Rain, Rain...

...please come our way. I had to wait until after it rained to publish this so as to not jinx it, but we are so thankful that we finally got some decent rain today. It's literally been 6 months since we got any serious rain. I think it's sprinkled 2 or 3 times from May thru September, but nothing more than teasers. From all accounts, we are entering into the rainy season and we are very excited. It's funny how you miss things like a regular dose of rain. It's also interesting living somewhere that experiences wet and dry seasons. Over the past 80 years, Adana has averaged less than 5 inches of rain from June-Oct, that's a long time to do without water. Some parts of the country felt it worse this summer and had to implement water rationing. It wasn't quite as severe here as we regularly saw the city fire trucks used for watering plants and medians. Since all the buildings are 100% concrete there is hardly any need for fire trucks, so at least this way they don't completely waste their trucks or manpower. Below you can see Jayme (in her monochromatic outfit) enjoying the rain from our balcony.

9 Blogs to Someone You Know

Thanks to the world wide web and blogs, the world is getting smaller everyday, thus making it easier to find friends, no matter where they are. In our spare time this morning, we realized that many of our family and friends have blogs and most of those blogs have links that take you to their families' and friends' blogs. We then discovered that you can start from any blog in the world and eventually find your way to someone you know. In fact we think it can be done in less than 10 blogs. This morning we started in Dallas, TX and made our way through blogs in College Station, TX; Louisville, KY; Hong Kong; and Thailand, before making our way to friends in India. We traveled around the world meeting people we will never see and looking at pictures of people we don't know, but it was pretty cool when we finally got to familiar faces. I know you are probably thinking that we must have been really bored, but you've either thought about it or will try it soon. We are so sure that this will become the hottest game of the year that we are going to add a few more links to our blog to make it a little easier for all those blogologist that come through our page. We are also sure that blogging is a phase that will be obsolete by 2010, so get in while you can before it's gone.

Touring Turkey

We just returned from traveling through the Turkish countryside as we visited interesting and historic places such as Çatalhöyük, the oldest known settlement currently under exploration in the world. It is 9500 years old so that would make its inhabitants date back to 7500 years before Christ. From there we went to Iconium, modern day Konya. It is a quiant little city of one million plus and a place that some of our teammates are moving to in about a year. It is well known for the Mevlanna museam, which houses the founder of Sufi Islam, which is famous for the whirling dervishes. These people would dance-spin themselves around in a circle until they spun themselves into a trance. All this was a way of trying to achieve a closer connection with God.

The next stop on our trip was one of the most interesting places I have ever seen. It is Cappadocia and it is famous for it's chimney style rock formations. Out of these tall rock structures, people carved out caves for houses and churches. Many of these caves are still evident and available to the public, just depending on how brave you are, as some are upwards of 50 feet high. We even had the opportunity to spend the night in a cave hotel. Our last stop was to an underground city where early believers would hide out when persecution was approaching. It had 12 floors underground with all kinds of tunnels and secret passageways. People could camp out there for up to 6 months before coming back above ground. Here are a few of the pics, but most of it you will have to see for yourself or talk to Dr. and Mrs. Dobbs as they were troopers and didn't want to miss anything.

Then and Now

Thanks to moms that save all things from their children's childhood, we have pictures below that remind us some people don't change much in 20 years. Notice the expression, hair, eyes, and most importantly, the fashion agility. Maybe the next 20 years will be as kind, but something tells me that the previous post will have a lot to do with that.

Meet Baby Yates!

We had our first real doctors visit today and it went well. We were able to see the baby and its heart beat. He/She looks very healthy and was moving all around, waving its arms and legs at us. We are tracking right on schedule and the baby is measuring 2.4 cm!

