My Last Post from Turkey

One last post before I return. Sorry, no pictures right now. I forgot my flash card reader and was using Alisha’s, but she’s back in Antalya now, while we have gone to Istanbul. I’ll try to remember to post a few when I get home.

By the way, if anyone is reading this, you can post comments on my posts. It would let me know someone is out there.

We had two days to visit some of the historic sites. This place is over 2000 years old. It was the center of the eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Turkish Ottoman Empire. There are amazing sites to see. History just oozes out of this place. We just scratched the surface.

Yesterday, we visited the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Suleyman’s mosque, Topkapi Palace (the old Ottoman palace complex), the Sunken Palace Cistern (it was in the James Bond film “From Russia with love), Chora Church (amazing mosaics), and…the Grand Bazaar (4000 shops under one roof, all trying to get you to buy from them, aghhh).

Today (Tuesday, I think) we visited the Spice Bazaar, took a ferry across the Bosporus to the Asian side, then went to Maiden’s Tower. When we returned, a few of the ladies went back to the Grand Bazaar. I think they are now out of money.

I skipped the Bazaar, but I did have my fortune told by a rabbit.

Tomorrow we leave at 3:30am for our 6am flight back to Seattle. It’s been a good trip and we spent some time today talking about the kids at Kepez, wondering what they might look like in a year and taking about sending them Christmas cards.

This is an amazing country, filled with wonderful people, but also needing a way to come to know God through His Son. It was great to be a small part of opening a door and to wonder how God might use us in the future.

Some of you might begin thinking now about joining a service team in the coming years.

Pastor Al