maman...

mom, i'm so sorry i didn't call you back yesterday. And you were so kind to not even mention it... I'm so sorry and i love you so much I wanted a lot of people to read it!...

ta sarah

MIRACLES HAPPEN in THE 20th century

We got a washing machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

A couple angels at the Cafe in Baltimore collected some money and another angel wrote a big fat check - that knocked us off our feet!
Our fingers and our backs are smiling, our clothes smell good, and rules were established right away with restrictions on water use for the washer!!! Water is not free here in Turkey. Have you heard of 3 mn showers? They work I guess. Soon there'll be 17 of us in the house..... (shhh don't tell our landlady) So we'll be reinforcing that one rule in particular!!!
My dear friend Myriam Pavlickova is arriving Tuesday!!
Please pray for all the million details that have to happen before thursday.
Pray particularly for P Matti's exhibition opening night on friday. Turish people are very fond of those and we are expecting to meet a totatlly different type of people there.
Visitors from all around the world are already arriving, thursday being the 'record day' with 25 persons arriving on that day!!!!

Welcome to TURK-CON 2007!

visa travels

Jediah and I will be traveling to Sofia, bulgaria via a 10 hr bus ride on a night bus. We'll be with the Huletts for a few days and returning on time for our EAST MEETS WEST TURK-CON! Thanks for your prayers for this trip that will allow us to renew our visas for another 3 months!

WASHER SOS!!!!

The Team House is in 'big time' need of a WASHER....

we've broken our backs hand washing over the tub

and we've almost abused the generosity of

other team members' washing machines....

Even between the 5 of us (after spending all

our moneys on fridge, beds, stove, tables and chairs,

plates and forks and last but certainly not least: the team house favorite: toilet paper ) we can't seem to put the money

together now for this last big need...

We could really use some help for the purchase of a washer!!!

An average new washer is about 500 YTL (liras).

Looking forward to hearing from you especially

if it's to let us know you'll be praying with us!

We believe in prayer more than ever! -see last blog entry

once upon the time there was a yellow cab...

Zoumrad and I have been praying and dreaming for a move of God in our area.

Last night we both came home from church with her 2 children quite late. We had a stroller and a lot of grocery bags so we hopped in a cab whose driver must have been in a bad mood as everything we said was an annoyance (where we were going was not far enough and so wasting his time, why couldn't we open our windows instead of asking him to stop smoking in the car??) anyway. when we arrived at our house, Zoumrad had to run to the little shop next door to make some change for the driver, and i tried to get everything and everybody out of the car.

Unfortunately in a dark corner on the floor of the car we forgot Zoumrad's purse...
When we realized it, we weren't sure if there was anything we could do but one thing we knew we could: we got on our knees and prayed right there in the middle of the living room with Jozsika repeating every word of John's prayer. Meanwhile I was praying my own wicked prayer in my heart: i was hoping the driver would get into an accident and the police would find her purse. I thought such a rude and mean man would never return. -Good thing God didn't answer my prayer, poor guy-

This being said I went down to the street with my engl-turk dictionary and managed to explain that "my friend - purse - in taxi - / along with a sad face". There was really nothing to do and the few neighbors gathered there agreed. One man (who owns the roosters that wake us up in the morning) was kind enough to call the nearest police station. I ran back up to the house, and in less than 5 minutes heard the bell ring and Jediah who was hanging out the window yell : ZOUMRAD, ZOUMRAD!!!
When i got downstairs the scene was out of a movie. There was a yellow cab sitting in the middle of our street under the light surrounded by a loud group of children, women and a few men and in a unanimous accord all started applauding the driver at once! As I recognized the face of the driver, I joined in the applause with a mouth wide open still grasping the scene. Zoumrad's husband was reaching in his pocket to thank the driver and children were jumping up and down. I looked at the ladies standing there and we all laughed and shook our heads. I pointed to heaven with one hand and held one hand on my heart as to communicate our thankfulness to God and they all nodded their heads.

We were like kids and felt like dancing. There was no bank to call, no credit cards to cancel, no car accident, but a beautiful celebration there with our neighbors that we have been hoping to meet for a while.

If I could have only told them that we had knelt just a few minutes ago to the God that turns even the hearts of Kings on our favor...
I am fully assured that theday will come when i will be able to communicate those very words.

.............................................
And as I write this Jediah is playing and singing "how great is our God" for a young student from Mongolia we just met 2 nights ago on the bus on our way back from our teaching jobs!

pictures are on their way

eternity

i woke up a 5 this morning with a thought that i still haven't been able to put into words. at least not the right words. so frustrating. (why can't i pull out poems or smart lines out of my hat like my dad or Ben etc...!?) i was thinking after p matti preached on the closeness of eternity- he pretended he was holding a tiny veil between 4 fingers and holding it as close to him as possible, saying: that's how close to us eternity is. Thought provoking.

