Turkey where it all began…….

What an experience we have had both as a team and personally during our time in Turkey.  It was the country we have been in the for the longest amount of time but also the country that felt as though time flew and I would have happily stayed longer given the chance!

So Istanbul was hot and humid and a little too much for the senses to cope with, but our reunion with the half of the team that spent July in Croatia whilst we were in Bosnia and Herzegovina made it all worthwhile.  We had so many stories to share of our time apart and the places we went and people we had met, so we were all expectant for our time together in Turkey.  We had the privilege of a visit from Anna-Marie and Tannie Erna where we went to Ephesus and did bible studies in a beach town called Kusadasi. It was amazing to be studying the books of the bible that Paul wrote in one of the main places that he was addressing.  Walking around the ruins of the city brought history to life, but it is sad how far from this community, the people of Turkey are now; the warnings that Paul taught about coming to pass. 

It was really a time of rest and reflection where God did some shaking and moulding in my mind and heart. I had the revelation for the first time that if I refuse of to acknowledge, or fail to see Gods work in my life, then I am giving the Glory for what God is doing either to others or keeping it for myself.  God does not share his glory and my actions are rooted in pride.  When I feel that I do not know God it is because I did not acknowledge him for the things he has done for me!!!  

Our noise and fun attracted people from the campsite and we made friends with our neighbours having the opportunity to share with them stories from the bible based in Turkey so they could relate and have an understanding. One of my highlights was when an Iranian family who were on holiday, joined us for our Sunday evening praise and worship.  I had met a lady on the beach one morning who was originally from Iran but had moved to London and became a Christian.  She had not seen her family for 8 years and had come to Turkey for a holiday to meet with her family and evangelise to them.  I met her sister, her husband and daughter her father and mother and invited them to spend some time with us.  It was such a powerful evening and I’m sure that her sister had an encounter with God that evening.  Seeing her lift her hands to praise God and her tears left me in no doubt!  What blew my mind is that this would have been their first encounter of praise and worship to Jesus and the freedom we have in our praise when compared to their usual structured prayer.  I saw the fruit of obedience and that God can use a bunch of young people travelling to speak through and change the lives of people.  Also that God had such a plan for these people to take them out of their county (the 5th most persecute in the world) to allow them to hear and see who he really is!  That is LOVE!

What a faith builder for our Luke 10 adventure………for those who don’t know what Luke 10 is!  This is the part of the year where small teams go out for 10 days and trust in God to provide for them.  It is based on the scripture Luke 10 where Jesus sends out the disciples and tells them to take nothing and GO.  I had the awesomeness of spending 10 days with Thuli and Samuel- a Brit, a Portugese and a Xhosa…what a team!!!!!  We spent time praying and preparing before had and felt God say go to Cyprus…..we were in West Turkey…..Cyprus was a long way but he said GO so we went.  We had been given 270 Turkish Lira (approx £90) and been blessed with 20TL from the Iranian lady so off we went, obviously not going to cover for 3 of us for 10 days food, travel, accommodation etc so we were really expectant to see how God would provide for us.  I can truly say that we ate better than usual and had a bed and roof over our heads for 8 of the 10 days.  

I could not have written the adventure we were about to embark upon.  The first evening after taking a number of fun hitch hikes we found ourselves about to bed down outside of McDonalds in Aydin when a family invited us for ice cream and afterwards back to their house for the evening. They went above and beyond preparing a traditional Turkish breakfast in the morning and then taking us to the old ruins of a city called Trellis.   We were sight-seeing in a beautiful ancient city with locals to give us a guided tour only 1 day after leaving.  The rest of our journey had many more stories similar to this where the local people went out of their way to host us with everything they had. We had such a peace that although our goal was Cyprus we did not feel pushed for time to head on and enjoyed spending time with the local people, seeing how God was blessing us and how he would use us.

By day 5 we arrived in the port town of Tasucu where the ferry was due to depart from.  I had been expectant for God to provide the finance for us to get the ferry across to Cyprus as he had provided for all of our meals, transport and accommodation for this time without us spending a penny.  We had missed the ferry for that day but found out the cost….207 TL each way for the 3 of us! I wanted to check there were no other ferries leaving so asked a man filling a boat with fuel and he confirmed that we would have to wait until tomorrow.  We had no idea how we would get there as if we choose to use the money given it would only take us 1 way, but we decided to use the evening to bless the community with Coke and chat with them.  We had decided before we started to tithe on the money we had received and had been blessed with money a few times during the journey so used that money to bless the community.  As me and Thuli we busy getting Cokes (20 cans!  We looked hysterical!)  a man approached Samuel to say he knew we wanted to go to Cyprus and he worked for the ferry company; he would give us a discount and we could stay at his place for the evening….it was the man that was filling the boat with fuel!  Not only that but the discount on the ticket was exactly 270TL return for the 3 of us so we knew that this was definitely Gods provision for us to get there! So the following morning we got the ticket and off we went, singing our songs with the Ukulele…..

Or so we thought!  Just as we were getting excited about the stories we would tell about our adventure to Cyprus it all came crashing down……we had to pay tax to board the boat and we had nothing left. We had used all of our money to get the ticket.  Oh to add this was my birthday so we were sat in the ferry terminal not able to board with the smiles wiped quickly off our faces.  We mustered the little faith we had an asked God to provide once more for us to have the finances to board the boat.  Well within 10 mins a lady and her daughter approached us and offered us grapes and the security explained that we did not have the money to pay the tax to board.  God used her to not only pay for our tax but also vouch for us the other end as they were reluctant to let us in as we didn’t have a hotel booking….i have no idea what she said but they passport control stamped our passports and we were in!  Even when a seed of pride was growing about us making it to Cyprus God swiftly put us back in our place showing us that without him we would be sat on the port waving the ferry goodbye! The lady invited us back to her home and paid for a taxi for us to get there, fed us all day and spent time with her entire family.  What a Birthday!!!  We left her place more than full and waiting for our next God encounter.  That evening we were blessed by a coffee shop owner with dinner and a place to stay and…..a Turkish breakfast the next day.  

So it was Sunday and we knew if we were there on a Sunday we wanted to try and find a local church to attend. We saw a few guys carrying bibles and they took us to the church only 10 mins walk from where we were.  We missed the English service but were just in time for the Cypriot service which was even more of a blessing.  It was ran by English missionaries who blessed us with staying at their home for the evening.  The verse we received to go to Cyprus was Jer 2v10 “Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look”.  It was amazing as their home was on the side of the mountain; they had a panoramic view of Cyprus even over to the Greek side as the Island is not that big!  We could definitely look and see! 

We could only spend the 2 days in Cyprus as we had to make our way back to Istanbul, so James who we had stayed with dropped us off at the ferry point.  It had occurred to us all that we would probably have to pay for the tax on our return journey and still had no way of paying for this when we arrived.  The inevitable happened and before boarding were required to pay the tax.  I really felt confident that if God has provided for us to get there he would do so again to get us back.  After a few conversations to the police and border control they let us pass though without paying the tax.  God is bigger than the border control; with God on our side who can stand against!  Our adventure was not over and we had a few more God appointments on our return to Istanbul and made it in at 7pm on the 10th day just in time!

We learnt that we had to put God 1st and constantly walk in the prompting of his spirit. We could feel the difference in our journey and spirits when we were not and took the time to refocus back to Gods will.  Also that God had really gone before us and made a way for us to follow in.  It is only through him that we could travel the 2160km overland in Turkey and the ferry ride to get to Cyprus!

But most of all God does speak to me, I heard him and the fruit comes from obediently going where he is asking you.  This is something I want to have foundational as this next year is approaching rapidly!