Hey everyone! I hope this finds you well! We recently landed in nepal but I wanted to give a quick little recap of Turkey before posting about it. Turkey feels so long ago but I’m thankful for our last couple of weeks there. Here are a couple highlights and things that happened during our time!

On one of our teams a girl came to know Jesus as lord! This story was written out by one of my teammates and so I just copied it on over for this blog. I love how faithful and bold this team was! So cool that God is moving everywhere!

“This past Wednesday night we went to a coffee shop to hang out and meet with people prayed for a divine appointment and a girl came up to our table and asked if her and friend could join and sit. So we gladly had them sit. Their names are Simya and Miney. As we sat there Nathan got to share his testimony with simyas first question being “why are you here in Biga?” He passionately shared how Jesus changed his life. Later in the night, Shania got to share how Jesus changed her life and her story and it was a great night of sharing who Jesus is to us. That day I invited Simya to our Bible study the next day, with some miscommunication from our host she wasn’t able to make it. Friday night we saw her again at a different coffee shop she came and joined us this time just her. We talked about movies and she told us her favorite movie was the “passion of the Christ” we knew God was tugging at her heart as she was a Muslim. So I tried again and invited her to church for our Saturday service and she came!! She showed up during “tea time” and met Pastor Sarah, her daughter and some people that attend the church. We invited her to our home for dinner and she joined us, and while dinner was being prepared Simya asked me questions about Christianity. She told me Islam wasn’t making sense to her and she didn’t agree with things from the Quran. She even shared how her mom didn’t know how to back up the Quran that she“just has to follow Islam” and so l opened my Bible with her, handed her a Turkish Bible and we got to read John 4 the Samaritan woman’s story and how it changed my life. Then we read 1 Corinthians 13 and I explained to her the love God has for her. We then gathered as a group shared a meal and after we went around and all shared a word to her and prayed over her. She had tears in her eyes and we know the Holy Spirit touched her heart. She went home with the Bible and was excited to read it and have one. Later that week we were able to lead Simya to Jesus!!”

One Sunday we had over 20 Muslim, theology students come to our Sunday service. It was such a great opportunity to ask them questions, answer questions and just get to know them. We met two sweet girls from that group who we were able to hang out with multiple times! We went to get coffee and do art. They also took us out to eat and showed us their favorite foods. I miss them very much and am so thankful for that sweet opportunity!

We were able to visit Troas Alexandria. This place is found in Acts 16 when Paul had a vision calling him to preach in Europe. It was also where he met up with the early church

I had the opportunity to prepare a message for our little congregation for Palm Sunday service. It really got me out of my comfort zone to speak but it was such a good opportunity.

Our squad was able to come alongside our church and put on a local Easter service. After weeks of practice we preformed 7 Turkish songs, 2 English worship songs, 3 dances, one skit and a message given by our host Yordan! 50 bibles were passed out and more people came to the program this year than last year. We were able to preform, share the gospel and pray for those in the community! If you’d like to watch the performance here’s the link. It was a lot of fun!

A sweet woman who we prayed for in our church invited my team over for dinner, a sleep over and then Turkish breakfast. She didn’t speak any English but we used Google Translate to learn about how she came to know Jesus. Her hospitality reminded me of the fun girls nights I often have back at home. It was so sweet and honestly something I want to do more of when I get back home!

At the end of our time in Turkey we went on a road trip to visit all 7 churches of revelation. It was so cool to have to opportunity to do this and to do it over Holy Week! As we went to each church we read over the passage and prayed. We also got to see hot air balloons!

Just some things I miss from the different countries I’ve been to- grilled chicken on the rooftop in Guatemala, our Guatemala prayer room, plantains, a living room and prayer set with candles, the spice market in Macedonia, Greece cheese that we put on everything, all the cats in Europe, Turkish tea, dates from Turkey, our cheese guy at the market, all the fresh produce and not being scared of eating fresh stuff. Cooking in a kitchen- we have our meals cooked for us but the other day we were able to help out in the kitchen!

Ok that’s it for turkey! God taught me a lot in turkey. He taught me how to trust him with the future. How to ask him questions and listen for a response. He taught me that time with him is so important. And he taught me how to pray more and more. So thankful!

Now off to Nepal in my next post! :)