following the Way

Yesterday, Abby and I went with some friends who were traveling through to see the new Şakirin Camii (mosque) that was opened in May 2009.  I’d been eager to see it ever since I saw news reports about it at that time (not least because its interior design was done by a female Turkish architect, Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu).

Many mosques in Istanbul and other major cities in Turkey bear a very strong resemblance to one another, following a consistent architectural model.  But this mosque was unlike any I’ve ever been in Turkey or anywhere else.  It has a striking modern design set on a raised plaza surrounded by a pine forest.  It has a beautiful courtyard, bounded by a series of domes with calligraphy from various passages in the Qur’an and with a reflective fountain at the center.

But the inside is the most stunning of all.  The ceiling is domed over the entire prayer hall and is decorated with extraordinary color and calligraphy.  The walls at the front and sides of the mosque are all made of thick glass decorated with gold leaf in the pattern of the decoration of early qur’anic manuscripts, which allow in fabulous natural light throughout the day and give an amazing glimpse at the pine forest surrounding the mosque.  And then, after nightfall, illumination can be provided from a spiralling raindrop-style chandelier.  Even the mihrab (which indicates the direction towards Mecca), the minbar (pulpit) and the carpet indicating the individual space for each person who comes to participate in the corporate prayers are all radically different than their equivalents in other Turkish mosques.

While I’ve seen other mosques that are more magnificent in terms of their scale and the technological innovation they represent in the construction of public buildings, I’m not sure that I have ever been to one whose design was simply so aesthetically pleasing and even conducive to spiritual reflection.

You should definitely check out the website of the Şakirin Camii to see some of what I’m talking about.  But something like this you’ve got to see in person.  Since it’s just about a mile away from our new home, I promise to take anyone who comes to visit us!

WE SIGNED A LEASE FOR AN APARTMENT TODAY!!!

A good friend of mine has generously spent several hours with me the past few evenings to finalize the negotiations for an apartment for us, and tonight everything became final.  I handed them cash; the owner handed me the keys.

We think that the location will be a good one for us, located on a quiet street just a block off of a main transportation artery that will let us get very quickly to the buses, ferries and other forms of transport that will take us wherever we need to go in the city.  It is also located in relatively close proximity to  all of the main language schools in the city as well as very close to one of the leading Islamic studies departments and research libraries in the country.

The apartment itself is a good size and very new by local standards.  Our landlady seems nice, and so do the neighbors that we met the other day.

The apartment sits on a street whose name should translate something like “contemplating with pleasure.”  Though we think our lives will be much more than quiet contemplation over these next few years, even this name gives us hope that the Father will do much while we live here to cause us to reflect with awe and wonder at who he is and at the ways he brings his kingdom into our midst through the power and grace of our Lord Jesus.

But before the delightful contemplation can begin in earnest, there’s much more to be done yet—perhaps even things which we can say it is best not to contemplate too much before you begin.  (This contemplation won’t likely be delightful!)  These next few days will be spent getting a local bank account, residence permits, turning on utilities, getting a phoneline and Internet access, and then, of course, shopping for furniture and applicances and dishes and silverware and . . . you get the idea.  This should keep us pretty busy for the next couple of weeks!

But once we’ve got the place reasonably put together, we’ll try to get some pictures up here for another “electronic open house.”  Mark your calendars for sometime in early August!

Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

—Jeremiah 32:37-41

As we’ve been traversing the highways and byways of Istanbul over these last many weeks, I have become a frequent visitor to the home page of the public transit authority.  By virtue of the house hunting we’re doing, it seems like we rarely travel to the same place twice so I am always needing to chart a new path between new points—and doing it in as few transfers as possible—and so I click over to the various online route maps and schedules to find a way forward.

On their home page, they have a nice little Flash display with some astounding stats about the Istanbul public transport system:

IETT has a fleet of over 5,000 buses, the largest in Europe. Every day, these buses drive a total of over 535,000 km (or 332,400 miles).  Every day, Istanbul buses drive enough miles to circumnavigate the globe 13.5 TIMES!  Every day!  (I just figured out that that’s also enough driving to get you to the moon and a third of the way back, you know, if there were to be paved roads in outerspace.)

Just the Metrobuses alone, which are double length buses that drive in dedicated HOV-type lanes open only to them, log enough miles to drive around the globe 2.2 times each day.

And what makes all this even more amazing: None of these statistics include the myriad of dolmushes, taxis, private shuttles, minibuses, ferries, fast ferries, sea buses, subways, trains, and light rail that carry people around as well.

With all these people going all this distance, no wonder it feels like we’ve got to go halfway around the world to get anywhere!

Thanks to all of you who prayed for my health this week! That very night my fever broke and was still normal yesterday morning. I still felt a bit flu-ish most of yesterday, but by evening was almost back to normal! There is no other explanation, than it being a clear answer to prayer. I am the person who is typically full-out sick, in bed for a week. I thought there was little hope for me after seeing how sick Scott was, and I am definitely so grateful for God’s grace and answer to prayers for health.

That meant today we got to go out together to look for apartments. And it just so happens that we saw the first real possibility – it’s an area that lines up well with our hopes in terms of the kind of population, near a major transportation hub, has rooms bigger than shoebox size (some of the places we have looked at would fit a double/queen size bed, maybe a night stand, and nothing more), and the rent is doable, though not as low as we had hoped.

All week I have felt an urgency that this is the week we are to rent our apartment, that it is time. We have prayed, researched, observed, considered, and it just feels like it’s time to settle in and get started. So tomorrow we really hope to rent an apartment. We’re trusting that it is God who has placed this desire on our hearts, and not just merely impatience.

