J-sus and had seen fire on his head. They had come to the church because of these dreams and also because the man’s wife was urging her husband to come to the f@ith. I have been hearing about this dream frequently over the course of the last months. I hear that many M-slims experience dreams of J-sus over R@madan. I know that our L0rd is hearing our pr-yers and it is awesome to hear such amazing testimonies to our L0rd’s grace.
Saturday morning came and we all awoke to our usual 4:30 A.M. alarm clock, the call to pr@yer. This experience in itself sets the day of on a surreal note that screams, “You are not at home here!” After our morning devotion and worship time we spent the day in pryer and in preparation for the week to come. We prepared for the service we were to have on Sunday and we learned some more about respecting the people, proper ways to enter a household, respecting elders, and respect r-ligion…Etc. The end of Ram@dan was on Sunday and we were preparing to visit about 6 houses. Saturday was a really good day our team really came together in unity.
Sunday morning came and we went to our first house and met a very nice and hospitable family. We spoke about our homes and I observed many statements of friendship and words like I love you as common to visitors. We had learned that the religion of Isl@m values guests highly and requires hospitality. I also know that the culture is relationship based partly because m-slim people believe that all things rely on fate. Thus, there is not a point to living a fast paced life, or at least one that is on a timed schedule, no need to rush a conversation, or a visit. We left our first household with many pleasantries and spent the afternoon visiting four more households. I observed different ways that people view this holiday and I also noticed that some men allowed their wives to shake our hands and some did not, the women were always serving us and the men did nothing. The common topics of conversation were food, our homes, T-rkey, r-ligion, sport etc… Everything was mainly based upon entertaining us. We never had a chance to do our service that we planned, but we did conclude the evening with a lot of singing, prayer and encouragement for our host family and for a lonely local believer. Learning a lot here. The hospitality is inspiring and I love the respect that people show one another, but there is an underlying tension in places.
Monday morning we all awoke with an excitement. We went to see Eph-esus and had a day of rest. I sang “praise G-d from whom all Blessings Flow” in the Ancient ruins of the theater (ep-esus) in front of about 200 people☺. After seeing some of the places that Paul and other apostl-s walked we read Ephesians and Acts and went to visit the Ap-stle John’s Grave. I thought that the place were John was buried was remarkable, very pretty on a hill with many ruins to look at. We finished our much-needed day at a beach swimming in the Aegean.
Tuesday the women went to do home visits with the woman who already works in S0oke and the men worked at the church and then went to do a home visit in the afternoon. I think that we were all very blessed by these visits. Many people opened up to us and we were able to give testimony to our f@ith in every place. I know that we were opening doors for the existing workers. We also learned a lot about the culture and I learned about how to communicate and present myself in a respectful way. I understand some of the T-rkish politics and topics of conversation now. We were also able to play basketball with a member of the Turkish team. It was a great experience and I felt that we made a good friendship with the man we played with.
Wednesday morning we had our usual pr@yer and worhip time and spent time interceding for the work that is being done in T-rkey and also for our teams from Y--A-M through the world. After this time we went to the local park and started our work for the day: pr@yer walking, serving donuts and handing out tracts. We were able to hand out over 500 tracks with the 500 plates of donuts that we served the people of S0ke. It was a great day!
Thursday we spent the day working at the chrch and doing home visits. We spent the day as we did Tuesday. We went to the poor part of town and I was saddened by the way people had to live. We met a man who shared his testimony with us and we prayed for him. I had been looking forward to Thursday night. We planned on going to meet the m-slim men that we had first met on Friday. We went to the Christi@n women’s house (the one who had just been converted) and I found the men to be good company they even gave us a barbecue. We shared our testimonies with them and others who had arrived about 10 in all. We also had a time of w0rship and spent time in pr@yer for the people in the room. I believe that the L-rd used us to plant seeds that will grow and bring people to our faith. (I also ate from a fig tree for the first time, it was great!) We arrived back late at night and crashed.
Friday morning we spent the day doing home visits and then we all worked on the church. We also had our daily devotion and prayer time as a team. Friday night we went to visit the family of the only local believer. I asked the father of this woman if he liked to fish and immediately he said yes and asked, “if I’d like to sleep over and go fishing with him the next day.” (All through the translation of the local workers). I jumped on the opportunity and gladly said, yes. I was in for an adventure. Friday night passed very well. I was able to share the whole g0spel with the family and gave my testimony. After everyone had left on Friday night I stayed up late with the father and mother playing bakgammon, this game is extremely popular here and I was outmatched to say the least.
Saturday morning I woke up to another sunny day (it has been perfect blue sky weather here since we arrived 15 days ago.) I went with the man and we drove about an hour away to his friend’s place where we picked up a muslim woman her husband and their grandchildren. We spent about an hour at their house where they all spoke with one another and I just smiled and silently said pr-yers. After this time of visiting we went to a local fishing spot and got their nets (200 M.) and took a row-boat around a small bay. We caught many small fish and kept them all. I saw the ancient palace of King Mileto’s on the way back to the man’s house where I learned to clean and cook the fish. We had a quick dinner and then the local worker picked me up. As you can imagine it was a tough day because we couldn’t speak to one another, but at the same time was a great day and one I will not forget. I was told the time I spent with this man and his wife was a great witness and was rewarded by their arrival at our church the next day. After I was picked up on Saturday night we went straight to another home and visited the family friends of our workers (m-slim family).
Sunday morning we got up and prepared for our 2:00 service. We also looked forward to the goodbye barbecue that the workers had for us. The church service went well and we were able to give worship and testimony to about 15 people. We finished last minute work at the church. I spent the afternoon cleaning the small fish and cooked them for the visitors we had. After our barbecue of pork ☺ we left on the bus for Antaly@ at 11:00 P.M. and arrived safely here to a warm welcome from the workers in this city.
Everything is going well. We are doing lots of good work and have been given many blessings as we’ve been here. Thank you for your prayers. I miss you.
In Christ’s Love,
Travis

Hey everybody. This is our blog from week #2.