Flying Ninjas

No, it's not the title of the new Jackie Chan movie. It's better than that. Before Greece we spent a week in the mountains for our annual get together with other team members. It was great to escape the heat and get together with friends for lots of fun in the mountain sun. We even got to see rain, something we haven't seen in over 4 months. Since the hotel is a ski resort in the winter there are obviously ski lifts that take people up the mountain. Even though it was summer, they opened the lifts for us to go to the top on one of non-rainy days. However, by the time we got to the top we were surrounded by a cloud and so we weren't able to see anything below us. This was a big let down and we thought a waste of time and money, but God had something better in store. As we got back on the ski lift to head down the mountain we saw something ahead that caught our attention. Something all black ,coming our way. Was it the mafia? Or the militia? Coming to trap us while we were stuck on the mountain top. Thankfully not. It's was just a Middle Eastern man with his two children, followed by his 5 wives, all covered head-to-toe in their black ninja outfits. It's a sight we never thought we'd see, a ninja on a ski lift. I guess I've officially seen it all.
*author's note: Ninja is not a derogatory term. It's the only word used to describe all-covered-in-black women. Even the newspapers use it, and we know you can always trust the newspaper:)

Greece

Other than the lackluster experience with the train to and from Greece, our time there was wonderful. Our friends Mike and Beckie were great hosts and they took us all around their little city in the country as well as to historic places like Thessaloniki, Philippi and Berea. We got to see incredible artifacts from Paul's day and even dipped our feet into the same river where he baptized Lydia. One of our favorite parts was of course eating the great food, as well as meeting Mike and Beckie's friends and neighbors. The Greek language provided somewhat of a barrier as our knowledge is limited to fraternity and sorority letters; which made us ever more thankful for the little Turkish we've learned over the last 8 months. The last day, Beckie took us to the grocery store where we were able to stock up on items that are unavailable here. Essentials like Heinz ketchap, French's mustard, Helmann's mayonnaise, cheddar chesse and even ham. Hopefully these goodies will last us for a couple of months.

Midnight Train to Greece

This past week the Curtis's and us took an overnight train from Istanbul to Thessaloniki, Greece. We thought the idea of riding in a sleeper car for 12 hours sounded like a fun and the most effecient way to get there. At least one of those was correct. It really was an experience we will never forget and one that we will likely only experience once. First of all, the 12 hour ride turned into 15, with no way to contact the people picking us up to let them know we would be late. Second, we knew the train stopped at the border at 12am for customs, but we didn't know it also stopped every 30 minutes thereafter. This provided for a somewhat restless night of sleep and defeated the purpose of riding in the sleeper car. Thirdly, the rooms (which included two single beds big enough for a 5 year old) were extremely close quarters and provided plenty of opportunity to inhale each other's body odor which continued to rise due to the faintness of A/C.
For our return trip, we were on a different train. And thankfully it exceeded 30 miles an hour and managed to get us to Istanbul in time to make our return flight. It even came with a club car! However, the air didn't work at all on this train, causing us to keep the windows open and take in the sweet smell of diesel fuel all night. All and all we made it to Greece and back, but we decided we may be too old for a backpacking trip across Europe.

Happy Birthday to Me!

For the past few days we have been celebrating my 27th birthday! It has been a blast with lots of good food, good friends and good presents. It started off with the team giving me a delicious spice cake at our monthly get together and ended with a special lasagna dinner last night; with one blowout party in between. Monday we went over to Curtis and Annie's and they had a Chipotle themed, burrito dinner. It was wonderful and was topped off with an professionally made chocolate cake, special thanks to designers Katie and Jessica. Then I opened loads of presents from here and from home. Thanks to all for making needed contributions to my wardrobe and cd/dvd collections. Last night we had a wonderful lasagna and crunchy romaine dinner with the Craig and Katie, followed up by cheesecake and our weekly game of Rummy. It's been a wonderful birthday so far, especially since my birthday isn't until tomorrow. However, I don't anticipate the nightly birthday celebrations will continue.

Two Years. Lounge Chairs. Babies.

Well Jared and I are celebrating our second anniversary on August 13th. We decided to celebrate early by going out to eat at a nice restaurant over-looking the lake here in Adana on Saturday evening - it was lovely. We also decided to celebrate early by giving our gifts to one another. We bought a pair of patio lounge chairs for our balcony as you can see in the picture below - currently as it is hotter than the face of the sun outside we are making good use of the chairs in our living room! They take up the majority of the space in our living room, but since they are quite comfortable, especially with the A/C blowing directly on you when you are sitting in them, they will remain inside until the temperatures drop below the boiling point!

We also had one surprise gift that we did not purchase this year... a baby! We found out last week that we are going to have a baby! We are super excited and feel so blessed by this gift from the Lord. We are pretty much beside ourselves! We are due in April! We wanted to share some of our excitement with y'all!

