Saturday, February 23, 2008

JOHNNY THE V

JOHN'S FIRST DAY IN ISTANBUL, A BIT JET-LAGGED THERE, BUT ONE OF HIS DREAMS COME TRUE.
CAN YOU TELL WHO THIS IS?!


AFTER OUTREACH, EATING 'BALIK' AT A LOCAL TURKISH RESTAURANT


JOHN CALLED THE TEAM HOUSE
'THE INCUBATOR OF LOVE' - ICL for short
and he called his 7m2 bedroom
'his slice of heaven'!


ON SUNDAYS WE OFTEN HAD NEW BELIEVERS OVER THE TEAM HOUSE FOR LUNCH. john and jediah doing dishes was always quite a sight for our Turkish guests!


JOHN ARRIVED IN TURKEY IN SEPTEMBER 07.
HE BROUGHT A BREATH OF FRESH AIR TO THE TEAM AND A PRAYER REVIVAL AT THE TEAM HOUSE.
FOR WEEKS HE QUOTED A MOVIE AND JOKED TOGETHER THAT HE'D 'MADE THE TEAM'
(southern accent please) AND THEN WOULD ASK JEDIAH "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE THE DADDY TEAM?!"
He blessed the Istanbul church and team with leading the weekly outreaches, appointing and leading prayer meetings, filling in for P Josef's bible college classes, singing with our little group for services, being 'uncle john' to jozsika and becky, (he eventually became known as such by the rest of the team house!!) spending inumerable hours with potential disciples, cooking breakfast with jediah for our 7 pple team house meeting (a delicious omelet, which we found out later consisted of nothing short than 25 eggs), daily studying Turkish - with a frown on his face and with Amber's notes, playing silly spoon game and laughing our heads off, hooking us up on Super Food, talking with us for a while in the kitchen and sharing in our experiences and dilemnas together...
John is to us a hero, a true friend, a real man, an example, a brother of Faith and we are so thrilled that his GREATEST DREAM and LIFE GOAL has come true.
"And John saw Jesus"






8 comments:

Anonymous said...

even sweeter

Rachael

Michelle said...

THanks so much for posting this.
It will make tomorrow's face-to-face service easier.
Michelle Benoit

Anonymous said...

That was such an amazing tribute. Thank you so much for sharing your hearts with us. This allows us to see John in a way that we might not have know otherwise. We know that Istanbul is with us tomorrow at the face to face and we know that you are praying. Love you guys.
Crystal Norton

melissious said...

Awesome. So awesome. Exactly how I pictured him there. Thank you so much for this.
We're with you in our hearts (and you're in ours here.)
Much Love,
Melissa

Kim Jones said...

God bless your new family. Thank you for building up the body in Turkey by your lives and all over the world by this illuminating snapshot of John.
Love in Christ, Kim

Anonymous said...

Thank you. A lot.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Sarah and Jodiah. You built us all up with John's tribute. We left the Face to face very edified. God is merciful. The devil has lost. Love, Noreen

NEWS FROM MR.&MRS. BILGEN said...

Hey Jediah, thanks so much. John was good friend of mine too. We had so much fun together in the camp. Every day i would go canoing and we would meet with John in the middle of the lake and dream to go on missions to Turkey and we couldn't believe that it would happen:) so soon. It was great to be with him in one team.