Dear Family,
The past week was defined by two experiences, one with fleeing refugees and one with the process of becoming legal.
I haven’t ridden a bike for six weeks. And only three times during the two weeks before that. So my legs have lost a bunch of muscle mass (boohoo) and, when I climb stairs, I feel like I am on a steep mountain side. So I decided to take up early morning walking, just the thing for a drooping seventy-four year old man. I have needed to do something. Even though walking does nothing for a person’s cardio-vascular system, it is way better than doing nothing. For the past week, I have been walking for an hour each morning, heading south along the nicely arranged boardwalk along the bay. Most mornings I see dozens and dozens of mostly Syrian refugees sleeping on the grass or on benches or on the hard concrete surfaces that stretch along the bay. Most of these people are youngish men, in their late teens or twenties, who are desperate to reach European soil and to escape the horrors of war and sectarian attacks against Christians and certain kinds of Muslims. The closest European soil is on the Greek islands just off the Turkish western coastline. In viewing these people, especially the sleeping women and children, I feel tugs in my heart. For months I have read newspaper and internet accounts of such people getting on rickety boats and then drowning in the Mediterranean Sea when the boats sink. Hundreds of fleeing refugees have perished this year trying to make the Italian shore from North Africa. Then I read four days ago about a boat capsizing off the island of Cos, about a three-hour drive south of us. Three adults drowned, along with an infant. My heart twisted inside me. Why? Because I have now seen some of these people who are desperate for a better life. They were sleeping only a few feet from where I was walking. Usually, if some one of them is awake and sitting up, it is a woman, often tending to the needs of a child. To be sure, those whom I have seen in the early morning light have likely not gone south in the hope of crossing the 2.5 miles from the Turkish shore to the island of Cos. At least, I don’t think so. But they represent the thousands of people who are charging out of the chaos of the Middle East and North Africa and trying to find a way, any way, to Europe. I seem to sense their upwelling of hope for life on better terms. There they were, sleeping on the grass and benches with no place to go to the bathroom and no place to take a shower and little water and food. But they have come to the shores of Turkey and will continue to probe the paths that lead through the sea to something better. I know that some of them will die trying. And my heart aches for them and their families. Instead of praying for the comfort of family and friends who lose loved ones to death on the sea, I have begun to pray that these people — all of them — make it to a better life.
The second set of experiences began last Tuesday when a very nice woman came to begin the process of making us legal to stay in the country. She said that it was her second visit to the city. Neither she nor we knew the ropes. She has performed this service for others in other cities. But our town is new for her. And, of course, for us. The first day we made it to the correct tax office. There Grandma and I received our tax numbers. So far so good. We next had to open a bank account. We had noticed a couple of bank branches in our neighborhood. Off we went in a taxi to our neighborhood. We soon learned that these small branch offices cannot open accounts for foreigners. The woman had experience with another brand of bank (there must be almost 20 kinds of banks in the city). So we went to one of the branches. Ah, it seemed that the fellow there could help us. So we filled out a bunch of forms and he then ran into a wall. As of two weeks ago, his bank had been requiring foreigners to fill out a US tax form. So he printed out a form each for Grandma and me and asked us to come back the next morning at 10:30. (Aren’t you growing tired reading this?) Truth be told, the time required to fill out the tax form was about six minutes tops. We returned with our helper at 10:30 and were asked to sign and date more forms. We did. Then we were told to return two days later at the same time and all should be ok. The helper returned with us to our apartment to fill out still more forms on line so that we could make an appointment in the immigration office for interviews. Then she was gone. Friday we went to the bank for the third time, signed and dated some forms in spots we had missed earlier, and then were told that we would receive a telephone call in the afternoon telling us the number of our new bank account. The afternoon passed quietly. Silently. No call. Actually, we/I thought little about the telephone’s silence. (Really. Aren’t you growing tired of reading this?) Saturday morning we each received at text message in Turkish. We called the woman helper, who lives in another city far away. She called the number in the text message and then called us back. She was not allowed to get information for us. We were to call and, from the audio menu, select an English speaker to tell us the next step. We did so. The young lady in the call center found the text and said that we probably needed our temporary residence permit to finish opening the account. Aha! We were told that we needed the bank account in order to receive that permit. Someone seems to be mixed up. At least one of the someones is myself. Our helper is to call the bank Monday morning and learn what’s up. We may have gone through all of this activity last week for nothing. Except to get our tax numbers. We shall know the real stuff in less than twenty-four hours.
Our other option was to go through the agency that led our SV friends to our apartment back in July. Those guys do this all the time, for a fee of course. We might have been done weeks ago. But we wouldn’t be having this adventure. Stay tuned.
We just had a fellow from Australia who lived in South Africa for a number of years in our home for lunch. During our conversation we learned that he knew the late R.J. Snow who was one of my successors as director of the Jerusalem Center and was also a mission president in Johannesburg. He also knows well the suburb where Tanner is working (he called it "tough" because of the character of the Afrikaaners who live there) and was married to his now ex-wife in the Krugersdorp ward chapel. Small world indeed. He is divorced, jointly owns a business in Turkey, and has lost one of his sons to inactivity in the Church. We have been reaching out to branch members in a social way to try to engender a little unity and mutual respect among us. We took our dentist member and his older son and Turkish wife to dinner mid-week. I am convinced that each of these experiences allows us to grow a little closer to those for whom we bear some responsibility. A young woman investigator is coming into town today. We shall find a way to spend some time with her this next week.
Our numbers were smaller today -- four. The fellow who was to give a talk last week showed up this week without his children. He was disappointed that our interpreter was not there (she is at home in another city). With our encouragement, he gave his talk in Russian (not Turkish which is an acquired language for him) and the other three of us read through some of the general conference address by Pres. Uchdorf that his remarks were based on. All good. I didn't understand a word he said but I felt the good spirit that he brought to the meeting. And he accepted the assignment to give a talk three weeks hence. He is a children's program animator and he showed us the interview with him on Turkish TV this past week. Cool.
I love you and pray for you.
Grandpa
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