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!