Hospitable Turkey

We arrived last Monday in Istanbul, Turkey. We were blown away at such a beautiful and fascinating city. John and I both voted that it might be one of our favorite cities. We got to explore and soak in the history and fascinating streets for two days before our long bus ride to Ankara, the capital and our home base for two weeks. We visited the largest mosque in the entire Islamic world and had an amazing time of learning together as a group. The stories of this day are worth an entire posting by itself at a later time. :) God is good! Our contact here has introduced us to some incredible Turkish people who have welcomed us and taught us about their country and culture. We are still blown away as a team that we are blessed to have these experiences and get to learn by being right in the middle of these different cultures. Over the weekend we took another long bus ride (getting quite used to these and thankful that there are 25 super fun and loving college students to entertain Jack and Naomi!) to go to Cappidocia and were absolutely blown away at Gods creation. It's jaw dropping looking at the formations of the earth and the caves that nomadic people lived in thousands of years ago. Then these caves were lived in by the persecuted Christians years and years later. There are still carved out churches and frescos of Jesus and angels. You could see the elaborate secret cave homes and tunnels. Jack and Naomi climbed and explored for hours.
Unfortunately John got his first taste of food poisoning but we are so thankful that he got well very fast. Please be praying for others on the team who are recovering from colds. This team has become like a traveling family and it's such a praise to have this unity and support around us.
And the Turkish people make us feel comfortable and at home here. They are warm, hospitable, super helpful, smiley, loving, and adore Jack and Naomi. Daily they are patted on the head, have their cheeks squeezed, are given a little toy, asked questions and just stared at with huge smiles...and of course Jack and Naomi are eating it up.