You would be seeing us in a month if we were leaving Turkey on our
original release date. But we still have another 4 months. I wonder
what that will mean? As I think of each name on this email header, I know
I will miss each one of you more by then. As you know it is hard to spend
holidays far away from loved ones. Gratefully I still have one loved-one
by my side, but the other 38 of you are still only "perfect" visions
in my memory.
Since this is the second time
around for us in this season, it is often easy to compare where we were last
year at this time. Today we had 17 people in the room at church.
That is HUGE. Last week we had 22, but some were out-of-town
visitors. Of those 17 people in the room eight were solid investigators.
The elders have set Christmas Day as the day for baptism for some of
them. We think that will actually happen. The MP will not allow
anyone to be baptized in Turkey unless they have attended church 8 times.
He is very interested that those who join have been thoroughly taught and
are "keepers.
I think we have some of the best YVs
in the church here. Of course our own grandsons are also among that
number. The YVs here have a very challenging language to learn, and they
have many restrictions that they have to follow. It varies from day to
day with the security messages we get from the US Embassy. And as far as
I've been able to detect they are ALL very obedient.
I'm also amazed at how much church knowledge they have to have.
They all far exceed anything I've ever learned. Your father
supplements their knowledge when there is an opportunity. He really
enjoys that role. The elders YVs all over the Mission call him with
questions. I wonder why they don't call me?
We rarely see a day that we do not have a set of YVs or both sets
of YVs come to our apartment for discussions or skype discussions. We had
one discussion in our apartment after church today, and we'll have another one
in a few minutes. Most of the discussions are in Turkish. I sit and
politely act like I'm enjoying not being able to understand anything.
Sometimes the visitors speak a little English, so I can communicate with
them in the beginning.
It is a Turkish custom that you
always feed a visitor. Usually you offer them some Turkish coffee, or
tea. So each time the elders bring someone to our apartment I
"get" to provide some "nourishment". I usually put
out some juice and a couple of bowls of something... like nuts and/or cookies. And
more often than not, the YVs meetings run over the lunch hour or the dinner
hour, so we often feed the 1,000. I think we had lunch together 4 times
last week, and dinner 3 times. And that didn't include the juice/snack
feedings. I used to have left-overs. Now I don't. If I make a
pot of chili, it is all consumed. Luckily I can supplement with bread.
Bread costs the equivalent of $.30/loaf, so we can always feed them lots
of bread. The loaves of bread are called baggettes, and they are
delicious.
We visited some Iranians in a distant city this week. They
are refugee status and joined the church more than a year ago. Turkey is
full of refugees from many countries. Some have adequate housing and
employment, some do not. They are all in the waiting game hoping that
some agency will take up their cause and move them on to another country.
They mainly hope to go to the USA. Some wait for years. I
can't imagine how hard it would be to be in such a state of limbo. Not
knowing where or if you were going anywhere. Trying to be optimistic and
facing delay after delay. Most have left their country-of-origin because
of threats to their life, or any number of things. The church does assist
some indirectly, but they have to be careful to not become a target also.
We plan to eat our hearts out on Thanksgiving at the Hotel.
It is the same place where we ate last year. They try hard to make
it look like Thanksgiving. The meal includes two glasses of wine, so we
are grateful for that perk.
I hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving. I'll miss you all.
Good luck to Nelise in her surgery. Good luck to Cassie in her
soccer tournament. Good luck to all of you and your bulging mid-lines.
Love,
Mother
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