Our University Students

For the past two months Jayme and I have been teaching English to a group of 10-12 college students who are home for the summer. Most of them go to different universities around Turkey and they come home to work or be with their family. We have enjoyed getting to know them as we teach every Tuesday night. Next week is our last time to be with them and we are kind of sad to see them go back to school. When you take on a class full of college students you never know what you are going to get, but these guys and gals have been a lot of fun and give us something to laugh about every week. Jayme is a superb teacher (and has often regretted dropping elementary ed at MC) and the students love her. I am really just there for moral support and to give her a break as the class is rather large considering our main focus is conversational English.

Another Fair Has Come and Gone

The saddest part about the Fair, other than missing it completely, is seeing it go. Another Fair for Cabin #228 has come and gone. We certainly missed it this year and from the looks of things, it seems to have missed us as well. We received calls most mornings letting us know how exceptionally cool it was this year and how afghans were needed after 10:00pm. We heard of new visitors, some with age and some without. We got the rundown of each day's menu and how it wasn't quite the same without Jayme helping out in the kitchen. We even got to hear as Stan called in the first few racers in the triathlon. It was an uneventful week here in Adana, but we are thankful that we got to participate - from a distance - in this year's fair festivities. If we are still here this time next year, we are defintely finding some red dirt and sawdust for the balcony so we can feel even more at home.

Adana in July

With a strong wind blowing through, these past few days have been a little cooler with the high being around 98 or 99 instead of 110! At least when the wind is blowing, it takes 3 minutes instead of the usual 30 seconds before your skin reaches the boiling point. I think the only place on earth that may be hotter during the last week of July is The Neshoba County Fair! We are certainly going to miss it this year; a first for me in my 28 years and possibly even tougher for Jayme as she has grown quite fond of it. Both of our families will be there taking in the food, fun, sawdust, games, flea-market, horse races, beauty pageant, concerts - well enough about that. However, if the elections here in Turkey go array on Sunday, we may be home for the second half of the Fair after all. Elliot, save me some chess squares, just in case.

As I mentioned earlier, the temperatures are getting close to 100 everyday and they don't cool off too much at night, usually down to the mid 70's. The problem with the way the apartments are constructed is that they have zero insulation and they are 100% concrete. So in the winter they keep the cold in and in the summer they keep the heat in. With no central heat or air, people are forced to buy Klimas (something similar to a window unit.) The only problem is that they are fairly expensive, especially when the average salary is around $5,000. Therefore, some people opt out of paying for the AC and just go with sleeping outside on the balcony. I haven't figured out how they get much sleep since things don't start dying down until midnight and the sun comes up at 4:30am. For the sake of our marriage, we made the sacrifice and went with the Klima in our bedroom, as well as the heaviest, darkest curtains Jayme could find. When different neighbors come over, they ask why we have upholstery fabric for curtains.

Last night we were going out to eat with our neighbors at 8:00, which is late for us so we of course ate a pre-dinner dinner. Then they called and asked if 8:30 was okay. Then the wife came by and said, how about 9 since the husband is having a hard time getting away from work and we also have to go to the hospital on the way to dinner, b/c the 2 year old baby got scratched by a street cat two nights ago and needs one more shot from the doctor to make sure he doesn't catch anything. Knowing there usually aren't any quick trips to the hospital we figured we ought to reschedule for Sat. or Sun. When our neighbor agreed that would be better we quickly put on our pj's and were thankful for the early night in. Within 5 minutes we had another knock and she was back saying her husband was off of work so we could go. It was already 8:45 and we still had to go to the hospital, and since Jayme and I are way past our years in time-for-bed requirements, we stuck with the Sat. or Sun. plans. We also had other neighbors stopping by to bring desserts over. It was a special holiday preceeding Ramadan and they celebrate by taking dessert to their neighbors. We have just started the three holy months here, the last of which will be Ramadan. We were not adequately prepared as we had just distributed desserts 2 nights before and we figured we don't know any devout Muslims in our building so they probably won't even celebrate. What we didn't realize is that devout or not, (just like at home) everyone celebrates holidays involving food. We are still trying to get used to this culture and it will certainly take us more time, but somethings I just can't understand. How do you eat lunch at 12 and then not eat dinner until 10pm. I guess it's all in the 20 cups of hot tea they continue to drink, even if it is hot outside. Maybe we will figure it out one day. Here's a few pics of our neighbors making the best of their balconies.

