We arrived at the place wish soon turned in to my most memorable adventure destination so far.
Settling in to our hostel, and getting a good night of rest (that only lasted until 5 in the morning due to the multitude of world renowned mosques around us).
We went on our first day of exploring. Bursts of colors everywhere! We walked from the one side to the other, wide eyed and full of excitement.
Underneath all the excitement and sight seeing, something was happening in my heart. The big question of what I would do next year came up (again), and I was choking down tears for three days straight. Answers, I wanted answers. And I knew where to get them. I thought back to the word of encouragement I got in Israel about “X marks the spot” , and the fact that “I already have gold in my hands”.
We had some off time the next day, and I spent the whole day having random walkabouts in Istanbul. I thought about the day Jesus told me that I will dance with Him this year, and that I can “just be”. I reminded myself that HE HAS GOT THIS! Jesus was trying to tell me something, and I got a text from someone very dear to me saying that I should STOP chasing fools gold because I already have diamonds in my hands. Istanbul, the place of breakthrough!! I once again realized that I should stop listening with my head, and trust my heart. In my mind, I thought that I could EARN Gods favor by doing something crazy like moving to the Middle East and be isolated from friends and family, to serve a people in need. But, what about my own hearts desires? Are they there by chance, or where they put there by God?
We woke up having a few sick troopers on our team, and we spent the last day chilling out in Istanbul. One of my team mates sent me the following quotes from C.S Lewis: “Your real, new
self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self,
and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
It all started making sense!!
We said goodbye to beautiful Istanbul and set off on the next leg of our Turkish adventure, Kusadasi. The owners of the campsite let us camp there, even though season has not yet started, and we were relieved, and so tired from traveling. We pitched our tents and had dinner. Seth, Geneke and I sat watching the sun set through the trees, and decided to go and chase it! Breathless, reckless, I stood watching the painting created by the Biggest Artist of all time. I thought the day we ran in the rain in Zanzibar, was my favorite GCEX moment so far, but, standing on the harbor, I realized that it will always get better than this, because that’s what His heart for us is all about. He PROMISES good things, ABUNDANCE, and that when we BELIEVE, we will get to see the GLORY of who HE IS. I was standing in utter awe, and bursting at the seams, realizing how PRIVELAGED I am to get to do life with the God who created THIS. Well, that pretty much sums it up.
Days were spent “jogging” with Ginx next to ocean, digging in to scripture and history about Paul, and Turkey, eating lots of Burger King ice cream, and spending time with Jesus.
We set off on our first hitch hike to Ephesus and Osman, the business man picked us up. He was not really planning on driving in the direction of Ephesus, but decided to take Chris, Chante, Lisa and I anyway, because Turkish people are cool like that. Walking through Ephesus made all the pages of scripture about this place burst in to color. I could imagine streams of people walking up and down the streets, and Paul preaching to all of them.
The next day we embarked on our first 200 kilometer hitch hike. After waiting for a while, a white Volkswagen cabby stopped and picked us up. We managed to find out that the two men who stopped for us were called Mustaffa and Mehmed. Language barriers can sometimes make one quite desperate. Hand gestures, sound affects, you name it, we can claim it. Lucy for us, Mustaffa had a kind friend on the telephone, who soon became our translator. ADHAM! ADHAM! Whenever we heard him saying that over the phone, we knew that understanding was around the corner. Musttaffa blessed us with litres of Coke, a huge bag of strawberries, an amazing lunch AND ice cream! When we finally got to use our phones for translating, Mustaffa said that love is a universal language and doesn’t need any words to be felt. TRUTH!!!! Jesus is always faithful and extravegantly We ended up traveling all the way from Kusadasi to Denizli where we met up with the rest of the teams, and took a mini bus to reach our hitch hiking destination…..
Pamukkale- Wich means “cotton castle’, and its half the size of Hartbeesfontein (North-Westerners would understand). We found accommodation on the roof of a hotel. And with the best luck, the hotel was right next to our "5 o’clock alarm". As in, right next to my right ear. A life like no other!!!
I woke up the next day with a simple prayer in my heart. I was lying in “bed”, asking Jesus to please not make the next 700 kilometers of hitch hiking hard on me.
We walked up to the mountain of cotton coolness, and my mind was blown. (Like usual). A composition of cotton coolness doesn’t even cut it. My mind gets blown over and over by the creativity of God. Carmen and I spent the day building chats in the natural calcium pools, and had some interesting lunch with locals after.
When we all got back to the hotel, Chris informed Carmen and I that he met a couple from the US at Hierapolis who are willing to give us a lift all the way to Goreme. WAIT. WHAT? My heart leaped as I once again realized that Jesus hears ALL our prayers, no matter how small.
The next morning Carmen and I said goodbye to the rest of the team and headed to the Venus hotel where we met Mr. and Mrs. Rinkle, a couple from Origin vacationing in Turkey. When I saw uncle Steven and aunty Valerie for the first time, I knew they would soon creep very deeply in to my heart. If I have to describe the 24 hours spent with the Rinkles, I’d have to use the word BLESSING! We had faith-based, heart felt, God centered chats in the car, visited the church of Laodicea, and had lunch before stopping over in Konya where we were absolutely, abundantly blessed by a overnight stay in a hotel. Jesus definitely didn’t hold back (not that He ever does. You get what I’m getting at). My most recent response to almost anything, has become “Oh wow”, but OH WOW, this was something. Carmen and I felt like we were in some mystical land of blessing showers, and we spent almost an hour in our room with REAL BEDS and WHITE SHEETS (yes, to a Global challenger that is absolute luxury), praising Jesus for His goodness and favor over our lives. My heart will forever be grateful for Mr. and Mrs. Rinkle for being so generous and kind towards us.