Saturday we had a short orientation and went over the schedule of the week with our new contacts. The majority of the day was spent preparing for the next day, which was the end of R@madan celebrations as well as the church service. That night we heard the sound of the m0sques at sunset signaling the end of R@madan. The streets went totally quiet as everyone hurried inside to gorge himself. Ironically, though no one eats from sunrise to sunset, 60% more food is consumed during the month of R@madan. Sunday we did many house visits. The celebration called B@yram is like Christm@s/Th@nksgiving/H@lloween. Families reunite from all over the country as they feast at the end of a day of door-to-door candy collecting. It was incredible to go into a city as short-termers and go straight into the Mus1im households to talk as friends with them. These workers have been laying their lives down to build these foundations for years and we were able to just walk in there and experience and build upon it. But, the Trks are incredibly hospitable and every single household we went into was armed with tea/coffee and biscuits/baklava. None of us ever thought we would be tired of baklava until then…The original intention was to hold the chrch service in the evening the service is based on the schedule of the people, who were spending the day with their families, so we had to just cancel the service altogether.

The atmosphere in S0ke was different than the other two cities. It is not a tourist town at all. One man of sixty we met had never even left the city and most people, when we told them we were staying in S0ke for nine days, gave us a big fat “What! Why?” We were having a very cultural experience as we stayed with two workers, one from Germ@ny (Hug0) and his wife from Urugu@y (M@ria). We are also getting a very good picture of Trkish customs and values in the house visits. It was also very interesting to just see how you greet, serve, and converse with guests.

Monday was a highlight of most of our lives. We took a bus to go see the ancient city of Ephesus and the burial place of the Apostle John. The historical relevance for us is obvious; we will never read the Bib1e the same; just seeing the places where the Apostle Paul walked and wrote much of the Bib1e NT letters was an experience that you can only know by experience. Ephesus took a full three hours to explore, as it was a center of trade and re1igion for centuries and is still remarkably large and well kept. There used to be a cathedral over 5t. John’s grave, not five minutes from Ephesus, but it is long since fallen into ruins. There is a castle as well, though we were not able to go in. After a morning of exploring and pondering, it was nice when we went to a beach town called Kush@disi on the Aege@n coast to spend the rest of the afternoon playing in the sea and laying in the sun. The following day was spent doing work projects on the chrch and visits to more friends. We feel it is so valuable to help the existing workers by doing more work in one day than they could do in a month and by building relationships with their friends.

Another day we hired a bakery to bring their dough and some hot oil and make doughnuts in the park for us. As we passed out free doughnuts, we also handed them a piece of paper with, for many people, their first ever scrıpture. Over 500 people came that day. After that we were able to experience the local market, which had most everyone in the town there. It was a huge canopy under which there were hundreds of little shops with everything you would ever want to buy…. we were able to practice the art of haggling and get a weeks worth of groceries for less than the daily cost of eating in restaurants.
Thursday we spent the day working at the chrch and doing home visits. We went to the poor part of town and were saddened by the way people had to live. We met a man who shared his testimony with us and we pryed for him. We planned on going to meet the Mus1im men that we had first met on Friday. We went to the Christi@n women’s house (the one who had just been converted). We shared our testimonies with them and others who had arrived, about ten in all. We also had a time of w0rship and spent time in pr@yer for the people in the room. I believe that the L0rd used us to plant seeds that night…

On the last days we were able to paint the children’s room in the chrch, put in a gutter system on the roof, do some landscaping, build a cover for the baptismal, and bless and pr@y for the workers. The last day we did the chrch service and had a sausage sizzle (BBQ) all together. They actually had bratwurst brought over from Germ@ny to cook with! For all of us, any pork is a huge treat.
It is amazing how we have started to assimilate to the culture. Most of the time we don’t even notice the five-time-a-day pr@yer call, our mannerisms and gestures are becoming more Trkish, and other things that at first seemed totally foreign and different are becoming more comfortable. As we learn more about this culture with our own, we are able to view our own culture with a more critical eye and compare the underlying assumptions of our own cultures and the Trkish culture against the Bib1e.

We as a team have taken some key steps to enjoying each other, making sacrifices, serving, and using our giftings to contribute to the group and the work being done. We also did some real bonding in the Hamams (Trkısh bath house!!). The guys went on Wednesday and the ladies on Saturday. If you don’t know what this is, Google it. It was just amazing. We also value our morning team devotions very much as we are able to pr@y for each other, wrship, do a devotion, and intercede every day. It is also just a time to debrief and tell what we are feeling and how we are doing.

Overall, these 9 days ın Soke have been a time of two-way encouragement between our team and the workers. They are simply inspirational in their commitment in the long-haul and we were able to bless them with our pr@yers and work. Thank you for your prayers and support. Love and blessings!
-TTT

PS. For those of you who want to see photos, please befrıend Jesse Coffee and Jonathan Godsey and check out theır photo albums!