Delta Delta Delta!

Well I just finished a four week children's English camp at a language school called Delta School of Languages. It was an intense four weeks with lots of hyped up Turkish children! Katie and I taught Tuesday and Thursday mornings, each morning we taught three different classes. The kids were actually a lot of fun and the time passed quite quickly. Last week as I was sitting in the manager's office after class he informed me that there would be a program on the last day, a party really. This was all going on in Turkish so I just nodded and told him we would definitely stay around after class to drink tea and eat cake. I was still nodding away as he was talking and I heard him say "okay, so what will your children do for the program?" in Turkish! I was a little surprised since I think I had already agreed for our class to do something with my profuse head nodding... I should really try to listen more closely! Anyway - turns out he really wanted Katie and I to have our classes do some sort of 'program' at the program! We taught our youngest class If You're Happy and You Know It and we taught our older class The Hokey Pokey. Fortunately most of our younger students showed up and the song went GREAT! Unfortunately we had all of 4 older students come and the hokey pokey was a bit of a disaster.. the whole left and right issue was a big stumbling block for most of them! So as you can see Katie and I stood in the front making fools of our selves as we kicked our feet in the air and shook them all about!

Happy Birthday Craig!

Birthdays might be an even bigger deal here than at home, at least we do everything we can to help them be. Yesterday we had the opportunity to celebrate Craig's birthday and we didn't hold back. We began with some guy time at the Varner's where football and tavla were the main activities. Unfortunately, Craig's team was hampered by the 100 degree heat and struggled in the second half, whereas Harrison, Tom and myself were able to replenish at halftime with some H2O and managed to pull out the win. After games with the Varner's we brought the party to our balcony where the girls had already decorated for the celebration with confetti, masks, leis, party hats and everyone's favorite, sparklers! We grilled hamburgers (lamb-burgers were outlawed this time) and ate plenty of french fries and salsa. We concluded the party with two episodes of 24, with a break in the middle for some incredible birthday cake. It was a lot of fun and Craig got plenty of good birthday presents, including my favorite, soccerball soap-on-a-rope.

Pre-Wedding Festivities!

Last night we thought we were going to have a quiet, relaxing evening with a movie, however, late in the day we noticed people outside our apartment setting up for some type of party. They placed about a hundred white plastic chairs in a big square right in the middle of our street and strung up lights. We didn't know if it was for a wedding or a funeral. We were hoping for a wedding, for some of the obvious reasons, but also because wedding celebrations only last one night, where as funeral get togethers last for 7 straight nights. At about sundown the drums and super-loud clarinets started up and the party was on. They played and danced in a line for about three hours straight. Towards the end of the night the bride and groom sat in the middle of the square as folks danced around them holding candles. For this portion the bride was completely veiled as well. From our best guess, this was the pre-wedding party. The actually wedding probably won't be for another few days. Fortunately, the law in Adana is that the party has to stop by 11 pm! For a short clip of the festivites, use the address below.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8018369659192164238&hl=en

Election Time

Things are definitely shaking up here in Turkey as the July 22nd election nears. Speculators are claiming that this is the biggest election in Turkey since Atatürk helped form Turkey as an independent country 85 years ago. The election is for the 550 Parliament seats and instead of voting for individual people, you vote for the party and based on that party's percentage of votes, they hold that many seats in Parliament. It's also a big election because as soon as Parliament is decided on July 23rd, those representatives will then elect a President. Turkey is trying to move towards a system where the people get to vote for the President, but currently Parliament members are the only voters. With so many issues on the line, the campaigning has been not stop and out of control. Several times a day we hear a van or bus drive by our apartment blasting their campaign message through speakers on top of the vehicle. Some of the key issues that each party takes a firm stance for or against are: European Union, education, Cyprus, Armenian genocide, ties with America, and the PKK terrorist group. We are excited to be here during this historic event and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for Turkey. Below is one of the common forms of advertising.

