We're back!

As some of you know, we spent all of last week in the amazing city of Istanbul. We had a week of meetings that related to our work here, as well as one day that we took of vacation for a little site seeing.

In order to save funds, we took a taxi a few hours past the border, to a small airport which we then flew to Istanbul. It was a LONG trip, but a good one. Because of our choice of travel, we chose to leave Zeke with our teammates back home. This was the first time that we've been away from him, so it was sort of tough, but good. We only had one complication while crossing the border. There is alot of tension between cultures in this part of the world, and these tensions come out in unexpected ways. One of which is a short-fuse when it comes to the temper. A small eruption occurred between our taxi driver and the man who was giving us our turkish visas. We were afraid for a moment that our taxi driver was being arrested! However, we were told, by a helpful english speaker that was also in line with us, that this is very normal! Who would have thought! The conflict was worked out, though, and we were on our way.

Aside from being an expensive city, and having to be very aware of our surroundings because of crime and theft, it was an absolutely beautiful city. There were flowers everywhere, despite the still cool weather. There were tons of things to see, many American restaurants and the generally fun feeling of the hustle and bustle of city life. In some ways, it felt very familiar to be in such a western-style city. There is also a ton of history and we enjoyed seeing many of the main tourist attractions. We also were thrilled to be able to enjoy Mcdonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut and a wonderful mexican restaurant. We filled up on wonderful milk-shakes and burgers that didn't have strange spices in them! Forgive me, if it seems strange to focus so much on the food we ate, but these were all tastes of home that we have missed greatly. Overall, the trip was a blessing to be on both for the relationships built at the conference as well as a little time-out from our daily busyness.

The trip home was pretty uneventful. Our taxi driver coming back did get a flat tire, but with the help of several men that stopped to see what was wrong, we were back on the road in good time. After being immersed again in a new culture, with zero language abilities and no sense of how one should act or respond to others, it was a real relief when we crossed the border and could feel the comfort of what has become our home. We were very tired when we got home, but relieved to be reunited with Zeke, who took turns running back and forth between Scott and I, giving us hugs! It was a sweet home-coming.

We have a busy week ahead of us. We have our second group of students graduating from our center this week, as well as preparations to make for yet another trip in just one week. It is still a little cool these days, but it seems that winter is definitely over. We have a small lawn as part of our courtyard and we took the time to pull up dead grass and plant some seeds today as Zeke chased his ball around in the driveway. We'll see what comes of that. Pray for rain! Despite our ups and downs, though, life is good and we are glad to be back!

2 More Cents

Scott here, adding two of my valuable cents to the blogosphere, while waiting to catch a plane in the middle of Turkey. In a future blog we’ll tell you more about that. But since being in our new city we’ve had some interesting experiences with local folks and their perception of us. I would like to share two of those with you.

#1 Haircut

I love having my wife give me haircuts. It’s a bonding experience as I sit still and avoid getting my ears literally lowered, while she hunches over and pulls muscles in her back, nipping here and trimming there. I am quite happy with her work, but she’s never satisfied. So finally after months of asking, last Friday I caved and went to a local barber. In preparation I got some haircutting terms from my tutor; “I want a haircut,” “cut it short here,” and “don’t do anything here.” I carefully memorized these words ready for my encounter. My tutor thought it strange why I wanted to know “I want a haircut.” They would of course know why I was there.

I entered the shop gingerly, expecting the workers to motion me to a chair. Instead, they stared at me for at least 10 seconds while I tried frantically to recall “I want a haircut,” that my tutor had said I didn’t need. Something close to correct came out and they all laughed and sat me in a chair. Then the bomb fell. I began telling the barber what I wanted and he said to me, “I don't know that language.” He only spoke Arabic! All that memorizing work wasn’t for nil though as I was able to communicate through another guy who told him in Arabic. Another interesting factoid: instead of using the buzzer to shave the back and sides of my hair, he used a straight razor. I came home with a great story and haircut, all for about $4, and a little knick on my neck. Here's a shot of my new haircut; sorry, the photographer surprised me.

#2 Concert

One of our English students is a very good violin player who works at a school for blind kids, and he moonlights as a music instructor for adults at the government center for the blind. He invited me to join him in a Valentine’s Day concert to sing an American love song, to which I agreed. Only a week before did he mention the need to practice. At our first practice I brought a copy of music and the recording of “That Thing You Do,” not exactly a love song, but good nonetheless, and the only song I could think of at the time. I didn’t take into account that my friend has no use for written music, and that the third guy in our band, a piano player, was in fact blind. Furthermore, the violinist only listened to the recording once! At our first practice my friend asked me to play along with one local tune with the children, followed by another, and then the day of the concert surprised me with 2 more new songs! Fortunately the melodies are not difficult here, though the rhythms are entirely new. With much pomp and two news channels on site everything went fairly well last Saturday. But the best part was the cementing of our friendship. Our friend was grateful and even came to our Saturday night meeting. Now he has asked me to use my influence in the musical world to get the first professional recording studio installed in the city. So if anyone knows of where we can get $120,000 worth of recording equipment for free, let me know!

That’s all for now. Have fun at whatever you’re doing and don’t forget to take time to thank Him for each thing.

Here's a shot of "that thing I did."

Its raining mud!

Welcome to our new blog! Thanks for going to the trouble of tracking us down here. We appreciate your commitment! Life has continued on as usual. Thankfully we have been getting a fair amount of rain lately. Apparently we didn't get us much rain during the fall as they would like, so every bit we get now is greatly needed in order to assure water for the dry summer months. As I've mentioned before, when it rains here it brings all of the dust out of the air, so in addition to making the ground very muddy it also appears dirty and muddy in the AIR! The picture I've included appears to be doctored up with a sepia enhancement, but I assure you that it was truly that color when we took the picture. Rain is a whole new experience when it is done here. The cars also become very filthy, apposed to the relief that usually comes with rain for saving you a trip to the car wash! However, this is all something that we have come accustomed to in our months living here.

Language is going well. We have had the chance to try out new teachers these past couple of weeks since our normal teachers have been exceptionally busy. It's been fun to glean new things from then since they offer us a different perspective. Getting multiple answers to the same questions here is helpful since everyone seems to have a different answer even to the simplest of questions!

Zeke continues to grow and learn new things. His latest thing has been exerting his independence. He will not let us help feed him anymore, so we have been forced to roll up his sleeves, put his high-chair over a big plastic table cloth and just let him dig in! This is particularly entertaining on pasta nights! We also have had opportunities to let him play with other kids his age. Its amazing to watch him try and figure out how to respond to the other kid and to make choices to either share his toys, snatch them away or just go and find something new to play with; also to be kind to the other boy or to hit him when he makes him mad; and to simply ignore him all together, as if he didn't exist or to embrace this new friendship. So many seemingly simple lessons, yet they are the sort of choices that all of us have to make in one form or another everyday. I just finished reading the book "The Shack." One of the overarching themes, among many, is that of relationship. Just as my son is learning about his first relationships and how to let people (or not) into his world, it strikes me that this is something that we all have both high and low points on through our entire life. Sometimes we really take time to value our relationships and give them proper time and attention, where other times we allow task to take the main stage over people. This is also, I believe, the picture of our relationship with God. It's amazing how there are so many things that we can learn and see played out in the simple interactions of children.

Well, that will finish up our "deep thoughts with Katie hour" today. But stay tuned for more later as God works in my life and that of my family! We have been thinking a lot lately of those we love and miss, so keep us in your thoughts, and just like in our previous blog, feel free to leave your thoughts and comments. We miss you!