It's the Final Countdown......Turkey

And so I've nearly reached the end of my "Journey".  Two last days in Istanbul and then I fly to Vienna, and although Vienna isn't exactly "home" and I have the 24-7 Gathering there to look forwards to, I don't see it as part of the original trip.  Vienna and the Gathering are a kind of 'punctuation point' to the trip as well as being a significant event in and of itself, and although it will still be another couple of weeks before I'm actually back in the UK, I consider Istanbul to be my "last stop" on this particular leg of the adventure!

Practically, this has very little bearing on anything....I still get to explore Vienna, travel with planes and buses and cars, meet new people I haven't stayed with before and continue to learn to see and recognise God's beauty in diverse languages, cultures and locations!  On a mental/emotional aspect, it just means I'm beginning to "land" and find myself preparing/anticipating the "return" to various things.  Even the return to as much of a "western european" culture as Austria will be, will be interesting with the increase of prices, the availability of "Italian Style" coffee shops(vs male dominated tavernas/coffee houses/tea gardens), "western" multi-national corporations and brand names and a bit of adjustment as to who/what I am in the midst of it all!

But that's all still to come! :)

The last week and a half(has it only been that long??) has allowed me to see some lovely country, connect and reconnect with some lovely people and enjoy various aspects of Turkish culture, while trying to gain even a little understanding of some of the complexities here.

From Skopje I "caught a lift" with Tommie and Gunilla Naumann down to a little place called Peraia (Περαια in Greek, I think??) which is on the outskirts of Thessaloniki.  The Naumann's kindly let me stay in a "guest apartment" their community has for friends and visitors, which I shared with a Serbian artist friend of theirs named Alexandra.  The Naumann's moved down to Thessaloniki a number of years ago to help with the process of stepping out of church leadership within the Glasnost community.  Ironically(or not, if you ever meet the Naumann's!), within a year or so they found themselves helping to lead and grow another little community in Thessaloniki which has grown and developed and is now involved in some work with Roma children and which often hosts YWAM or Vision Course-type teams.  This last year though, Tommie & Gunilla and another couple who have been involved, have felt lead to step out of this role, too, with a hope to begin developing/modelling more of a "discipleship based" church model.  They are also looking to develop and extend some of the social work and family support work they've found developing with Peraia itself.  Its still very early days for this "new work" and will probably take a year or two to fully begin to see the shape or form or "success" of it all, but in the mean time is still the absolutely simple, practical and "grass roots" approach I've also associated with what the Naumann's do!

View from Paraia

Shot of the White Tower along the waterfront in Thessaloniki

Waterfront art installation, Thessoloniki (very apt as it was raining and I'd left my jacket in Skopje!! I also liked the heart!)

Graffiti art, Thessoloniki

Unfortunately I managed to pick up a fairly nasty cough & cold as I passed through Thessaloniki, but continued with a smoothly transitioned 16hr bus trip to Izmir where I was met by Katy and Moses Smith, taken to their home in Urla, and plied with copious amounts of hot lemon, ginger and honey and wonderful fresh vegetables and fruit, aside from the wonderfully warm and gentle hospitality of the Smiths!

Some of you may remember the Smith's(Richard, Katy & Moses) who used to head up the Colchester Boiler Room for 24-7 Prayer!  Having had Turkey on their hearts for many years, they finally moved out to Izmir a few years back, with a heart for prayer and to love people around them, well!  They connected with some friends who were already functioning within a little community there and for the last two years have sought to serve, encourage and develop a similar heart for prayer within this group as they experienced in Colchester.  They have also be seeking to develop a heart to see children's work developed into something more than just a "babysitting service" to give the parents a break!  But now, having gained a solid language base and some experience within the culture they are now considering their next steps, which should be exciting whatever that ends up looking like!

Moses trying out his new rollerblades

Out for a "Turkish Breakfast"(oh glory!) with Richard, Katy, Moses and their friend Claire

Some of the local community in Urla 

helping prep for an upcoming prayer week

Treated to Turkish coffee at the local market!

I really enjoyed getting to know Richard & Katy a bit more, as they are a couple I have "crossed paths" with a number of times and have always been struck by how genuine and "gently determined" they seemed.  I now feel I can call them "friends" and really hope that this will grow with time and opportunities to support and visit them as they "move forwards"!

From Izmir I took an overnight bus up to Istanbul where I arrived into one of the craziest bus stations I've ever seen! (forgot to take a photo though!!)  This thing had about four floors of cavernous-type garages which you travelled up through to get to the "arrivals" area, which itself seemed a bit of a "free for all" parking lot with buses, taxis and porters all vying for space and services!  I managed to discourage the porters when they saw the size of bagpack and managed to avoid the taxi drivers by walking "purposefully & with boredom" in the only direction which made sense!!  Fortunately, this also led to the metro station on the other side of the station, so I managed to get myself into the town centre and find the "House of the Pomegranate" which was where I would be staying for my first few nights.

