How many people can you fit into a Turkish apartment? - Turkey, Day 12

Wednesday, June 8, 2005

I woke up this morning and ate breakfast, then we had a team time. We spent some time encouraging one another by mentioning actions or qualities in each person that were admirable. It was a good team bonding time. After that, I washed some clothes again in the sink. Some of the members of our team had appointments to meet with various Turkish friends to continue relationship building. I didn't have any appointments until the afternoon, so after washing, I read some and went up onto the roof of the Pansiyon to enjoy the view.

Around lunchtime, several of us walked out onto Işiklar to eat at the potato place (James has so appropriately named it "The Flying Potato"). After a leisurely lunch, we all split up to meet with various people. I had some time, so I found myself just wandering around the old city trying to enjoy my last full day.

These ruins were just about 2 blocks away from our Pansiyon. We passed them almost every day on our way to wherever we were going that day. They were actually behind an iron fence and I wanted to sneak in and take pictures, but never actually got around to it. For this picture, I just stuck my camera through the fence.

I met with Metin, the associate pastor in the afternoon. I was never told what the goal was in our time together, but I tried my best to encourage him and pray for him. He shared the story of how he became a Christian. It took a while for God to get through to him, but eventually Metin chose to follow Him and soon became involved at the church in Antalya. A bit later he began working at the church doing basic janitorial and security stuff, then eventually was asked to become the associate pastor. Soon he will be moving to Ankara for a year to receive some Bible training. It was inspiring to hear his story. I prayed for him to end our time.

We eventually all met at Paul's Place, the coffee shop at the church, and walked together over to Hüseyin's apartment. Hüseyin is from eastern Turkey and is a college student studying art at the Akdeniz Universitesi and we had spent quite a bit of time with him over the past 10 days or so. He had invited us over for a meal of Kurdish food for our last night in Antalya.

Hüseyin

We walked the 10 blocks or so to his apartment and all of us along with about 7 Turkish friends packed in. We all gathered in the living room for our meal. While we sat on the floor, the meal was served in the middle and we ate family style. We had a spicy beef & vegetable stew type dish over a bed of rice. Although we were crowded and it was hot, it was a very enjoyable meal with great fellowship.

Jay and his "Turkish Brother", Camil

After dinner, we split up into 3 teams to play movie charades. Each team brainstormed 5 movies to be thrown in the hat, then we took turns trying to get our team to guess which movie we picked. Our team got the most difficult movie titles of all, including "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." (Come on, try to pantomime "Good" "Bad" and "Ugly"). Needless to say, we lost badly.

After our charades game, as we were sitting around talking, my stomach began to hurt. I think "The Flying Potato" was beginning to take it's revenge on my digestive system. It really wasn't any huge deal, but I was going to need to spend a little time in the bathroom to take care of the issue. However, since we were in a small, crowded apartment with about 25 people, I knew if I took care of my issue there, it might be a bit embarrasing... so after saying my goodbyes, I walked back to the Pansiyon. Ah... the comfort of a private bathroom...

It was only about 9:30 by now, and I really wanted to soak up a little more Antalya before heading off to bed, so I grabbed my camera and took off to walk around Kaleiçi. I didn't really even take very many pictures, but I wanted to just enjoy one final night in the old city. I was in quite a contemplative mood, so it was good to be by myself.

Then it was back to the Pansiyon to do a little bit of packing and head to bed.