Blog 4 (outreach)

Hello Everyone,
We are on a bus to Di-yabakir, a long 20 hour ride of relaxation ☺. I have been able to sleep a little, but have had plenty of time to reflect upon our second week in @ntalya. Ant@lya was much more western that the other cities that we have visited here. We were able to connect with some of the local people because of the diminished language barrier and openness to foreigners.
We started our second week in @ntalya on Wednesday, Oct. 7th. We got a great deal in a small hostel in the old town, (about 5 minutes from the harbor and 5 minutes from Hadrian’s Gate.) Wednesday we jumped right in and were able to meet some people at the beach. After our meeting these people I left and went back to our hostel. We had a long time of preparation in the morning and it was already evening. We separated and some of our team stayed back and spent the rest of the day in pr@yer, while some of us went out to explore the city and to meet more people. We shared our first day with one another over a long period of pr@yer and worship on Thursday morning. This time of preparation proved very important for our team. It gave us a foundation to witness from. Thursday I went to the beach and met some really nice students from Slovenia and Finland. We ended up staying out with them swimming in the Mediterranean until around 2 A.M., it was a great opportunity to establish relationships we arranged to meet with them the next day.
Friday morning we all awoke to another beautiful day we had our time in the morning in Pr@yer and shared testimonies from the day before. Like I said some of us met the students, while another went and helped at a Dutch school and found the children to be so happy and excited with her. ☺. We went into the day encouraged and ready. We helped the local workers set up an annual fundraiser and when we finished we all went with a friend of ours to dinner. This friend, Marvin, is the coolest guy. We saw him throughout our time in Ant@lya. He had some great stories and was willing to spend time with all of us and take us to some really cool places. For dinner on Friday night we ate in a tree house in the mountains above Ant@lya about 60 feet in the air! After dinner we drove back to a local bar where we thought there was live music. We met our friends from Slovenia there and ended up leaving because the atmosphere and music wasn’t very good. A couple of us stayed with them late into the night again and found opportunities to share. It was a great time. Saturday morning we all woke up at different times and went to help at the annual fundraiser. We spent the day helping and then the night was spent meeting new people and exploring the city. A couple of the team members were able to talk for quite awhile with a couple of locals from Ant@lya. Sunday morning we went to church (great to have a time to worship and pr@y). After church one of our team members met up with a woman she had met the week before and was able to share a lot with her. The rest of us went to a pizza place and spoke with the owner for hours until late at night. He was very interesting and we were able to share with him.
After our late nights we needed a day to rest and recuperate. We spent Monday exploring the city and doing our various activities (I slept and went running). Monday night I went back to the pizza place and spoke with the owner late into the night once again. I really liked speaking with this man he was a nice guy and was very open to peaceful conversation about religion. Tuesday I met a couple of tourists at the beach and spent about an hour with them. I told them what I believed and we spoke about belief for a while. They were very nice and actually were the ones to approach me.
Tuesday was our last day before Diyabak-ir I went around and said my goodbyes and we had a team recap time on Wednesday morning before the bus ride. We all felt that our open relational work in Ant@lya was a success and that we had made a significant impact. I was very encouraged by the whole week because our team worked very well together and we always did our work out of pr@yer. It was great to see God answer our pr@yers and help us to spread His Kingdom with love.
The Culture in Antalya was nothing like S0ke, but this week in Diyabak-ir I will definitely have many observations to share.
I hope that all of you are doing well.
In His Love,
Travis