The "House of the Pomegranate" is the name of the apartment owned by an English/Turkish couple who somehow managed to inherit an apartment in the absolute centre of Istanbul!

Istanbul is a massive sprawling city covering various peninsulas along both the east and west sides of the Bosphorous Straits and the Marmara Sea.  The eastern coast is considered to be part of Asia and the western coast is considered to be part of Europe, with a little "blob" which sticks out on its own into the Sea of Marmara and which was the home of the Sultan during the Ottoman Empire.

Just across the "Golden Horn" on the "European Side" was the historical neighbourhood which homed the European tradespeople and consulates, etc, during the Ottoman Empire, at the top of which was a good old stone tower(once part of a series of defensive walls....) named the Galata Tower.  The reason I tell you all this is that the House of the Pomegranate is located literally 500m from the Galata Tower, which in the Istanbul "Tourist Scene" would be like being on Park Avenue!!  I was a 10 min walk or a short ferry ride from all the "classic" tourist spots(Topkapi, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, Taksim Square......) which was INCREDIBLE!!

View of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque from the Bosphorous

Hagia Sophia, originally built as a church by the Emperor Justinian but then made into a mosque under the Ottoman Empire

The Blue Mosque

The ceiling within the Blue Mosque(named so for the number of expensive blue tiles used!)

Entrance to the Spice Bazaar(I forgot to take photos of the Grand Bazaar!!!)

I was kindly allowed to stay there by a friend of Tommie & Gunilla's, a Canadian/Danish lady named Karen who has lived in Turkey for the last 20-25yrs, first in the eastern, Kurdish region, then the south and now in Istanbul.

From this base I was also able to get across to the Asian Side(gotta love ferry boats!!!) to visit a wonderful couple named Andrew & Renee Nolte, who I knew from my home church in Vancouver.  They have been living near Istanbul for just over two years, but are now in the process of moving to the Cappadocian region, to help develop an adventure tourism company there, among other things!  They have friends who established the Epik Encounter tourism company in the east of the country and who would love to see a branch open in the centre, so the Nolte's are going to be looking into what it would take to open one there!  It was SUCH a blessing to get to catch up with them and meet their children and hear some of their hopes for what's ahead in the next few years!

Andrew & Renee Nolte, with their kids Elijah, Azayriah(the youngest, Josiah was sleeping)

I then had one final day in the "tourist town" of Istanbul, enjoying getting lost in the Grand Bazaar, considering the beauty of the Blue Mosque and just wandering around, trying to remember spots I visited 15 years ago when I was here with my sister-in-law!  Yesterday I made my way out of the centre to another "friend of a friend", this time a lovely English woman, Jen Graves, who moved out here a couple of years ago to teach English and who has a passionate heart to see something done to fight against the prevalence of children living on the street. (among other things!)  She welcomed me incredibly warmly with an amazingly yummy meal, ice cream desert and  a wonderfully comfy bed!(I even managed to catch up on Strictly Come Dancing as part of my "re-entry preparation"! ;)

So today has been a wonderfully relaxed day, catching up on postcards, journalling, blogging and, hopefully, ridding myself further of this cough!!  Tomorrow will be a day to check out Jen's church and meet some friends, before heading to the airport on Monday to fly to Vienna!

What an incredible, amazing, blessed opportunity of a lifetime I've been allowed to have over the past few months!  When I approached this trip I had a combination of grandiose dreams, some fears and a whole lot of "not knowing what to expect"......God simply told me to expect a scavenger hunt of goodness!  And it SO has been that!  The fears never matriculated, the grandiose dreams transformed into gentle blessings and friendships and the "not knowing" simply allowed each new place, person and experience to be beautiful gifts!

I STILL have no idea if/how this trip will practically affect what comes next for me in the months ahead, but I DO know that it has opened and widened my understanding of generosity and hospitality, it has created some new friendships and connections which I am SO grateful for, and it has challenged me with the ongoing need to look "outwards" from our own little lives, if only to the family down the road or the person hunched in the cold at the train station.  I know that I will continue to be challenged by my own hypocrisy in wanting a heart of compassion at the same time as loving emotional safety and lifestyle stability, but I SO value travel, learning, pilgrimaging and exposure to "not our norms" for how it challenges and enriches how I interact with this world.

Thank you Lord Jesus, SO MUCH, for this time, for the safety, provision and generosity you've shown me and for each one of the incredible people or places I've been allowed to get to know(even a little!) :)

Sunset over Istanbul