Tropical Heat Wave

According to the newspapers, a heat wave from North Africa has decending upon Turkey covering us in a cloak of burning temperatures and heat advisories. Today in Adana "pregnants, the handicapped, and the elderly" are all excused from work. While it's hard to know exactly what the temperature is, we have heard the words "50 degrees" mentioned several times. (50 Celsius = 122 Farenheit) While we don't think it has gotten quite that hot, we seem to be hovering around the 110 mark. We can't move a muscle without breaking a sweat. Until the heat wave subsides, we will be hunkering down and running the A/C full blast.

Lost in Translation

We feel that due to the humor we often create with our mispronounciations and poor grammar in Turkish, we are allowed to enjoy some of the common English mistranslations used by Turks. Since the top 5 worked well before, we'll try it again.

5. We will wait you. (We will wait for you.)

4. It comes strange to my ear. (It sounds funny.)

3. It must be. (I think so. or Yes.)

2. Horning the honk. (Honking the horn.)

1. I am thinking I want to say you this. (Let me tell you...)

You Know You are in Culture Shock When....

We have been here for almost 6 months and inevitably a little culture shock and homesickness have set in. What has been most unexpected are the results of these feelings...

You know you are homesick when:

1. You live an hour from the Mediterranean and yet long for Gulf Shores.

2. You can no longer tell the difference between a lamb-burger and a hamburger :)

3. You start to think this swimsuit look might not be so bad...

4. You start craving Kebab over Fajitas!

5. You start to sing All-American favorites (You're a Grand Ole Flag, This Land is Your Land and the all time favorite - I'm Proud to be an American) to pass the time.

Going to the chapel....

Well Jared and I went to our first Turkish wedding tonight. My friend Esra got married tonight in what was very similar to a scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, seriously! Jared and I definitely stood out as the only foreigners at the party. Everyone wanted to know what we were doing there. We were told the wedding was at eight. We arrived promptly at 7:56 but kept driving around as we realized we were a bit on the early side. We finally went in a little after 8 only to realize that the bride and groom were not going to show up for at least an hour. Truly they did not show up until after 9 pm. Esra's father assigned us a "guide" for the event. One of Esra's friends who is currently studying to be a doctor was assigned to be our friend. We were very glad to have her although she did not speak any English either. Several people came up to us and wanted to meet the foreigners. The bride and groom arrived in fantastic fashion with fireworkes and confetti bombs inside the hall! They made a tour around the room nodding at everyone and then took their places at the front of the hall on a large stage, seated on a throne seat, underneath gold hearts and doves hanging above them. It was lovely! Everyone then went up to them to greet them and give them their gift of a gold piece of jewelry. We bought a small gold coin and then pinned it on her wedding dress along with everyone else. Usually Turkish weddings include a lot of dancing, however we did not dance at this wedding. Esra is very devout in her faith and did not want dancing. So we just looked at the bride and groom and that was really about all the wedding consisted of, we visited a bit longer and then made our goodbyes. Everyone was so glad that we had come and we were as well. A good time was had by all.

Sometimes you just have to laugh

In my 5 months in Turkey I've experienced several frustrations, some that I thought would make me go crazy. But I am learning that the best way to deal with these is, if at all possible, to laugh it off. The most recent experience came in the form of a check from the states. Jayme and I cancelled a credit card before we left and they owed us $45.34, so they mailed it to my parents address. My dad realizing that he was about to send us a goody bag, including the check in with it, expecting we wouldn't have any trouble cashing it here.

Having never seen a check in Turkey, I asked my stock broker buddy if I would be able to cash it. He assured me that there wouldn't be any problem. So I took it to my bank and got my other buddy, Celal, to help me cash it. However, due to the fact that Citibank was written in large letters on the top left corner, they instructed me to take it to the Citibank branch downtown and assured me they would cash it. I thought this was little odd, but since I was headed that way, I didn't question him. When I arrived at Citibank, a friendly, English-speaking lady helped me and after examining the check for a few minutes acted if she would be able to cash it. Great, I thought. However, I don't have an account at Citibank and was told that I would need to open an account there in order to cash it; but my bank should be able to cash it as well. Since it takes a couple of hours to open an account, I opted to go with door #2 and go back to my bank with this new information. I realized that my bank might have only seen the Citibank name and not my name in small print at the bottom.