In the midst of being absolutely spoilt, Jesus spoke right in to my heart. (Yet again through someone who is special to me). The TRUTH is, that it’s okay to have desires, because they are put in your heart by Jesus, because He lives inside of us. For a while, I was moving what I want to the side, and had all these ideas of “the perfect life of a missionary” in my head. Where the simple truth is, that I’m really just a normal person who wants a house next to a mountain, and, you know, have a family in the near future. And Jesus said: “ITS’ OKAY, I’LL MEET YOU WHERE YOU”RE AT”. Your treasure is where your heart is, and my heart is home. And it’s okay. So, how exactly that is going to look, I don’t know, but Jesus will and always had led the way, and I trust Him in that.
We arrived in Goreme the next day, and said goodbye to the Rinkles. With thankful and squishy hearts, we bid them farewell and spent a few moments in prayer. We spent the day waiting for the rest of our teams, and I was thankful that we all were reunited that night.
It’s cold, and I’m woken up by the odd sound of what seems to be a million hot air balloons floating over my tent. I wake up just a few minutes before my 5 o’clock alarm. Putting on my tekkies with my pajamas, (yes I turned in to that kind of person) Charlotte, Ginx and I headed out to find the view point. I’ve always had a big imagination, but this, THIS was something I couldn’t have thought up in my own brainwave-capacityness (but I’m quite good at making up words). Little fairy cave houses formed from lava. Some clay valley my mind didn’t prepare itself for. Standing on that hilltop, watching hundreds of balloons floating all around me, another forever moment happened.
We spent the day exploring, and decided to go check out Rose Valley. No on told us it would be a two hour long, scorching hot, long walk. Turning around was the last option for a bunch of adventurous spirits, so we trotted on, barefoot and full of giggles. We walked for a good two hours with no water, and ended up hitch hiking as soon as we saw the first proper road. Alas, memories were made!!
We split up and said goodbye to Carmen, Ginx, Charlotte and Johnstone as they headed off to another ministry point. Our last few days in Gorerme were spent having long chats with a guy from Zurich by the name Luca (who just for the record, traveled all the way from Switzerland, through most of Europe, (ON HIS BICYCLE). Inspiring to the max! So, all of us, included the owner of the camping site, Murat, decided to have a braai! We used our “home making” skills to set the table, and we had a a proper BRAAI (Jesus is awesome like that)
Sitting around the table with my team mates, Luca the Swiss, Murat the Turk, an Iraqi and an Irani, I realized once again how privileged I am to meet so many people from all over the world. (I also got to talk some Arabic with my new friend from Iraq, and heard about the Yezedi religion for the first time).
Saying our goodbyes to new friends, we left for our new, unplanned but absolutely Spiritually directed ministry point, Ankara.
With a population of six million, I felt like the tiniest speck of dust standing at the very public, busy bus stop in mid city Ankara. Our host and soon to be sister in Christ, Amy, met us and we walked a good 15 minutes uphill (fully geared) to her apartment wish she shares with Adrienne and Lara. Three women of God, with three different backgrounds, but called for one purpose: To expand the Kingdom of God and bring hope to Turkish people. We didn’t really have a set schedule, but we felt right at home in their beautiful apartment (can I just add that there were specks of yellow everywhere, and my most inner soul was quite satisfied by this). We spent the next few days going to church, worshipping in their apartment, telling and hearing stories and testimonies, laughing a lot, getting lost in the big city, having meals together. On our last day we had the privilege to go to the university with Lara to do some evangelizing. There we met a group of American students on a Turkey outreach. We worshipped in the garden and had some awesome time of fellowship. Friends, and memories were made!!
It was time to say goodbye to Turkey and all its hidden treasures, and we headed back to Istanbul the next morning, where we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the team and overland to Greece. Chante, Lisa and I had to take the tram on our own (In Turkish), and that in itself was both a miracle and an adventure (because I forgot the map Lara drew for us at their house). Memory intact, we found the right line and reached the bus station.
We arrived in Istanbul, and got to see the rest of our team again! Oh, Istanbul!! It was good to be back in the city of colors. We got on the bus to Sofia, Bulgaria at 20;00, and that was the start of two days of CRAZY travels. We had 2 o’clock in the morning stop overs, ate a full meal in a fancy restaurant at 3 in the morning (weird I know). After a really long time spent on a bus, I woke up in Bulgaria. Nothing like Turkey. We stopped in a very small town (I can’t remember the name), and traveled on to Sofia. Sofia decided to develop an extreme cold front or something, as soon as the train stopped, (seriously cold), and Charlotte, Geneke and I used the hour we had to do a tiny bit of exploring. The rest of the traveling consisted of train hopping, amazing views out of the window, and also stuffy train smells. I thought I was going to turn in to a raisin somewhere in Bulgaria, and jumped off during the trains usual 2 minute stops for water. I don’t know what the train man was yelling at me, but it wasn’t nice. Memories, all memories!!!
Through the little sleep, endless, uncomfortable travels that feels like its never going to stop, no showering and eventually not knowing where you are unless the travel team tells you, I had some important chats with Jesus. Good chats about life, love and things to come. Talks about hopes and dreams and of course, being a world changer, a 24 year old with a mother-heart. Realness. Truth. Trusting Him even when I’m scared and unsure. Remembering Romans 8:29-30..."For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified."
Turkey, the place of colorful breakthrough.
God is everywhere!!