We’ve started our ministry here in Turkey and already it has been a very life giving and humbling time. As far as direct ministry goes, our schedule hasn’t been filled too strenuously. We have only been asked to clean the church and assist in set up and tear down of the Sunday service, yet in those two things we found very sweet connections! In cleaning the church, we got to here the testimony of a woman who came to Turkey as a religious refugee. She recounted her conversion to God after her and her husband encountered Christ together, hearing Him speak to her. They joined an underground, house church and had to flee Iran after they were caught. So many people, including her, know the immense risk of following Christ in their nations. They know that for them it means complete ostracism from their families and communities, that it means intense persecution that is even carried out on a systemic scale, everything is telling them not to do it, and yet they see Him and “press on to make it [their] own, because Christ has made [them] His own” (Philippians 3:12).
Following that, following the Sunday service, the church always has a time to sit down for some coffee and tea (Turkish style of course) and meaningful conversation. I had the opportunity to sit with our host’s mother and talk with her as she only speaks Bulgarian and Russian. As the token Russian speaker on the squad, I relished the opportunity to sit down with her and learn as much as I could understand about her and her family. Then I had another amazing opportunity to the hear the testimony from a mother of four from Azerbaijan. She also spoke Russian, and recounted for us, her first encounter with Christ. Assuming my Russian is as good as I think it is, she was a young girl who was out swimming with her family, and while she was in a more secluded part of the water, she heard a masculine voice say that He was Christ, that she would come to Him, and that she would move to Turkey. Being a young girl in a culturally Islamic family, she had no idea who Christ was and she of course started to swim away from the voice, until she felt someone grab her wrist. She swam as fast as she could back to her family to tell them but there was nobody around for miles. Now, many years later, she has come to know His name and to pursue Him, and of course, she has also moved to Turkey.
All these amazing stories have bolstered my faith in Christ and gave me even more reason to rejoice for the growth of the body of Christ in those nations where they seek out to repress His name. Yet, even as this aspect of my faith has grown, the part that had faith in myself had faltered. Throughout the whole process of fundraising for this mission, I looked at others as donations flooded in and praised the Lord for their good fortune but never looked at myself as thinking that I was somebody who was going to get fully fundraised, that I didn’t have what it takes to do so; but in this last week, the Lord has shown me that my faith was wrongly placed. In a rejuvenated effort to fundraise my last bit, it has been the immense kindness and generosity of people of the field that has overwhelmed me. I received donations from fellow racers as well as other missionaries that I had met in Romania and even the parent of a fellow racer and a friend back home. It’s been the belief, and the love inherent therein, that God is doing something amazing and He’s using me to do it that has resuscitated a confidant belief in God. The belief that I am not just a spectator to His works but an active participant in them. He wants me here to do these amazing things with Him.
It has been a wonderfully sweet week with the aforementioned stories and all the sweet things in between that I wish I could recount. In this time, I just ask that y’all would continue to keep my fundraising in your prayers and that you would share what God is doing with others. Please pray for the efforts of the church and the gospel here, that the Lord would soften the hearts of culturally Islamic people and thereby prepare their hearts to receive His word. I’m so thankful for everybody’s continual support, thanking the Lord for y’all daily! I’m excited to update y’all as more happens and so until then, I’ll see y’all on the flippity flip!
Wow. Chills, tears, then back to chills again. Your penmanship consistently takes me on an adventure Jakson. This quote will stick with me, “The belief that I am not just a spectator to His works but an active participant in them.” I love seeing you experience the depths of His love and embrace the reality of Him being a good dad who wants to do everything with us. A good parent doesn’t need a 5 year-old’s help driving the truck, or cooking dinner (hopefully) but they want to partner with us, teach us, and watch us grow. God desires the same on an infinite scale, and it’s beautiful seeing you live and walk in His love. Thank you for sharing, being obedient, and walking alongside me (and all of us) as a loving brother. <3 (standard keyboard's rendition of a heart)