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!

every day life

STAYING AT P. MATTI'S WAS A BLAST

A CAFE AT THE FOOT OF A GREEN MOSQUE

NO COMMENTS

IKEA SOS!

SOME STREETS ARE DEFINITELY TOO SMALL

A COMMON AND COLORFUL FRUIT STAND

BUSES DRIVE TOOOO FAST HERE!

VIEW OF AN OLD CHURCH - HEARING THE BELLS EVERY

MORNING IS A VERY SPECIAL TREAT

The sun rose on cooler Istanbul, what a relief from the past very hot weeks. We're also feeling a little better, still recovering though!... P Matti traveled to Ankara to get a new passport. He should be back in a couple days. P Joszi is back with little Rebecca. What an adorable child!
Sunday we are scheduled to finally move into the TEAM HOUSE! Today we'll be picking out paint, light fixtures and such things. And after that, one of our first purchase is going to be a fridge. Keep us in your prayers as we set out to furnish this big house, little by little, which is quite an undertaking since we have yet to figure out the best places to acquire those.
We are excitedly anticipating the soon coming birth of our nephew Levi... in a couple hours we were told!

under the weather

Jediah got sick a couple days ago (flu like symptoms) and I'm starting to not feel too good myself, please pray for prompt recoveries. Reading Watchman Nee's biography and last night's service, are enough encouragement to have great expectations from God and to not be good at 'excusing' God (when our expectations are not met-or prayers seem unanswered) on the contrary; keep on praying! If we show up before God with a spoon, He'll fill it, with a bucket, He'll fill it, with a pool, He'll fill it, with an ocean! He'll fill it.

"GIRLS CRAFT NIGHT"

Once a week, a bunch of girls meet at Irada and Niyazi's house for a fun time of crafts (here we made frames out of just about anything we could get our hands on) Yesterday we made little objects with salt dough. It is just an awesome way to casually invite ladies (believers or not) to get a taste of the body of Christ.
Irada also always treats us with her gift of baking.


IRADA, NINA, ASTRID & SARAH

WE GOT JOBS (that is 2 weeks ago, sorry for the delay)

"Active English Learning" is the name of this language school for adults. It's located about 1 hour away using the comfortable AC metro or tram; 30-40 mn in the over crowded and over heated buses, but only 20 mn in the 'formula one' mini-buses! (I screamed the whole way there the first time we got in one- it's sensational to say the least) That's me Sarah, by the way. (Jediah wanted to make sure it was clear that it wasn't him screaming in the van!) Though it's quite far away, we enjoy the change of scenery and always enjoy our time there.
The program is great. It hardly requires any preparation at all. Classes are at night for the most part (7:30 - 9:30) and each class is 2 hours of constant talking, gesturing, moving etc... except for a 15 mn break half way through. The method, which requires 13 months of dedication from the students, has very impressive results.
We're only teaching about 6-8 hours a week each for now, and don't plan to do too much more as to not take away from the rest of our activities.
We became friends with 2 teachers there, among others, her name is Sarah - from Utah and her husband's Moyad form Irak. A wonderful couple with the cutest 3 kids you've ever seen. (They remind me of my favorite kids- the Karowich's - ....i'm almost a 100% sure i got the spelling wrong) They have been looking for a church for a long time, and visited us last sunday. Unfortunately for us, they are moving back to the States soon.
Please pray for Murat, Saheed, Aissa, Rudi, Duncan, Derya, Mariam, Gozde and all the many others we are in contact with there!

waiting for the team house to be ready (+ pics of Jed's birthday below)

We just got a promotion; we moved from the 1st floor to the 4th, and from a muslim's apartment to a pastor's dwelling place. P matti kindly offered to share his 2 bedroom apart with us for the next 4 days. (does he really know what he's got himself into? ... not so sure) so this morning we moved out of our place, met with the new renters, they gave us money for the 2cnd half of the sept rent; a few minutes later our landlord joined the party, as planned, and half scared us to death.

As Jediah was pulling our contract out of his pocket he asks our landlord if he brought our deposit -which he had agreed to give us back when we left. At that moment, and in an explosion of words and gestures, Suleman tries to grab the contract out of Jediah's hands and yells:

"I will not give you your money!!"

As Jediah tightens his grip on the contract, Suleman explodes again -but in laughter this time. He thought his joke was extremely funny. ll 4 of us soon joined in the laughing though it was a rather nervous laugh on our part...
It was so easy leaving our cozy little aprt. I don't know why exactly except that we are sooo ready for more adventures. (I think the team house will amply provide us with a daily dose of adventure -smiles-)

i'm sitting at p matti's desk in his bedroom, on his computer. he is such a simple man. no pretentions at all. Jed and him left for a soccer game, like they have every sat night with a good group of Turkish guys.

P Matti's 2 desires for this fall was to have Bible College classes and a choir. Both are happening. At least one is and the other is about to happen in 3 days. Yes our first B C class is going to be held on Tuesday night! and the choir is already practicing their second song. It consists of 4 men. It's very precious. I was actually the one that brought up the idea of a men's choir. I have always loved men's choirs. I also have to confess that i was trying to avoid it at all cost...isn't that terrible? and to confess that on a christian blog. pure decadence.

PICS FROM JEDIAH'S BIRTHDAY

lunch at the foot of the Galata Tower

listening to his niece singing happy birthday!

and behind us a box of oranges fell over, the content spilling on the street and rolling down !!

celebrating with friends at the church

delicious chocolate-raspberry cake from local pastry shop

Azeri tradition wants that the birthday person gets his ears pulled once for each year that has passed. 'ouch' x 27

Make sure to check our church's blog: http://www.istanbulgg.blogspot.com/

MOVING!

It's finally happening this Saturday. We were able to come to an agreement with our landlord to move out of our apartment -which was too expensive for us- without loosing any money and even getting a good chunk of our deposit back. We'll be staying somewhere - yet to be figured out- until the team house is ready. Maybe just a question of 5 days or so. There's the option of a youth hostel, we'll check it out soon. Thank you for praying for all the details involved!