Fortunately, there was a branch of my bank close to the Citibank so I walked there and asked them to cash it for me. This lead to a 10 minute "dialogue" with the teller, where he continued to instruct me that I needed to go to Citibank and I continued to tell him that I had just come from Citibank and they wouldn't take it. I also tried to explain that it didn't matter that it was from Citibank, it was made out to me. After several attempts to uneffectively communicate with each other, he went and got one of the managers. She graciously told me that they could cash it, however, I would have to go to my branch to do it. I kindly told her that I had made several transactions at her branch in the past without any problems, why was this different. I didn't get much of an answer before realizing I would have to go back where I started and see if Celal could pull through for me and get my measly $45 check cashed.

So yesterday Garrett and I headed to the bank for my last attempt at cashing the check. I told him on the way that "I had a good feeling." As I confidently stepped up to the teller, I told him that I needed to cash this check. He studied it for a few seconds and then went to the back to hopefully get permission from the bank manager. I looked at Garrett and said, "I think this is the winner." While they continued to discuss we made our way over to Celal's desk and visited with him. I told him about our frustrations with trying to get the check cashed and how I had been all over the city and back again. A few minutes later they brought the check over to Celal with the instructions for him to translate. He said, "I've got some good news. We can cash the check!" I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that the ordeal was over. Then he says, "However, it's going to cost $40." Garrett and I literally fell out on the floor laughing.

So despite my persistence and optimism, the check is going back home with Garrett to where it will hopefully make its way to a bank that will gladly cash it. Unfortunately I don't even want the money anymore, I just want to be reassured that there are places in this world where normal things like cashing a check can be done in one trip to one bank.

Antakya

On Tuesday we went with a group of college students that are here for a few weeks to Antakya,(previously known as Antioch.) There were 22 of us in all and we obviously stuck out more than a little, but Antakya is more touristy than Adana so you don't get quite as many funny looks. The most interesting and funny thing is that we had an agenda all planned out, but we were meeting up with a husband and wife who had some connections with one of the students with us. And as is common in Turkey, they took it upon themselves to be our tour guides for the day and our plans were thrown out the window, which isn't necessarily that bad as they have all the insider info on all the good spots. First we got to see St. Peter's Church where Christians were first called Christians. And while we were there we got to do a little mountain climbing as the church is built into the side of a mountain so there is lots of exploring opportunities. From there we went to a huge (wedding reception type) restaurant. It probably seated 1000 people and we were the only ones there, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the incredible food that they continued to set in front of our faces. From there we checked out some waterfalls that ran by the restaurant and then our tour guides took us to the museum, as well as the Catholic and Orthodox churches. They were members of the Orthodox church so they laid lots of good historical info on us. We had a great time with them and they were wonderful guides and hosts. From there we stopped at Liverburger and picked up "the world's best döner" (chicken or meat in a pita wrap) for dinner and headed back home. I think a good time was had by all.

Senior Trip

My cousin Garrett just graduated high school last week and his travels brought him to Turkey for the next three weeks. He arrived on Thursday and either we have already worn him out or he is dealing with jet lag, but all he wants to do is sleep. Yesterday I took him around town and showed him a few of our favorite places as well as introducing him to public transportation and our favorite game of tavla. He is a fast learner and has already beat some of our seasoned players, myself included. This morning we went to the university and played basketball with our regular group of guys. They wanted to play national teams (Turks vs. Americans) and even though they have two former professional ballers, we took the challenge. Thanks to Garrett's contributions we were able to not only beat them, but whip them; twice. So as you can see in the pic above, he is recuperating from his LeBron-like performance. He was also gracious enough to bring us a suitcase filled with clothing items and other goodies. Thanks to all who helped in putting it together. Unfortunaly, Garrett's arrival also managed to bring about a virus that latched on to Jayme and rendered her useless for the past 24 hours. She is disappointed as hosting is one of her gifts and favorite treats and her skills have been put on hold. Thankfully she is on the mend and hopes to show off some of her cooking skills over the next few weeks.

I knew it was going to be an interesting week when...