Please pray:

• That we would have the discernment needed to know the neighborhood and specific apartment where we are to live. (There’s one other area that we had originally been hopeful about and would like to see that door fully close before making a final decision.)

• That we would know which factors/qualities/preferences to prioritize and which ones to sacrifice.  (We always want to choose wisely, and even more since we know that our decision will also affect others who join us.  We know we’re not going to find the perfect place from a human standpoint, but we want to know what factors really should be deal breakers for us.)

• That we would have clarity and peace to see the place the Lord has for us.  (We need to keep believing the truth: We are equipped with everything we need to go where He calls, and we just have to trust that He is going to keep giving all that we need when we need it.)

Hopefully we’ll have some exciting news to share tomorrow, so be sure to check back! If not, I imagine there may be some clear ways to continue praying!

You may recall the post about our recent trip that mentioned Scott coming back sick.  It was yucky and has taken over a week for him to get back to normal. Today is actually the first day he didn’t show residual signs of the cold/flu like illness that kept him in bed a couple of days last week and certainly slowed him down a lot over the last week.

Our goal has been to rent an apartment this week! We are ready!

Last night I felt exhausted. Today that feeling didn’t leave, even after sleeping last night. On top of that I woke up with a raspy voice and scratchy throat, much how Scott started out. I was hoping I was just tired and battling allergies. By this evening when I still felt poorly, I took my temperature to find a low grade temp, that has been slowly climbing throughout the evening.

Remember that Scott was sick for a week and a half (Scott, who rarely catches flues and colds…)? Remember that we hope to rent an apartment this week?

Would you pray that this yucky sinus flu would pass over me – that this would be the worst of it, and I’d be well enough to be out looking with Scott at possible homes?

Thanks for being people we can bring our requests to!

Well, you know that it must be something important for me to break my weeks-long electronic exile and post something on the blog!

And it is important.

We’re getting ever closer to finding a place to live.  Today we moved for the first time from just walking around a neighborhood or searching online listings to actually talking to a realtor and looking at an apartment.  (Well, they couldn’t find the keys for it, but it was on the ground floor and we looked at it from the outside.)

If we’ve learned anything in this research process so far, it is that no place will be perfect—at least according to a human checklist (which, yes, I have made).  But there is a place that is perfect in God’s providence and for his purposes, and that is what we really want to check off on.

As we’re getting to the more serious stage of this process, the pace quickens.  This is moving season in Turkey and so rentals move swiftly.  What’s available in the morning may have other tenants moved in by the afternoon.  When the time comes, we may need to make a fairly swift decision without the opportunity to take a day or two to reflect, pray or seek others’ counsel.

So we would like to ask for your special intercession over these days.  Pray that we would continue to be guided to the right neighborhood appointed for us.  Pray that we would not feel pressured by any deadlines we’ve set for ourselves or by the sales tactics of a manipulative realtor.  (We’ve heard rumors that there might be one or two in this new city of ours.)  And maybe most of all, pray that Abby and I would have unity without regrets as we make this decision for our family and, by implication, for others who plan to come and share life with us among the God-beloved people of Turkey.

I’m sure by now some of you are wondering if I have confiscated my husband’s blog, especially as you read about laundry, chai lattes, and bugs in the flour! Quite the shift in direction from this blog previously!

In reality, when we first started the blog, it was with the purpose that we’d both be posting on it. Only I realized I didn’t have anything to say that seemed important enough to post! Though I did decide that I really like picture posts. :)

In Iraq that didn’t work so well, as it sometimes took 2-3 days to get a picture uploaded. Plus while in Iraq, our camera took up smoking (I know, it wasn’t a very health conscious camera), so arriving back in the States meant only taking pictures if we wanted to see smoke come up from the camera…

Eventually we replaced it, and I took a stab at blogging again this spring. It turns out that I really like it! Combine this with moving here and having few other people, sometimes none other than Scott, that I regularly speak English to, and I have A LOT more to say!

We’re using this transition season to decide what we’ll do with our blog. Maybe one or both of us will start another one, or maybe we’ll just share this one after all! And don’t worry to all of you theologians out there, my husband will be posting again. Right now, there’s simply enough logistics to look after in choosing an area to live and setting up a home, that he has more than enough on his plate these days.

As for me, I’m grateful to join the blogging world and happy to have an outlet to share the random happenings of our cross-cultural journey! Thanks for journeying with us!

It’s actually really nice. Not as convenient as tossing clothes in a dryer, but definitely saves on the electric bill. Plus, who wants to heat up an already hot house in the middle of the summer? The place where we’re staying does have a dryer (not all that common here), so I have to admit that I’ve decided towels and undershirts are two things worth drying. It only took one load of crispy, rough towels to make that decision. And I’ll usually throw the things we’d like to come out less wrinkled in the dryer for a few minutes and then hang them. I’ve noticed this and hanging them when the sun is out during the heat of the day seems to help them come out a little softer than if they hang on the drying rack all day inside. Plus, better than any fabric softener, they come out smelling like fresh sunshine! You’ll be surprised to know that this picture was taken at 8:30pm not long before taking them down! It stays light out for a long time!

Not a bad view while hanging laundry…

Of course if you look to the right you find this view…

You’ll be happy to know we found our camera cord!

So good to get out of the Big City for a few days and enjoy wonderful creation! It truly proclaims who our God is to all who are willing to see.

It was a great time of refreshment and fellowship. And it does seem that we came away with at least some direction on where to consider setting up. Maybe not the clarity we were hoping for, but we’re slowly getting there, trusting that our Father is the one directing steps.

Unfortunately Scott brought back a little something from our time away and has spent the last few days as sick as I’ve seen him at any point. Not surprising when you have so many people in one place sharing meals and facilities. Hopefully he’s on the way to being well and ready to do some more scouting!