It must have been quite a sight for the locals to see 9 South Africans and 1 Canadian (Danica’s mom and grandparents had arrived a few days earlier) eagerly scanning the crowd at the IST airport. An even bigger sight must have been seeing us all suddenly push our way to the front to greet 22 parents, grandparents and friends. Slowly we made our way to the train that (after over 10 stops) would take us back to our hotel. Somehow all 36 of us with all our baggage managed to squish onto the train and arrive safely at our destination without anyone getting lost.
The next afternoon Ruan, Tannie Anna Marie, and Sabra went to the airport again to pick up their moms. Ruan’s mom coming was actually a surprise and she was supposed to arrive the previous day but had missed her flight and was forced to come the next day. Sabra’s mom arrived a day late because her coming was arranged just a few days before. It was actually a miracle that Karen (Sabra’s mom) could come at all because she lives in Guatemala and flying to Turkey was very expensive. But Sabra was the only member of the team who didn’t have a family member visit her during the year and we all felt that her mom should come. God also confirmed this by arranging for cheaper flights and also providing most of the money for her to fly here.
For the next two weeks we explored some of the ancient cities of the early church. We visited the ruins of Pergamum and Ephesus and were overwhelmed by the privilege of exploring some of the places John and Paul wrote to.
We made our way to Kusadasi where we began a detailed Bible study on the missionary journeys of Paul. Though there were fewer physical treasures to explore we were so much more blessed by discovering spiritual treasures within the Word through the teaching of Tannie Anna Marie, and Jonathan L.
Almost every night we hosted a talk show for the parents called “Late Night Turkish Delight”. Annami and Jonathan would “interview” us as if we were on television. It made it easier to share our stories and testimonies from the year with our families.
After learning about the third journey we had a few days to spend alone with our parents. Most of us went to Cappadocia while a few stayed in Pamukkale and back in Kusadasi. On our way to Cappadocia we stopped for the day in Pamukkale. As we waded through ancient pools and walked through the remnants of that city we were reminded that this place was the home of the tomb of Philip, one of the early martyrs.
We arrived in the unique region of Cappadocia in the city of Goreme. Due to raids on the Christians in the area they were forced to flee to underground cities and to make churches and homes disguised in the “fairy chimneys” that are common there. We visited an underground city that went down 18 levels (but you could only go down about 4 because anything lower was unsafe) and saw some of the “rock churches”.
Unfortunately the time with our families had to end and after the 2 weeks they left to the airport to fly to Istanbul and then back home. Our team seemed very small after they left but we still had our visitors and Sabra’s mom with us. We all returned to Kasadasi and spent the rest of our time there going even deeper into the missionary journeys of Paul and in prayer. Feeling like we wanted to get physically closer to Syria to pray for them and to see if we could maybe help out in one of the refugee camps, we sent the men of Northbound to a city about 70km from the border to see if it was safe for all of us.
After they arrived in Iskenderum they needed to travel to a camp site about 45km away but they had no idea how to get there. Because few people speak English and those who do speak little at most, this was a problem. Shortly after trying to explain where they wanted to go a random man walks up to them with a cell phone, hands it to Riaan and says “It’s for you.” On the other end of the call was the owner of the campsite NBM (Northbound Men) wanted to stay. The man with the phone offered to drive them to the correct bus station, and helped them find the right bus, and unload their luggage.
Unfortunately it was too unsafe for the rest of us to join them there so we met them a couple days later in Adona, which is a much safer town. The next couple days we spent time praying for Turkey, Syria and the rest of the Middle East. For God does not only care about us individually, but He also has plans for entire nations.