Well it all started when we were at some friends on Sunday evening. We were enjoying a lovely time on their new back patio, eating treats like rotel and doritos and drinking sweet tea when all of the sudden a bird pooped on my head. Yes it is true. I thought it may have just been a leaf or a bug, but unfortunately when I reached up to brush it away I discovered otherwise. This has never happened to me before and I have to say I hope it never happens again! That was Sunday. Things were calm until Wednesday. Early Wednesday morning before I went to Turkish class I was hanging out our laundry on the back balcony. I am usually very careful to shake things out on the balcony so we don't have any clothes lost over the edge. I thought I had shaken out the towel well and leaned over to hang it on the line when an unsuspecting pair of my underwear fell out... and fell down.. the wind was blowing so I watched as it carried the pink undergarments down down down.. I held my breath, hoping the wind would carry them to the ground and not onto someone's balcony below.

Alas, things were not in my favor. I watched in horror and sheer embarrassment as they landed ever so precariously on the 2nd floor balcony ledge and stopped there. I had no clue what to do but I was ready to count it as a loss and never see those panties again. I called Jared to relate this horrible event and he laughed out loud and insisted I recover the lost underwear. I then had to go to class and ask my Turkish teacher to help me with the needed vocabulary to go to my downstairs neighbors (I have never met them) and ask for my underwear off their balcony. We went by their house on the way home but no one was home. I left for the rest of the afternoon to teach. As I pulled in later that evening I noticed that the underwear were actually gone from the ledge they had been resting on. I was thrilled and also curious - where were they? I gathered up my courage and stopped on the second floor again to ask for my underwear, however, again no one was home. When I got home Jared explained how he had saved the day. He was actually taking the clothes off the line and he looked down to check on the underwear - and guess what, apparently the wind had picked up again and blown them off the balcony into the driveway. He quickly ran downstairs and nabbed the underwear - hopefully unseen! Potentially super embarrassing moment was definitely averted!

Journeys Through Turkey

Sorry it's been a few weeks. Here's a video from our trips to the Mediterranean, Antioch, 7 churches of Revelation and Paul's 1st journey, as well as some events from the past two months.

Our First Turkish Test

As of yesterday, we have been here for exactly 4 months and so it was time for our first language test. And it was a doozy! We haven't received our results yet, but I am sure Jayme passed with flying colors and they may ask me to start over or come home. Seriously though, there isn't supposed to be a grade involved but it is supposed to show us areas where we need improvement. However, every question had a point value, indicating that there will be a score. I imagine they told us the score won't matter because they didn't want those of us that aren't linguists to throw in the towel. But it sounds to me a little like my neice's tee ball games, where they don't keep score and allow both teams to bat through the order twice and then call the game. My thing is that you know secretly most of those dads are keeping score in their head and they may not say, "We won!" But you know they are thinking it, because you've been there too and you've participated in games or tests when "they didn't keep score" and you know they only say that for the slow people. Well, I'm finally one of those slow people. But don't get me wrong, I don't think we should stop keeping score anymore because then I wouldn't be able to tell my Turkish friends that always want to play Turks vs. Americans in basketball that, "We won!"

Istanbul and 7 Churches

We just returned from a long and wonderful week of seeing the BIG City as well as some very old towns. Last week we joined Pinelake in Istanbul for a few days in the city with over 15 million people. We had heard that our city of 1.5 million was a village and we didn't believe that to be true until trying to get around with 10x that many people. From there we headed to Izmir (Smyrna) and began our tour of the 7 churches of Revelation. We saw incredible sights that were home to churches, theatres, librabries, gymnasiums and cities from 2000+ years ago. Some places were still in decent shape, others you had to use your imagination. But none-the-less, it was incredible standing in front of some of the greatest historical sites of our faith. It was an uplifting time for us as we made new friendships and received lots of encouragement and support, as well as a few goodies. Thanks to all those who brought and sent love from home, they are certainly appreciated. After the tour we spent a few more days in Istanbul and our friends showed us some more interesting sights including the spice bazaar, the Blue Mosque (the 2nd largest mosque in the world) and the Ayasophia (which is one of the oldest churches, which became a mosque and is now a museum, in the world.) We had a great time, but are glad to back home to our village. Here are some pics from the trip. (click on them to enlarge)

Pergamum Ampitheatre

Sardis Gymnasium

Ephesus Library

Ephesus Ampitheatre

Baptistry at St. John's Church in Ephesus