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Wichita, KS 67203 - © 2009 Olivet Baptist Church,
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Yesterday we worshiped with the Protestant Fellowship in Eskisehir. There were about 20 people, other than our team, present. Most of them were college age students, young adults. Their regular worship leader was gone and so we sang acapella - and they sang with great joy! I preached out of 1 Peter 1 about the living hope we have in Christ and then we celebrated communion. It was a good morning. After their services they have a fellowship time where they drink chai (tea) and have snacks. It was a good time together. There were people from the US, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Iran and the Congo - a real muli-ethnic group.
For lunch we ate at a Tartar restaurant. We had the Tartar form of byrek. It was excellent. Following lunch we walked through the city around the river that runs through the middle of Eskisehir. The steets were full of people enjoying the beautiful day - families with small children eating ice cream from street vendors and lots of chai.
During the afternoon we drove up to a hill overlooking the city and prayer walked for about an hour. One of the things I have noticed is that people look happy on the outside because they do not know how much God loves them and that their sin separates them from Him. In some parts of the country you can see the despair in the eyes of the people. Here, with a fairly good economy and plenty of jobs, there is a sense of everything is fine. The people go blindly through their lives with no sense of need for God. The church needs to pray that God will open their eyes and hearts to see their need and reveal Himself to them.
After chai with Pastor Salih last night we drove to a McDonalds at a shopping mall. Mark had a good time talking with the manager. They talked about the similarities of the business as well as the differences. Because of the conversation we all received free ice cream sundaes! Mark has been a real blessing to our team! Any time you can get free ice cream, its a good day.
Today we are going out to villages surrounding Eskisehir looking for the Tartar people. These people migrated to Turkey from the northern Black Sea area centuries ago. We are trying to find out more about them in order to help congregations know how to better reach them with the gospel.
Continue to pray for us as we seek to identify minorities that have not been impacted by the gospel. Pray that we will be sensitive to the people we meet. Tonight we will have dinner with the university students who are part of the fellowship here. I am praying that we will discover ways that we can connect our university students with them to build relationships and encourage them in their walk with God and in personal evangelism.