I thought, time is calculated by light. Light casts shadows. When we enter the world, we enter time and automatically a shadow follows us til we die. That silouhette there on the ground is an ever present reminder of where/what we came from, of how fleeting life is and of what we go back to.

One day every man is united to his shadow in one last embrace with the temporal and dusty element and then .... eternity.

That night we heard that aunt Carly had passed away. oh to be received into the blissful eternity of God's presence!

urgent message!

wow, it's cold!!! Istanbul went from summer to a 1 week autumn to winter it seems!! Who knows for how long though! But we are soooo grateful to John for bringing our coats from Baltimore (and for Isabelle and Janet to make it happen)
We have most our winter clothes still back home and so if you know of anyone coming to Turkey in November, please let us know so we can contact them.

Turkish Alphabet:

One of the nice thıngs about the Turkish Language ıs that by just knowıng the alphabet you are able to read just about any word acurately. Here's a quick overview

a (as ın Hat)
b
c (reads lıke englısh J)
ç (read tsh)
d
e (as ın 'red')
f
g
ğ (silent letter, serves to lengthen sound of preceedıng vowel)
h
i
ı (i wıthout a dot: guttural sound like when someone punches you ın the stomach)
j (only used ın borrowed words, lıke french J)
k
l
m
n
o
ö (read as in 'duh', or the french 'eu' sound)
p
q
r (sounds lıke an R wıth a little S sound)
s
ş (read sh)
t
u (as in 'moon')
v (sounds between a V and a W)
(no X or W)
y
z

could you tell ı was usıng a turkısh keyboard!? ;)

Sorry it's been so long.........

T E A M H O U S E

The first morning after moving into the team house was one of those mornings when coffee has a crucial place in one's life. The night before we had moved all our stuff in, painted the whole entire living room, etc... I tiptoed into our for-the-most-part-empty kitchen and carefully collected our last drinkable water, poured it into the electric water boiler, turned it on and -mistake oh great mistake- left the kitchen for another morning routine... when i returned someone had filled up the boiler with contaminated tap water for showering purposes (we didn't have hot water then)
I just stood there watching and sighing over my empty coffee mug and what could have been a great coffee. i whispered with half a smile and looking up to the ceiling: "Hhhhaaaa, team house!"

SO!!! The team house!
Let me tell you about it, it's big, it's great, it's yellow and gold and green and blue and buzzing with life, and children's laughter. Jediah and I moved in a week before Zoumrad and her kids arrived. Our room is on the smaller side' so we decided to get a loft bed to have more usable space. One morning, we headed out to IKEA and as we enter the store, Jediah prays, Lord let there be a loft bed in the AS-IS section. And voila! Wouldn't you know, God had placed the exact loft bed we had seen online and dreamed of getting but had to give up on as it was too expensive. There it was less than half it's price, mostly because one main piece was missing.
Jediah came up with a solution in less than an hour and here we are now with our miracle bed.

PLEASE PRAY AS WE STILL NEED QUITE A FEW THINGS TO MAKE THIS HOUSE FULLY OPERABLE (WASHER, COUCH AND ARM CHAIRS, TABLE AND CHAIRS, ETC)

John Von Buchwald arrived yesterday, he is a great addition to this wonderful house. We had a great prayer meeting this morning over coffee.
Our landlord is a tough one! We had a few 'wrestling matches' in order to get our gas turned on, some ancient windows replaced etc. Beside that he is fine.
Our neighbors seem very kind, 2 have invited us over for coffee. Please pray for more contacts with the others to develop. I personally can't wait to go in a 'real' Turkish home and get a feel of what their home lives are like.

Here are a few more pictures:

the foyer our first meeting in the team house! I am sure you will appreciate our temporary curtains! (straight from africa!!)Jozsika sitting on our expensive furniture

taking a nap while daddy is shopping for the house Zoumrad and Leyla having coffee
picture to re-appear soon

RAMAZAN - one more week to go

Ramazan: prayers are intensified, faces are stern, drums wake everybody up -faithful ramazanians as well as the others- at 4:30 am, food is more important than ever ->eat before 5 am and eat as soon as the first night prayer echoes, advertisement for 'ramazan specials' (ie foods) fill the shops and fronts of stores.

watch this short video to get an idea of what it sounds like in some places during the prayer call / the quality is not that great, but you can definitely get an idea!