Miracles For Marmara

MIRACLES FOR MARMARA is a site devoted to promoting partnership and prayer for the Marmara Region of Turkey.  Istanbul is the main city, but it also includes the  surrounding provinces of Kocaeli, Tekirdag, Edirne, Yalova, and Kirklareli.

I had a chance to briefly explain why Jesus is God’s son to one guy named Davut, who was very religious.  He immediately put his fingers in his ears because those words offended him.  I pray that those words will continue to haunt Davut.

Max and his son Alex own a stationery store that I frequent.  After a period of not seeing Max, I asked Alex and learned that his father had undergone open heart surgery.  A few weeks later, I was glad to see Max back on his feet.

We talked, and I asked him if he had thought about death and considered where he might go.  He said he wasn’t sure.  I was able to share with Him that God loved us, and because He loved us, had made a way for our sins to be paid for by a Savior so that we could be sure to be in God’s presence when we leave earth.

Max said he was interested in learning, and in fact, had gotten hold of a New Testament back in the days when he was living in Germany.  We agreed that we would meet to talk about it when the time was right because at that was not a good time.  Please pray that God would make it possible for us to meet to talk about the Savior.  Pray for the Salvation of Max, his son Alex and their entire family.

I got to visit with a local pastor in a neighboring city several times this month.  Our relationship has grown over the past year.  He has been dealing with a lot of stress due to a loss in his family and the burdens of ministry in general. The reason it was cool is that he was willing to share those burdens with me.  Its good to have a local friend with whom I can confide and who confides in me.

Our struggles seem to be similar in some ways, and I got to give him advice based on my past experience.  I’m happy that I have a relationship with a Turk who is discipling me, another whom I am discipling, and another who is walking beside me.

I had some lengthy religious discussions with some neighborhood friends.  On one occasion there were four very religious gentlemen (in their sixties) and me having cay and talking about what we believe and how someone can get into heaven, etc.  One gentleman in the group is very religious and has been on the Hajj to Mecca.

Our discussions were very cordial, and he allowed me to share my beliefs that we all are born with sin and need forgiveness, and that Jesus Christ was born as God’s son and lived a sinless life so that he died as the perfect sacrifice for everyone’s sin.  And that if we accept Him as Lord we can be forgiven of our sins and be allowed into heaven.

Of course nobody agreed with me, BUT it was really awesome to have the floor and get to share truth in that that little tailors shop with those men.  We left on very good terms and I am sure I will see them again and be able to even go a bit deeper.

I love it when we hear the Door of Truth swing open, like when my new tutoring student asked me how I seemed so calm and stress free.  Its so exciting to be able to share openly that its God who gives the peace that causes the calm, and it all comes from His Word.  Reading it daily feeds the calmness and keeps the stress monsters at bay! PTL!!! Harika!!

In 1999, there was a major earthquake in Turkey.  Over 30,000 people in the area east of Istanbul  died.  We came in as relief work was ending and started a business to stay out there.  This is a very conservative and spiritually difficult place.  We were there for 4 years, and saw some good things happen.  But none of the Bible studies that we tried to start lasted.

A new pastor in a neighboring city, has done a great job there and has been following up on new contacts in that city as well. He has been praying and fasting and thinks that the time is right to start a Bible Study there.  He asked his leadership and the believers in his church.  Everyone thinks it is good and wants to be involved, especially the national believers of his church which is GREAT!  The pastor asked me to join him on the trip to visit the city as he cast the vision to the local believers.  The week before we were supposed to go, he received a death threat on Saturday and his mother-in-law died on Sunday. He later told me that he knew that the spiritual warfare would be intense over the study in that city, and that these major events just confirmed to him that God wants to do a great work there.

Two weeks later we went to for a visit and met some new contacts before meeting with the believers. The first one took us to his workshop to meet another “new believer”. I was astounded as we walked right to where we used to live. His workshop was located right next to the building we used to live in. I can’t tell you how many times that I walked that street and prayed that God would do something there and now I was sitting with two “new believers” right there.

