Istanbul

So...I've been to Istanbul three times now and I've yet to give you a look. Here goes. This is a tourist blog... I'll be back in my city late Friday night and later this week will give you a peek at the place I'm staying now in the mountains for the conference I'm at. It's been a really great week of rest and recharge. But for now, Welcome to a bit of Istanbul...
p.s. Istanbul is absolutely gigantic, no wonder you can actually (and I did) traverse two continents in one day...this city has roughly 15 million people living in and around it

Shopping in the Grand Bazaar (it was pretty grand on many accounts) is always a fun thing to do. It's a huge indoor bazaar with just about anything Turkey touristy and any name brand knock off thing you could ever want or well, just not want! I've gotten some gifts here in the past and this trip, I got a few happies for myself to remember my Turkey by later on. Shopping is never dull. Almost all of the vendors speak Turkish and English and some even speak French, Spanish, or Chinese to draw a customer...Here are a few of my favorite lines: 'Shakira, I love you. For you, I give big discount' (if you don't know who Shakira is, you'll have to Google her, i don't resemble her in the slightest, but thanks...more comments: 'Angels, come back, everything is free!' Now, flattery just may be one of the ways to my heart, cause I was tempted to turn around and make a little purchase after those comments, but my hands were already full...

Here are some pictures of the Blue Mosque below. A bit of history: The builder of this mosque originally wanted the minarets to be built of gold, which in Turkish sounds very similar to the name for the number six...The mosque ended up being built with six minarets that were not gold--which at the time, no other mosque had six minarets. (To be noted, we have a mosque in our city with six minarets also). The inside of the mosque is full of such intricate tilings practically from the floors to the ceilings (the very high vaulted ceilings).

Below are some pictures of the Hagia Sophia, (prounouced the Eye 'a Sophia, which don't worry did cause me some confusion as to what people were actually calling it before I became more cultured and learned a bit of Turkish!) This now museum was formerly three times over an Orthodox church until it was burned down once by riots and then later destroyed by fires and an earthquake before it was rebuilt and turned into a mosque and then later into a museum. The walls still bear artwork from former times when the building's purpose was to be a church.

He Said, She Said

We had lunch at one of our friend's houses with her family for the first time last week. Family is such an important part of the culture here that it's always really neat when we get to meet our friends' families. Usually a lunch or dinner will turn into some kind marathon of Turkish chatter. It's always fun. Just thought you might like to know the great range of topics we discussed at our last 'luncheon'. Any occasion can go just about this way. It's always funny to see what comes up in conversation. I always leave thinking, my conversations in English don't even seem to go that many places in such a short time! So, after some really delicious food Friday, we at some point at our friend's house discussed the following topics with people we had never met before: (Get ready, it's a long and interesting selection...)

• Greetings and Family Details, our friend's engagement, Learning Turkish (of course), Turkish food, Istanbul, being pregnant (our friend's sister-in-law was pregnant), how to discipline children, whether I might ever marry a Turk and whether I wanted to marry my friend's mom's nephew (Katie helped me dodge this arrangement, her mother was very insistent!), husbands helping their wives, jobs in Turkey, the Arabic language, the death penalty, a random story about our friend's dad being in jail a long time ago, farms and cows in Mississippi, the difference in Protestants and Catholics, sheep sacrifices in Islam and Christ's sacrifice, retirement, stoning in the Middle East as corporal punishment, teaching English in Turkey, whether Craig is in the military (this conversation actually lasted for awhile! Her dad kept looking at me and Katie and being like, 'Now, is Craig doing his military service here?'...we're not sure where he was going with that, but we kept saying, 'Really, no he's not!'), the draft in Turkey and how people enlist in America...

and well i can't even begin to remember all the other things we talked about! I told you it was a marathon! Isn't it so funny all the things that come up while we're just swimming in Turkish trying to keep our heads above water! It is never a dull moment, i promise! I'm leaving on a jet plane Tuesday morning and maybe next week I'll have some pictures of my country for you from outside my concrete jungle! Have a great week!

Unfinished.

This is the last week that I'll get to spend time with my new friend who stayed awhile in our city. She's taught me so much about this culture that I'm living in and what it means to believe like I do in this culture. She's made me laugh, she's made me think, she's made me speak Turkish, she's made me learn to think beyond myself, and yes, she even made me cry once...but through all of it, she has taught me where she's coming from as a Turk and helped me grasp that inside my head and my heart so that I can take it into consideration in every one of my relationships here and that's the gift I'm taking from her friendship. That and a bunch of funny memories cause she is really a hoot!

She'll be staying with us for two nights this weekend and then will leave next weekend. Tuesday, I will get on a plane and fly to Istanbul to see an old friend that I have really missed and I can hardly wait. My sweet sweet friend is meeting me in Istanbul and we're staying with our other sweet sweet couple friends and then we're going to a meeting together but not before we spoil her with any American food we can find in Istanbul and maybe some sightseeing for a few days. She lives in a place far less privileged than I do. Back to this week--of course, my new Turkish friend wanted to introduce us to one more new cuisine before she leaves...icli kofte (ichlee koftey). It was amazing. It took like four hours to make, not kidding. And we didn't really participate alot in it. I'm not really into mushy foods that you mix with your hands, so i personally didn't mind watching, but Melissa got to try her hand at the dish and she'd tell you that it was hard to get those little things the right shape! I give it an A plus plus for creativity and use of bulgar, but it is definitely 'not my favorite' Turkish dish...and if you know me very well, then you know that basically means that I didn't like it. But before you go accusing me of being all picky, you'll be surprised to know that I have tried many a new thing over here and have ended up loving quite a few of them!

