Before and After

We need to recognize two of our most recent purchases. Thanks to some love and support from friends at home we were able to buy a new toilet for our guest bathroom and a dishwasher. As you may recall from two posts ago, the squatty potty began to emit a foul odor that left us with no choice but to upgrade to the western toilet. We found the nicest-cheapest toilet available and had some plumbers install it Monday morning. They tried to overcharge us for the installation, but thankfully Jayme’s Turkish is advanced enough that she was able to call them out. She also reprimanded them for smoking inside while we were away at language class. I was proud of her for putting her foot down and being the man of the house. Hopefully my language will soon catch up so I can regain some dignity and pride. A few weeks ago, a friend in the states realized how much a dishwasher could benefit us as we enjoy hosting on a regular basis. We have certainly been blessed by this generous gift and no one complains about loading or unloading the dishwasher. As a matter a fact, for some people it is a treat.

Before

After

Before

After

Lunch with the Sopranos

Last month Chris, Jayme and I were strategically walking through downtown when we paid a visit to one of Chris's buddies who owns a fishing supplies store. He enjoyed having us stop by and invited us to join him at the "best kebap" restaurant in town. (kebap is ground lamb meat with spices served over bread. it's really good and a specialty in this part of the country.) We were actually fasting that day so I kindly told him next week. Chris went back to see him last week and he was upset that we didn't take him up on his offer and come back the following week. Little did I know he would take me seriously but none the less, Chris and I headed down there today to join him for lunch. We didn't get there until 1pm b/c my toilet installers were 1.5 hours late this morning, which is typical, which is why we weren't worried about being late for lunch. Besides what is late if no one knows what time it is anyway. Another reason we were late though was because we couldn't find the shop. Granted Chris has been there dozens of times but always on bus and foot; driving there is a different story. Have you ever been two blocks away from your desired destination but you couldn't figure out how to get there? Once we got there mob boss, Tony Soprano, (not his real name) meets us and makes a few calls to round up the entourage. When the crew is accounted for, we head through a back alley, through a courtyard and into the back door of the restaurant. We found the inside a little crowded, leading us to believe it might actually be the best kebap shop in town. The attendents tried to pull some tables together for the six of us, but Tony didn't like the setup and said we will sit outside in the courtyard. So they scurry to set up some tables and chairs in the courtyard area. Over the next 20 minutes they brought us 9 different salad-ish appetizers. That's right 9! Some with just lettuce, some with just tomatoes, some with cucumbers and yogurt and some with combinations of all of the above. Now we usually get free salad stuff at restaurants but it's only 2 or 3 items, never before have I seen 9, and that doesn't include the bread. So after I am half-full off the salad, they bring out the kebaps. I am a big fan of kebaps so I am excited to see what the fuss is all about. I don't know if it was the best, but it was pretty fine. Most of them taste the same to me, b/c how do you differentiate when all you have to work with is meat and bread. About halfway through my plate I started getting full but I didn't stop as to not offend. (I am still hurting and it's four hours later.) So when we get ready to leave, we just get up and walk off. No bill, no payment that I saw. Possibly just a handshake or a wink of the eye. I am certainly thankfully for the meal but I think I am going to let Chris handle this friendship without me, because as you, once you get into the family, you never get out.

A Day in the Life

Many people ask what do we do on a daily basis, so I (jared) wanted to take a few minutes to describe what the past few days have been like just to give you a better feel.
Thursday: One of the interesting things about living overseas is that you don't have a schedule and if you try to make one, it looks very different from day to day. Thankfully we didn't have to be anywhere until 10am so we had a much needed opportunity to sleep in. We've had 3 different groups here over the past 3 weeks so we have been very busy with late nights and early mornings, so the chance to catch up on sleep was wonderful. We went our office for a 10:30 meeting with someone from upper management which only took about 45 minutes, then from 12-3 I met with my language helper for the first time. He is my age and a real cool guy and I hope to meet with him a couple of times a week to let him help me with Turkish and in turn I will help him with English. He doesn't have a job currently which is bad for him but good for me so that we can hang out during the day. Our language lesson consisted playing tavla (backgammon) on the balcony while forcing each other to speak in their foreign language. We are able to talk about any subject so I am looking forward to our time together. Before English class I did a little Turkish homework and threw some food down in order to meet up with Craig at our office to teach three Turks. These men are all professionals in their mid 30s and want to learn English to move up in their company or open their own business. The class meets on T & Th from 7-9pm and we are having a good time getting to know them and learn about each others cultures.

