Simit's Not Meat, But It's Not a Pretzel Either - Turkey, Day 8

Saturday, June 4

This day marked the halfway point of the trip. It felt like we had just arrived.

After breakfast, we walked through the park to meet "I". This morning we were going to serve the poor in Antalya while we prayer walked. We split up into 3 different groups and each group went in different directions. All over Turkey there are these carts where guys sell a bread called "simit". It looks like a round soft pretzel. I never did take a picture of any of it, but here is a picture I found off of the internet:



My group bought some simit and walked through Kaleiçi to Cumhuriet Cadessi, which is the main artery through Antalya. We then walked through the city looking for poor people who were begging for money. There actually weren't very many beggars, so we walked quite a while before we found someone to give bread to. When we did find someone, we would hand them some bread and say "İsa Seni Seviyor" which means "Jesus Loves You" in Turkish. We gave away our first batch of simit and bought some more. Then we turned up another busy street and walked for a long ways without seeing any poor people. Eventually we gave some bread to an old poor man. We made our way back to Kaleiçi to meet the rest of the group at the church.

We then walked to a streetside döner restaurant on İşiklar Cadessi. After lunch we walked over to "I"'s apartment. That afternoon we were supposed to lead a children's program at the church, so we were meeting to plan and prepare. I had been asked to preach at church on Sunday, so I went to "I"'s room to prepare my teaching while the group prepared for the children's time. I popped my headphones in and started working on Galatians 5. James had been asked to share a short message at youth group later tonight, so he also sat out the children's activity to prepare. At around 2:30 the group (minus me and James) left for the church. We each cranked up our iPods, turned on the ceiling fan and went to work. I finished up my preparation at about 4:30 and we weren't scheduled to meet the group for dinner until 5:30 so I laid down on the couch and took a quick nap.

After my nap, James and I walked to Zeynep's Kitchen to meet the rest of the group for dinner. They shared some stories about working with the kids - I think it was a fruitful time.

After dinner, we walked to the church for youth group. It has been my experience that in many countries, "youth group" really means people in their teens and 20's and that was definitely the case here. About 12 Turks came - most of them were in their 20's and to my knowledge, most of them were Christians. A girl named Zeynep (not to be confused with the restaurant "Zeynep's Kitchen") led some worship songs with a guitar. They were almost all american worship songs that had been translated into Turkish, which was cool because even though I didn't speak Turkish, I basically knew what we were singing about. I do wish for them that they had more of their own songs, though.

After singing a few songs, Jennifer stood up and gave her testimony while Zeynep translated. Zeynep is only 17, but she speaks fluent English and translates quite a bit. She even translates theological books into Turkish! After Jennifer shared her story, we sang another couple of songs and then James taught about Ananias and Sapphira and how we should give freely to the Lord while Zeynep translated We then sang a few more songs before we finished. The entire meeting was rather subdued, which I think is pretty normal there.



After the meeting, we all hung out in the garden, drank coffee and got to know our Turkish brothers and sisters in Christ. It was encouraging to hear their stories and see how God had called them to Himself in a place where there are so few other believers.

We wrapped up our hang out time at around 9:30 and headed back to our pansion. It was still early (at least on Turkey time), so we did some shopping at Alibaba Carpets and Kilims. This was a shop that was about 30 yards from our pansion and we had gotten to know the guys who worked there over the past few days. They were very friendly and several of them spoke English, so every time we would walk by, we would stop and speak to them. The 2 owners were brothers and I think everybody else that worked there was related in some way. One of the brothers lived in Paris in the winter (he was married to a Parisian). These guys actually owned several shops all next to one another - the carpet shop, a ceramics shop, a small grocery/snack shop, and a tour company. They were running a first-rate business. "I" had told us a few days before that these guys would be one of the best places to buy gifts because they would treat us fair and give us good prices, so several of us decided to buy some gifts to take back home. Man, those guys went to town showing us rugs and blankets! They were pulling out all kinds of fabrics designs and patterns. Several of us bought rugs/blankets, some people bought pashminas (a cashmere scarf), some people bought ceramics, etc. After a while I decided on a blanket for Elise and a couple of other gifts. We probably spent an hour shopping with these guys and they did give us great deals. After it was all said and done, we all took a picture together with them.

After dropping our goodies off at the pansion, Jay, "I" and me decided to head out onto İşiklar Cadessi to find a cool cafe where we could grab a beer and talk. İşiklar Cadessi is a busy street filled with streetside cafe's, restaurants and shops. We found a nice little place and pulled up to a streetside table. Efes is the name of the most popular beer in Turkey (Efes is actually the Turkish word for Ephesus, a famous city in western Turkey - Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians to the Christians in Ephesus). So, we thought, "where else could we ever drink an Efes but in Turkey?" Jay got an Efes Normal (light colored pilsner) and "I" and me got an Efes Dark (dark porter). We munched on peanuts and popcorn, nursed our beer and had great conversation. We probably sat out there for a couple of hours just telling stories and enjoying fellowship with one another. It was an outstanding time.

Finally, we decided to call it a night. "I" walked in the direction of his apartment while me and Jay walked back to our pansion and fell quickly to sleep.