i was riding the bus home later that day...(this is a later blog because I've just been busy this week!) thinking and now sitting here reflecting, it's funny the things He brings to my mind amidst the mundane-ness of every day activities. But, as i was thinking about watching her make this food with her hands, it reminded me of Jeremiah 18-19. Best as I understand it, Jeremiah receives a word that in my paraphrased understanding, God sends a message to the house of Israel through Jeremiah saying, 'Hello! I'm the potter and you (Judah) are the clay and I'll mold you and make you into a useful vessel, but if you don't repent, you're gonna harden the wrong way and you will be broken.' As i was thinking back on her molding that Bulgar, i thought about the Potter and i kept thinking, if I'll just be like that clay, then He'll keep on molding me and He's not done with me and that's good news because I don't wanna be done and I certainly don't wanna harden the wrong way and I certainly won't ever need to be done. And I pray He's not done with this place. But i know He's not done with me, and I've been really encouraged by a few things that have happened with another new sister friend, and I know He's not done with her either. I pray we'll keep repenting and seeking His face, His Word, and His guidance and that we'll keep on being unfinished. It's funny what a big reminder a little icli kofte will bring to mind.

No Shows and Kilos

And who says that Turks don't like cats?...We had some friends over to the house this week for some 'okey'. It's a game like Rummy with little tiles that you play. It's fun, and the ladies here like to play. After the girls left, of course we had tons of food left (we always like to put out a spread, i told you that i was becoming a nice little hostess)...so we decided to visit some of the neighbs with some goodies. We headed upstairs, it had been awhile since we'd seen them. Of course, they were delighted to have more homemade Turkish goodies from us--remember the dolma from last week, but they were actually more delighted that we stayed to eat the goodies with them. And of course, it's steaming hot outside and we're inside drinking tea that's too hot for me to hold in my little hand. I can't even begin to convey the love for tea in this land to you. It's in their blood. I mean, I'm not talking McAllister's sweat tea--which i can't believe i dared to mention--but a deeper love than even that. So we're drinking tea...
and while we were there, our landlady came up to tell us that something to do with our hot water contraption on the roof is broken. I don't know all the technical Turkish terms, but don't worry, my neighbor told me she'd help translate when the water repairman came. (She doesn't speak English...) Thanks that'll be a big big help. Basically that just means she'll speak the same Turkish slower! (smile). But, i could definitely tell our Turkish had improved since we'd last seen her. If we can carry on a decent conversation and the main word we had to look up was 'tattoo' in Turkish, we're doing alright by my standards. Don't ask how that came up. Melissa and I do not either have a tattoo. We cover a multitude of subjects with the neighbors.
Back to our broken 'something' on the roof...So, she called the repairman at 6 o'clock. He'll come in 2 hours he says, (she says). Really, now? Will he? Now, this doesn't exactly seem to fit into my understanding of the Turkish work ethic or time table, but alrighty. We'll be home at 8 o'clock tonight, i think, and our neighbors are on standby for when he rings. He was a no show. Surprise, surprise. But we still have hot water today, so I'm not sure what happened. Maybe it's just the heat and people are a bit unreliable these days because we had a lunch date today with a new friend we met at the bus-stop and she was a no show, too!
I came home tonight to a message that our neighbor had come by. Good, I'm thinking, that means the water guy came. No, just kidding. Our upstairs neighbor came by wanting to borrow a bikini for the pool tomorrow. Of course. She didn't end up borrowing one because it was too big. At least she didn't tell me I was taking on kilo's. They told my roommate of all 100 pounds that she had taken on kilos during our visit yesterday. They did not tell me this, maybe the gleam in my eye when she looked my way stopped her in her tracks. (smile again). This is a very common subject among Turkish ladies at teas and such. One time our friend hulya brought the scale out at tea and had us weigh ourselves for her. Where was our 'okey' set then? Any who, all she said tonight was that the bathing suit was too big... thank you very much.

Add to the Beauty...

'I don't want to leave here, I don't wanna stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
And the places i long for the most are
the places where i've been,
They are calling out to me like a long lost friend

I've been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
Because the future feels so hard and I wanna go back...
But the places that used to fit me cannot hold the things
I've learned, and those roads were closed off to me
while my back was turned...'

It's funny--not really funny ha ha, just more like amazing to me how much mercy can be found in just one morning. Yesterday, I was feeling a bit down about the month in general. I'm a bit homesick and it's been a slow month. Regardless of the reasons, I found myself picturing myself back in places where I longed to be, and that wasn't here... but this song came to mind. 'I've Been Painting Pictures Egypt' Not that where I used to be was bondage or Egypt, by any means, but maybe it was because He called me from there and I didn't want to leave at first, it was too comfortable...but it wasn't and isn't what He has for me right now...so I'm called to be here inside and out. I pondered over those words yesterday only to find some redemption in a strange place this morning...another song by the same artist (Sara Groves). I can't help but wonder if she has felt some of the emotions that I have felt over the course of this crazy but beautiful journey. Because in the light of a new sunrise and some prayer and some fresh mercy this morning, I'm feeling like 'Adding to the Beauty' here in this place and I'm ready to do it. These are the words to the song I listened to this morning:

'Redemption comes in strange places,
Small spaces calling out the best of who we are
And i wanna add to the beauty...
I want to tell a better story
Shine with a light that's burning up inside

And this is grace, an invitation to be beautiful,
And this is grace, an invitation...'