February 2011

 

Hello

I finally have internet set up and have written about my first week to keep you up-to-date !

 

I arrived in Turkey on Monday 1 February and was met at the airport by the parents and their oldest daughter of the family I was to stay with.  It was pretty daunting !  After scanning the empty arrival lounge I guessed they’d be outside the airport, where I found them with a tiny sign saying ‘Rachel’.  They were very welcoming and once back at their house they gave me a small meal and some tea and attempted to communicate until I retired to bed !  It was very nerve racking attempting to remember any Turkish I’d picked up from the summer as none of them spoke English apart from their oldest daughter.  They told me my room wasn’t ready yet but would be done tomorrow.

I woke the next morning ridiculously early and disorientated and was waiting for Mum to walk into my room to say 'morning'!  Miscommunications appeared to come to the surface that morning and found it really difficult that I couldn’t do simply things like having a shower without attempting to ask in my best Turkish how to make the hot water work !

At 8.30am an American lady form the church, Lulu, collected the Dad myself and took us to the church on a bus for the prayer meeting.   When  I arrived, I was pretty tearful and nervous about this whole year, but was met by Alision (the lady heading up the programme) and Diana (another lady from the church), both of whom I’d met before.  They prayed for me and when they were praying, although tears were falling down my face, I saw an angel standing in front of me giving me a big hug.  I felt such a presence that I actually thought Alision had moved to the front of me and was giving me the hug - but I opened my eyes to see Alision standing beside me and Diana in front of me.  It was very exciting and gave me peace to continue the day trusting God. 

During the same day (Tuesday) I had my first Turkish lesson and was really encouraged that I knew it all from the summer ! The rest of the team seem nice.  There are 11 of us in the language classes; 4 of us doing the full FP program, although the others will be involved part-time in the FP program too.  There are a number of couples in the group and wide age range - unsurprisingly I’m the youngest.  In the afternoon we met the leadership team and it was nice to see Judith & Helmut again (I stayed with them for a few days in October when I initially visited the church).

After that Diana took me back on the bus to the family’s house.  We then discovered that not only was my room not ready but there was no bed for me!  I’d need to purchase my own bed which would cost around £50 at least.  I agreed, and we made arrangements to go bed shopping the next day.  Later Diana told Alision this and she wasn’t very happy about this situation so Judith said she would donate one of her spare beds to me and would deliver it the next day.

 
The next day Diana phoned to discuss with the family what time the bed would arrive and they said actually they’d changed their mind and it wouldn’t be convenient for me to stay.  I was in bed when all of this was going on so, blissfully unaware, got myself up ready to go bed shopping and wondered why there seemed to be some level of tension in the house.  Unable to communicate to ask what the problem was, I was worried it was because I’d missed the family breakfast as I’d had a lie-in, (Wednesday was suppose to be my day off).   Diana then arrived and I was told that, rather than buying a bed and sightseeing, I would actually spend my day moving out !  So Wednesday was spent moving my stuff on the bus into Diana’s flat (temporarily) !

Although the family were lovely I don’t think it would have worked living there; it was 40 minutes away from the church, and with coming back some evenings from church it wouldn’t have been a good idea.  Also as nice as the family were, I think they were expecting me to be around a lot more than the FP program allowed; they were very into spending lots of time as a family together, which I found a bit much (like being woken up for family breakfast on my day off ! (I was a little confused in my half awaken state but managed to explain in my basic Turkish I would like to sleep!)

Diana’s flat is 15 minutes' walk away from the church, in the centre of town and really close to a lot of people in the church. I am sleeping in a small box room in Diana's flat with glass frosted windows into the lounge, which unfortunately means all the light floods in.  This became an issue over the weekend when her other flat mate had some friends to stay and they stayed up watching TV till 1am on Sunday night, making me not able to sleep and having to get up at 7 next day for my Turkish lesson !  It’s just a temporary option obviously, but I’m just grateful to finally be able to unpack !

 

Diana is going back to England for 6 weeks a week on Wednesday and I will be able to move into her room for that time.  After that we need to find somewhere else for me to live for the rest of the year; please pray the right place is provided.

On Thursday I went to the Turkish prayer meeting and had another Turkish lesson.  Excitingly, as I was leaving church that morning a Turkish couple came up to me, they were yakking away in Turkish and I was like 'errr' and they realised I was English.  The lady then asked me in English if she could visit the church and if it was open today, I explained that it had just closed but told her (in Turkish !) the time of the service on Sunday.  I was encouraged not only that there were people off the street wanting to walk into Church but also that I had enough Turkish to explain what time and day church was !   I was given the afternoon off after the stress of Wednesday - an opportunity to sort out my phone, another job I was going to do on my day off.  It took an hour to sort this out; my Turkish phone number is : +44905549758139.  I’ll still check my English one but my Turkish one is the one I’ll have with me all the time.

 

On Thursday evening I did my first shopping trip to get some food.  However my options were slightly limited as we didn’t have gas in the flat at the time, although that did get sorted next day! 

 
Friday was spent around George & Alision’s house; we had Turkish all morning and then ‘Spiritual Turkish’ where we learnt the basics to construct a simple prayer in Turkish.  In the evening we had our 'family meeting', they introduced us, and we heard a talk about how an area of hidden sin in our life affects the whole body, the importance of accountability in the church and not gossiping.  I found this really challenging and it made me think a lot about how important it was that we realised we were a family (and God’s family at that), and that this should be taking seriously.  In the time of worship I saw a massive angel in one corner of the room where we were meeting; it was as high as the ceiling, glowing white and the biggest one I’d even seen, and it was worshiping the Lord with us.  We then had all night prayer, with people staying until 6am Saturday to pray - it was immense !  I managed till about 2.30am, at which point I was struggling with it being in Turkish and keeping up !

On Saturday we had a welcome meal at Judith & Helmut’s house, where they gave us the history of the church, their core values and bit of background on newfrontiers.  In the evening I met with one of my friends from the summer, Bora, who lives in Izmir in the winter; it was so good to see a familiar face.

 

Church on Sunday was great, one person got saved! 

Please pray I settle in ok.  It’s been a hard, unsettling first week and I have felt so homesick and at times wondered what am I doing here, but God has given me peace and I have had a lot of supernatural dreams and visions reassuring me and giving me peace about being here.

 
Miss you all !

Lots of love

Rachel XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX