Easter in Antioch

We left Saturday morning; there were six of us. Four Americans including me, and two Turks - a fellow teacher and her mom. Only two of us were Believers, as far as I know.

Saturday wasn't all that important to me, since I'd been to the city before, although I did hit up the museum again. But it was Sunday that I had been looking forward to, and it was worth it! We went to St. Peter's church, a cave where early Christians met and Peter is supposed to have preached. After exploring a bit, we sat outside of the cave and read the Easter story. Tears came to my eyes reading about our risen Lord in the place where his followers were first called Christians. Then, later, we went to the Protestant church in Antioch, and again, I was moved to tears just being in a room so full of other Christians! You can't imagine how much being here wears on you - it was so refreshing to be with so many other Believers!

Turkish Language

Here are some Bible verses in Turkish. I'll write them in Turkish, then with interlinear translation. For the full translation, go read your copy of the Good Book!

Genesis 1:1 Başlangıçta Tanrı göğü ve yeri yarattı.

Başlangıç -ta Tanrı göğ -ü ve yer -i yarat -tı.

beginning-in God heaven - obj. and earth-obj. create -past

John 3:16a Çünkü Tanrı dünyayı o kadar çok sevdi ki, biricik Oğlunu verdi.

Çünkü Tanrı dünya -yı o kadar çok sev -di ki, biricik Oğlu -nu ver -di.

because God world-obj. that much very love-past rel. only son -his give -past

A word of explanation for the abbreviations and labels in the interlinear text:

obj. = direct object of a verb

past = past tense of a verb

rel. = relative pronoun, "that" in a phrase like "The dog that he bought"

And that's it for now, folks! See you next time!

Tea with Shepherds

After lunch today, I was heading back to the office when I saw Judy and Devon on their way out.

“We’re going for a walk up the hill, wanna come?”

Of course I did. So I joined them for the walk up the hill that runs beside the one currently operational building on campus, till Zirve’s property ends. The border is marked by a rather imposing barb-wire fence, as if it were a prison, or a military base. On the other side of the fence, however, is idyllic pasture perfect for herds of sheep and goats to graze on. And that’s exactly what was happening.

We could see to our left one shepherd with his flock, tending them in the distance. Eventually, they came closer, and another shepherd with another flock arrived suddenly from the right. It was fascinating watching scores of sheep pour over the ridge not far from us, but which had blocked our view of their approach until now. As the shepherd approached, riding a donkey while talking on his cell phone, we saw a perfect photo opp.

Now the sheep were very near us, in fact directly on the opposite side of the fence a little to our right. So we went over, and while we were ooh-ing and aah-ing over the sheep, the shepherds started trying to talk to us. Turns out one of them spoke a little bit of English.

“Where are you from? What is your name?” he asked, and we answered, one by one.

We were discussing the freedom these shepherds must feel with their simple life and contrasting it with ours. The sheep surely can’t be as hard to deal with as a bunch of hormonal 18-25 year olds, right? These guys don’t have to worry about staying all day at work even if there’s nothing to do. And so on.

The shepherds would occasionally call their sheep with bizarre whoops and hollers, and I started thinking about John 10 in a whole new way.

Suddenly, “Çay istiyor musunuz?”

“Is he offering us tea?”

“I think so...”

“Okay,” we told him.

They start gathering the dead brushweed lying around. “Are they going to start a fire and brew it up right here?”

Turns out that’s exactly what they were going to do. They lit a fire with the dead stuff, pulled out a very old, very black teapot, and put it directly on top of the burning weeds. A few moments later, one of the men pulled out a glass - glass! - tea cup, and poured a small amount into the glass, then poured it out again - to sterilize the glass. He did this one more time, then handed me the glass, and proffered a jug of sugar with the small, silver teaspoons common to Turkey. He poured tea into the glass and I took a couple of spoonfuls of sugar.

It looked like there was only the one glass, so I started sharing it with Judy and Devon. As it turned out there was one more, so we were sharing two glasses between us.

“I think this is the best çay I’ve ever had,” Judy said. We all quickly agreed. “Maybe we should do this every day.” We all quickly agreed. And once again, Turkey proved to have bizarre, pleasant adventures in store where you least expect them.

Türk İnsanlar Çok Güzel

"Turkish people are wonderful!"

I just had the most amazing experience. I went to the café where I know the owner, and ordered a quick bite to eat. Because it’s a lovely day here in Antep, I sat outside, and there was another gentleman there, to whom I said about one word in Turkish - I don’t even remember what I said. But because I had tried to speak to him, he invited me to play “Tavula,” that is, Backgammon, with him. We then had a pleasant game and a coupe of çays together, exchanging English and Turkish words here and there, exchanging English and Turkish conversation. It was wonderful! The kind of thing that makes all the rest of it worth while.

Vacations and Coming Back

THIS POST WAS WRITTEN A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, BUT NEVER QUITE FINISHED. I'VE POSTED IT HERE ANYWAY.