Friday: On M,W & F we have Turkish class at the office from 9-11 where we learn more grammatical stuff from our teacher Turkay. After lunch Jayme went to her English class where she teaches two young girls, and I went to my neighbor's furniture store. He's been out of town and we needed to catch up; unfortunately he wasn't there, but his father was. More unfortunately though is that his father speaks zero English. This is really good for my practice, but it's nice when they speak a few words of English so they can at least understand your frustration in searching for words. If they don't you get the impression that they are thinking, "This guy is an idiot, he can't even speak the language of the country he is living in." I'm afraid I am guilty of the same thought when I visit a Mexican restaurant back home. None-the-less we pressed on and when faced with an awkward pause in the conversation, sometimes lasting upwards of 2-3 minutes, I utilized it to thumb through the rolodex in my head searching for the next sentence. When I ran out of things to talk about, I drew a map of Turkey on his crossword puzzle and asked him where he had been and what it was like. He seemed to enjoy that activity as Turks have even more pride in their country than Americans. After visiting for an hour we ate lunch together there at the office (even though I had already eaten I still partook so as to be polite and b/c Turkish food is so dang good.) It was still another hour before his son showed up but when he did, he felt so bad for telling me to come by and not being there that he insisted on giving me a ride to our version of Yates Bldg. Supply and helping me pick out a western toilet to replace our squatty potty. A part of me hates to get rid of it but it wasn't used too often and it emits a terrible odor. So after getting the new toilet we stopped by a plumber's office to see if he could install it next week. He is coming monday morning and installing it for $30! My neighbor took us home at 6:30 and Jayme and I caught the 7:00 bus downtown to eat at a friend's house and watch a movie. We didn't get back home until midnight and I was up at 7am to meet my regular Saturday morning group of basketball players at the university.

Well that's just a few days into my daily routine. You can see that it's not quite as glamorous as it's made out to be but it sure is a lot of fun. Especially since other than learning the langauge and teaching English, our real job is to meet and build relationships with people. We are blessed to have many good friends who are willing to listen to our broken Turkish and we are excited to see walls and barriers slowly coming down.

The First Christians

This past week has been filled with fun and encouragement as our dear friend Shelby came for a visit! In honor of his visit we decided to check out a city close to us, Antakya, it is about 2 hours away and most of us know it as Antioch in the New Testament. We had several unexpected adventures, met new friends, and stood in the cave where both Peter and Paul are said to have preached. All in all it was a very long but great day! We started out with a visit to the Orthodox church, there is a small Orthodox community in they city, mostly of Arab descent. It was a beautiful church, however, they were having a funeral so our visit was cut short. We went from there to the Protestant church which is headed up by some Koreans, we left there and went to the Catholic church which unfortunately it was closed until 3 pm! The highlight of our day was by far "St. Peter's Church". It is not so much a church as it is a cave above the city. This is the cave that they believe Peter probably built, but either way both Paul and Peter probably preached here. This is believed to be the church mentioned in Acts 11. In the 1800's they built a facade in front of the cave and added some statues and an alter. There are still a series of tunnels in existence that the early Christians used to escape danger as they met in secret! This is where our adventure of the day begins... We decided to go above the church and check out some of the caves as well a stone carving that dates back before the time of Christ. While we were up there we ran into three guys who offered to "show us around"! They led us to several caves and short tunnels - it was fun crawling around as long as we knew where the tunnel ended. After crawling around inside of the mountain for a few minutes they asked us if we wanted to go to a really long tunnel - we all agreed and began the hike up the mountain. We entered the tunnel hesitantly as it was dark and really small - hands and knees small! We kept on and every so often we would come to a window on the side of the mountain where we could get some air and much needed light. We carried on for another 30 minutes or so and finally came to the way out. I was expecting to just crawl out of the end of the tunnel - but our guides failed to mention that we would need our climbing equipment to get out. When we arrived at the exit we noticed that the only way out was to scale a 20 foot high well! There was no ladder, no rope, not even really any good crevices to hold onto. It is totally by the grace of God that we all made it out unscathed! It was definitely a little scary and touch and go at times as to whether I (jayme) was going to actually go through with climbing out - but we agree now that it was a fun adventure for sure. I have attached a few tunnel and Antakya pictures for your enjoyment!