Voice In the Wilderness

15 Mar, 2011

Greetings!

We have just returned from a one-week trip to Turkey. Thank you for praying and support, friends.

There were four of us in the group including me. We worked with two local churches in Turkey. Rachel, the long-term volunteer who travelled with us, considers this trip to be fruitful. One of the reasons is that we were able to join the local church's efforts in sharing the gospel to their community. There are local believers who live there and are willing to follow up on the contacts that were made, watering the seeds that were sown, and praying that God would give the increase

One Week Turkey Evangelism

In the evening of the day of our arrival, we went to a meeting for youths and the next day, we began to evangelise. We left in the morning and came back at night. We had many encounters and gave out much literature. Turkey is not an easy country with many forces tugging on each other and clashing with one another. Here are some stories of our encounter with Turkish people.

We evangelised by asking people for directions around the market area and then began to ask whether they would like to receive Turkish Bibles as gifts from us. God opened the doors for us to meet many English speakers in a country who generally only speak Turkish. We met a student who helped us go to the exchange (i.e. money changer) and we later invited her to a Turkish coffee shop on the pretext that we wanted her to tell us more about her country. This student was an atheist and we had the opportunity to explain the gospel. Another young man whom we stopped in the street and invited for Turkish tea was very open and told us he ordered a free bible online two years earlier but had yet to receive it. We were able to give him a copy of the New Testament and another copy also for his friend. He was glad to receive it. On another occasion, as we walked around the market area, we saw a street vendor reading a book about Mohammed. We offered her a New Testament but she refused. Later she ran after us, intending to give us her book on Mohammed. She handed over the Mohamed book and left with the Bible instead (we told her that we wanted to give her a gift too). It was strange but we were thankful to our God for such opportunity.

One day, we walked past a restaurant and a waiter who was standing outside invited us to have our meals in his restaurant. We apologised and told him we have just eaten and we offered him a gospel. He in turn invited us inside for free tea as a sign of hospitality. He is Kurdish and we were able to get a Kurdish NT for him on another day. We also gave free Bibles to the restaurant owner and his family. We returned here several times to talk to the waiter and the restaurant owner, bringing with us local Turkish believers. They served us free tea every time. The local believers will maintain contact with the waiter.

The most amazing encounter I had is with an owner of a café/play centre for young people. We were walking down the road and a man was leaving the cafe and I said casually, "Hi, boss!" This caught his attention and he started talking to us. We told him that we are working with a church and he replied that he is against the church. I calmly told him we are for you (i.e. we love you) and continued to walk ahead. About ten minutes later, a car drove by and stopped beside us (as we were walking on the street). There he was - the owner of the café - inside the car with a few other men. He told us to get in as they wanted to know about our beliefs. I refused and told the man we would walk back to the café instead.

We returned to the café, not knowing whether it was a genuine request for knowledge or something sinister. We sat outside surrounded by an excited group of young Turks and were offered tea. The owner sat right opposite us at the same table with another young man. We found out the owner has once lived in America and thus could speak some English. Apparently the young man who was sitting beside him wanted to become a Christian. We were surprised by this. Soon after, the real reason for his wanting to become a Christian surfaced.

"How much money will you give me if I become a Christian?" the owner translated for the young man who is looking at us with a big grin. We were astonished! It is quite common for Turks outside church to think, that they will be bestowed with financial gifts if they converted to Christianity. I calmly said that if you did it for money, the conversion would not be genuine and thus it is useless. In the end we gave him the NT and we also gave them to the others present. This café soon became for us a good place to meet people. We returned on several occasions with local Turkish believers and had the opportunity to witness to the owner and many people who were passing through. The owner of the café has also made acquaintance with the local believers who will continue to follow up. When I was back in Israel, the owner called me once just to say 'Hi'.

Every step that we took was indeed in God's hand and we were filled with wonder.

Pray for the many contacts we made and for return to Turkey to work with the local church in another six months, God willing. One of the local pastors told me that we are more effective in a week than some groups who spend a year in Turkey. All glory to God!

Antony