Realization

My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do. For some reason this song has been playing in my head for the past couple of days. After Ankara, our team split in half because we all felt that God wanted us to go to separate places. My team went to Cappadocia while the other half went to Konya and Kuthalia. We were apart for five days which seemed like forever since this is our family. So during those five days our team slept in a cave. The place was Gӧreme. It is a village of 3,500 people and one the most touristic part of Turkey. I must say it’s also one of the most beautiful. Snow-capped mountains, fairy chimneys, and the most breathe-taking views I have ever seen. In the summer it’s usually desert looking with the sand and not much greening. God did a great job with that landscaping!

So our main goal was to find people in the village to share about Jesus and His salvation.  As it turned out though, God had a different idea. On the first day we split up in three pairs and started walking the streets. Kristine and I decided to just walk to where we felt was right. Eventually we ended up in a carpet store talking to a guy named Osman. He offered us ҫay (tea) which is Turkish custom and we sat and just talked. We asked all kinds of questions, like what people do for fun, what traditions they have, and finally about Muslims and Jesus. We asked him about his religion to show that we were interested in his take (which we are). Honestly though that is about as deep as the conversation was. He told us that “missionaries” come all the time. So Kristine and I were both very interested in what he had to say about that. He said that some came with money to bribe, some come to tour, and others were kind of aggressive with it. He was very open-minded with what we were doing but it just didn’t seem right to try to “change” him. We left that day with nothing that I felt accomplished with.

We didn’t get to go back the next day because we had other plans but the next day we defiantly went back. Turkish tradition is to by a little gift so before we headed over we stopped by a pastry shop. We got up to his store and we prayed for guidance and words from God for him. We went in with the intent of bringing Jesus this time but we again, God had a different idea. He went for ҫay as Kristine, Alex, and I talked about what we were going to say. The Spirit was definably in the room because all of a sudden our ideas shifted and we decided that God just wanted His love to show today for Osman.

So that’s just what we did. We showed him that we loved and cared for him. We didn’t talk about the bible or Jesus. We just asked about his life and how he was raised. We showed that we cared for him. That was all, nothing spiritual about it.