What’s more the second guy said that he recognized me. He told me the name of the Barber I used to go to 10 years ago. He said that he wanted to ask me more then, but couldn’t because of all the other guys there, but that he is planting seeds and trying to get them ready as well. I really wanted to spend some time with him, but we had an appointment to meet another contact. The next contact was a former barber who had closed up shop because reading the NT had changed him so much that the gossip was now repulsive to him.  We found out that he lived out of town on the way to our next meeting.  So we dropped him off.  Where?  Basically across the street from our old landlord.  We had made lots of visits and prayed a lot for believers out there as well and now we were dropping one off.  God thank you for the chance to see answers to prayer 10 years later! The believers we met are all excited about meeting together. What’s next?

I invited my young friend, Ula, to attend the Christmas Eve service with us and to go to dinner.  She readily agreed, and asked if her sister also could come.  As it turned out, not only they, but our other young neighbor, went as well.  A few days after the service, Ula asked me some very astute questions regarding things she had observed and heard during that service.  What a joy this was to share with one for whom I have been praying for 7 years!!  I look forward to continuing this sharing of the Word with her, and to praying that God will open her heart to His Truth.

After a tennis match, I sat down next to Moses to get to know him. We got to talking about holidays, and I was surprised to learn that Moses did not confuse Christmas with New Years like most Turks do. He actually knew that Christmas was a celebration of Jesus birth. He asked me if I had read the Quran. I said I had but that in my search for a sure way of salvation I could not find it. He agreed that there isnt such a thing in the Quran and then asked if we as Christians believed there was one. I told him we did and that it could be found in the Holy Books. In short, Moses asked for a N.T. and I gave it to him a week later.

My wife is much more neighborly than I am, which is a good thing.  She wanted to bake Christmas cookies and other goodies and deliver them to our neighbors for Christmas.  In particular we wanted to take cookies to our friends at an appliance store downstairs.  We attached a Christmas card with Christmas-related scripture in Turkish to each plate of cookies, and gave a plate to each of the employees.  We went as a family.

The saleswoman who my wife has gotten to talk with quite a bit opened her plate right away to share with everyone while we visited.  She read the verse Matthew 1:21 aloud, thanked us, and put the card down to enjoy the cookies.  While she was holding our son and we were talking, my wife and I both noticed that a salesman that works there quietly reached over for the card, read it, and put it down.  He did it in such a way that it seemed like he didn’t want anyone to see what he had done.  My wife and I both commented on it later. He is in his late twenties to early thirties, not married, and it seems he is searching for more for his life.  We visit the shop a lot because they like to see our son.

Pray that the scripture they all received may spark some interest in the true meaning of Christmas.

In our Turkish Bible storying class, our teacher has been very curious about some of the stories – particularly about the story of Abraham and Isaac, and God testing Abraham.  We had the opportunity one week to share about how the OT says it was Isaac, not Ishmael, as the Muslims believe.  I had the opportunity to share about how Ishmael was not the son from Sara, but from the servant, but that the Bible states Isaac is Abraham’s true son, a son of promise, and how Jesus is from the direct lineage from Abraham, then Isaac, and on to David etc.

The next week, our teacher explained to us that she had a dream many years ago that she was baptized, but she did not understand what baptism meant.  Later, in the recent past she had a dream that she was having an operation, and that one of the other students (the one she has known the longest in our class) was cleaning her stomach out.  OOooo! We exclaimed and she said “no it wasn’t like that, it was a relief and I felt better after.”  In our class, we have had the chance to explain about baptism and its meaning (one of my daughters had just been baptized a few weeks before), and share how we believe that Jesus is God’s Son.

She does understand that we don’t mean that God had a relationship or sex with Mary, but that it was a miracle of God to create a human inside Mary.  Surprisingly, she explained to us that this was so to speak a stumbling point or obstruction to Muslims, and that it immediately created a misunderstanding that we could never get past.  But amazingly, she understands all the difficulties Muslims face with a belief in Jesus, and she sees/know the obstacle that one must face to be a believer.

Each week we have the opportunity to share more. Pray for the Spirit to open her heart and mind and truly understand the truth of God’s Word, and protect her from the enemy snatching truth from her.