Dear Grandchildren,
For months we have held onto plans for a Young Single Adult conference in a town about an hour and a quarter’s drive from here. We weathered attacks in Istanbul and Ankara in the sense that no one above us pulled the plug on our plans when troubles erupted in those cities. Security, of course, is a huge worry. And tourists and tourist areas have become targets in Turkey (they have been targets, for example, in Egypt for a very long time). One of our plans was to take the participants to Ephesus, a place where large groups of tourists have gathered in past years. So we were almost giddy in the last couple of days before the conference was to start, which was this past Wednesday, that no serious trouble had erupted. Then, a little after ten o’clock Tuesday evening, Grandma walked into our bedroom and said she had received a breaking news bulletin that an attack had occurred at the Istanbul airport, with "injuries." My hear sank. It would sink a lot further in coming hours, especially after I heard the numbers who perished.
We went to bed not knowing that the phones of the MP and his wife began to blow up from as far away as Kazakhstan. "What does this attack mean for the conference?" "Is the conference still on?" "Our flight has been cancelled; what are we to do?" "My family feels that this attack is a little close to home because I have to travel through that airport. I am cancelling." And so on, and so forth. When I woke up at 5:30, I saw that I had received two texts in the middle of the night. One was from our agent just before 1:00 a.m. who wondered whether we would cancel the conference. The other was from the MP’s wife just before 3:00 a.m. saying that we would have to redo a lot of our airfares because of the troubles at the Istanbul airport. She did not hint that we were to cancel.
I finally got into the fray just before 6:00 Wednesday morning by sending some text messages to key organizers of the conference. The responses were almost immediate. It was clear that these people had not been sleeping much through the night as they watched developments and heard from worried participants. Notably, the area presidency did not force us to cancel. But the MP thought we would surely have to. Even though most of the flights to our fair city were coming from the domestic terminal in the Istanbul airport, not the international side where the attacks occurred, the whole Brussels airport had been closed for ten days after the attack there due to the needs to investigate thoroughly and to set up airline counters and corridors to move passengers into the correct areas. On that model, that might mean the whole Istanbul facility would be closed for at least a week. But surprise of surprises, the airport was closed for only a few hours and was opened for business as quickly as possible. That particular airport is a monster and an enormous number of flights go in an out during a single day. As an example of the short duration of the closure, people coming from Astana and Almaty in Kazakhstan were put on flights that left six hours after those that were cancelled.
Before the conference, we had set up two bus transfers from our airport to the city where our hotel was. A neat package. But because of cancelled and delayed flights, as well as rebooked flights, we did not know when many of our people would be arriving. So the need for two transfers mushroomed to four. And then we were not certain whether we had all the bases covered. All through Wednesday, our organizers called and texted and emailed, trying to nail down the arrivals. I made the airport run, in a bus, twice. The first wave of six came on time from Ankara. But then it was a crap shoot. The first of the Kazakhstan groups arrived about when we thought they would, but in the international terminal even though the last leg of their journey was a domestic flight from Istanbul to our airport. Go figure. By ten o’clock, gratefully, all were in the hotel whom we expected to be there. Those who arrived late missed dinner, which was closed at 9:00 p.m. But that was small potatoes compared to the worrying and shifting that had gone on all day long. The conference organizers went to bed and really slept for the first time in almost 40 hours.
At the end, we welcomed thirty-five fine young people, all of whom are among the bastions of the Church in their respective, far-flung areas. Among themselves, they found ways to penetrate the seeming obstacles posed by differing languages and cultures — Turkish, Russian, Kazakh, African, English. I judge the conference to have been a rousing success, from the classes, to the visit of Ephesus, to the free time at the beach on the Aegean Sea. All those pieces contributed. And helped to make the event Christ-centered in a nourishing way.
During our YSA conference, I was knocked off stride twice. Both on the same day, the day that I spoke about my experiences with the Bible Videos project. Friday evening, the MP asked if I would consider being the last speaker on Saturday afternoon. I said sure. That was the last I heard and thought that it was the way events would go. So Saturday morning I was dressed in my comfortable clothes and noticed that others who were supposed to be giving an afternoon presentation were dressed up in Sunday best. Woops. Then the MP said that he was surprised that I was in those duds. Then Grandma said that I was giving my presentation that morning. Woops twice. So I bolted upstairs to our room and changed into my white shirt and tie.
When I began my presentation at 10:45, only fifteen minutes late, I was told that I had until almost 12:30 when lunch would be served. Ok, says I. So I am breezing along, expecting that I have 45 minutes left, and one of the organizers gives me the sign that I have 10 minutes. Whaaat? I thought. So I skipped a lot of my presentation, which was tied to a power point, and headed for the barn, winding up within ten minutes. Whew. I finished just before noon. At that point, I was told by the spouse of the person who gave me the ten-minute signal that they got it mixed up and I really had until 12:30. But I had shut off my slides and borne my testimony. By then, the YSAs knew that they were free and were already making motions as if they were loosed. So I just lived with the snafu. No one will know the difference, except me. And I am not bitter in the least. Why should I? I was just happy as a deep-in-the-sand clam that everything was working, including the power point.
As reported by my first counselor, our numbers were twenty-one in our fast and testimony meeting today, twelve in the hotel room and nine who joined by Skype. He counted five who bore testimonies. At least four of us were not present, our two YSAs and Grandma and I. With the four of us, we would have been twenty-five, one of our high numbers for attendance.
I love you and pray for each you.
Grandpa Brown
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