Something child-ish

I am updating this blog from the perfect spot. I'm at the beach, sitting on my balcony looking at the Mediterranean after a fabulous day lounging in the sun, reading a good book by the ocean and ordering Turkish room service poolside! Pictures to come in the next blog. It's blog worthy. Bea-u-tiful. It's a tough life I live, I know. A girl needs a vacation every now and then...and I definitely needed one after this weekend! So, I had a fabulous birthday. I spent most of my birth 'day' (Friday) on a bus travelling to a Turkish women's conference, that many of the women in our church attended, where Melissa and I provided childcare for the weekend. But, prior to the day of bus travel and lots of Turkish children, I got another, yes another fabulous package from America from sweet friends in MS (thankyou!) and had a party with my discipleship girls Thursday night! And, if that was not enough, Melissa has showered me with gifts and surprised me with a cake tonight at dinner tonight here at the beach! We deemed today my replacement birthday since the actual day was spent in travel and babysitting. I know. Who does that? ...I do.
So, we kept children for this conference last weekend. It was a good thing. I'm really glad that the mothers were able to come and were able to fellowship with fellow sisters in the faith...child-free. I may have had to remind myself of that just a time or two. Really, though, the kids were great, just very energetic. (they're kids). There were some Bible stories, something similar to dodge ball that seemed to be played endlessly, a few games of Twister, and half a movie in there somewhere. It didn't take a ton of Turkish. They totally speak my level (smile). I used the sentence: 'Don't do that', pretty repeatedly. I'm not sure that the lady in charge of childcare could tell I've lived here for a year and a half until I broke out an 'if' clause and said, 'If you weren't doing that, then she wouldn't want to do it'. That's a bit more complicated grammar in Turkish! But, despite the many 'don't do that's, it was a neat weekend. Kind of like VBS. Never really thought I'd do anything like that here. It was a privileged to be able to see these kids that are growing up in the faith. It's more than a rare thing to meet a child who has grown up on Bible stories and is being taught Truth here, so that was really sweet to see. And, of course, kids will be kids, will be kids. Children are so alike. I think my favorite moment of the weekend is a borrowed moment of Melissa's. She's 'reading' a story with this one little girl and the child is 'reading' the story to Melissa. Obviously this child cannot read, we're pretending here. So, the pictures are a sea creature themed story and then she gets to the end of the story and the last pages read something like...'And Jesus told them not to smoke, it's bad for them. And drink lots of water.' No matter where you are, kids just say the funniest things! It was a tiring weekend, but I'm so glad we got to serve those ladies in a small way. And, don't worry, we did have a few free moments. At meal times when we could sneak away for a few minutes, there is one place that makes a rolled up sandwich type food that I have mentioned before on the blog. (the 'doner'). The restaurant is called Liverburger. Supposedly, it will change your life. We've had it before. It never changed our lives, but it was pretty stinking good. Thus, we ate it once a day every day while we were in Antioch! The last day, they gave us balloons and said, 'see you soon'. I had to let them down gently and tell them that they'd have to find new Customers of the Week, we were heading back home!