Just returned from two weeks spent trouncing around Turkey with the love of my life. This vacation was much needed for a variety of reasons. It was invaluable for Christina’s and my relationship, allowing us to be together in the same place for the first time since we began dating. Unfortunately, I won’t divulge much more on that subject - our relationship is worthy of a blog of its own, so I will do the difficult task and maintain the focus of this blog on the experience of this country.

And that experience during this vacation revealed to me that, when you actually get out in it, this country isn’t so bad. Not that it’s bad usually, but when life becomes routine and you feel trapped at work all day every day and uninterested in doing anything else after work, it can seem that way. It seems boring and depressing. But seeing new, wonderful parts of it breathes fresh life into the experience of living here.

When I returned, however, it was right back into the grind. There was a major upheaval that resulted from administrative missteps, and soured my mood about this experience almost immediately. I won’t go into detail because it is not my intention to defame my workplace. However, I will express how it has affected me.

How can I respond to these fiascos? Well, in typical introspective fashion, I find myself asking how this is affecting my relationship with Christ and my experience of the Gospel. In other words, I’m asking myself: “What is God teaching me through this?”

First, of course, is perseverance. Whatever poor decisions are made by admins, I am responsible for my own reaction, and I still have a job to do. All I can do is do the best that I can in my responsibilities.

Second, I can’t help but ask the same question I have been asking, which has been on my mind from the beginning: how much of this is cultural, how much is unique to my employer?

Third, it may be God’s way of showing me the drawbacks of inefficiency and sluggardly work. I often worry about my work ethic. I think I’m too lazy, or too undisciplined. Seeing the negative results of such attitudes in others helps me desire to avoid them myself. It is essentially a motivator - I see how bad things get, so I want to do better myself. The problem is, I am still too self-focused when I think this way.

And that brings me back to the gospel.

Every Tribe, Tongue, and Nation

January 10, 2009

In contrast to Monday’s discouragement, thanks to joining the body of Christ today, I am very encouraged. Besides being a beautiful weekend in general, today’s service at church included people from all over. This is not unusual, as a couple of regular attendees are Arabic, and there are two Korean girls, and the pastor’s wife is Korean. Besides, there have been teams from Russia and a couple of other places before, too. And all that is in addition to the fact that there are brothers in Christ in Turkey! That in and of itself is enough to pump me up, knowing that here are my brothers even though I can barely communicate with them.

So what happens today? There’s an Iranian fellow in church, and after a short prayer in Turkish, someone asked him to pray in Farsi. After that, we went around the room, praying in all the languages that were represented, which ended up being an impressive list of five languages: Turkish, Farsi, English, Korean, and Kurdish.

The last was interesting too, since I didn’t realize that some of the men at church were Kurdish. I’m not even 100% sure it was Kurdish, but I’m guessing based on some previous experiences. Like the Christmas party, where the pastor was talking about the Kurdish word for “Come,” which is, apparently, “Wala!” I didn’t follow why he was talking about Kurdish, because I didn’t know that anyone was Kurdish. But when they asked one of the guys to pray in yet another language that wasn’t any of the other four, I realized it must be Kurdish.

Every time these experiences occur at church, I’m reminded of the global scope of Christ’s kingdom, and how He truly is Lord of every tribe, tongue, and nation. And nothing excites me more!

Discouragement

Judy put the word to it. That feeling we've all been experiencing over the last several weeks, at least. It's discouragement.

With administrative missteps, hormonal and uncaring students, the rose colored glasses of this whole teaching overseas experience have fallen like the scales from the blind man's eyes. Don't get me wrong - I still see God's hand in this, as I posted last time. And this discouragement will not crush me. One way or the other, I know I will be stronger because of this. But it is a real feeling, and needs to be addressed.

I would really like to see this university succeed and prosper. I pray for its prosperity daily. But it seems that lack of a clear vision, lack of motivation on the students' part, and consequently lack of motivation on the teachers' part, are counteracting that desire. I find myself more and more just wanting to be home.

It will come soon enough, I'm sure. And in the meantime, I am in TURKEY! I never in a million years would have thought I would ever be in this place, but here I am. While I long for home (and a certain girl there), I do not want to pass up the opportunities to experience this place for all its worth. After all, who else can say that they finished reading through the book of Acts in Antioch, where parts of it take place?

Moreover, it is the people here - my friends and co-teachers who, despite religious, linguistic, and cultural differences, make it all worthwhile. I really enjoyed pointing out the Turkish words for things we encountered while walking through Antakya (Antioch) with Duygu and Selda this past weekend. I enjoy exchanging basic pleasantries with all my Turkish colleagues every morning. I enjoy learning slang greetings and phrases from Hasan. I enjoy paying almost nothing for basic food items at the local market down the street, while learning Turkish and teaching English to the shopkeepers. I enjoy fellowshipping with other believers who are my brothers in Christ in spite of linguistic and cultural differences.

And in the words which many people think come from the Kutsal Kitap: "This too shall pass."