This morning we joined our Korean
brothers and sisters for prayer and worship in a small room on the top floor of
our apartment building. It was a
sacred experience, and wonderful.
To know that God is redeeming people for His glory from different peoples
with different languages and different cultures all throughout the earth and to
be a part of it is truly dramatic.
It was all very beautiful. I heard my brothers and sisters crying
out to God in a different language, in a small and unexceptional space, with
modest instrumental accompaniment (keyboard and acoustic guitar). I heard them worshipping with fervor
and great hopefulness in a country extremely hostile to anyone professing faith
in Jesus Christ. I heard them
worshipping in spite of the knowledge of the reality that there are probably only
a small handful of Christians in Turkey, and even in spite of the great
spiritual darkness enveloping the city.
During worship Crystal told us that
we were going to pray that the people of Istanbul would ‘taste the river of
life’ in Christ and that it would flow forth from our hearts and from our places
of worship. We interceded
together, and as we did God gave me a vision of a sparkling and vivacious and
life-giving river running spectacularly right through the city. Temples emblematic of oppressive
man-made religion had crumbled as people had deserted them and run to gather on
both sides of the banks of the river.
People were free at last to embrace grace and bask in the glorious light
of the True Son – this is the picture I saw, and so it will be when all things
are finally made new at the end…
We went out for lunch to a small
café and ordered donayers (spelling?).
The owner/cook/waitress brought us a pulled pork/french-fry/tomato
subway sandwich and a liquid yoghurt drink that was sort of sour and actually
sort of unpleasant. The
sandwich/donayer thingamabob was delicious though – our first taste of Turkey.
We went to a grocery store and bought some
food to cook up in our small kitchen facility – rice with a soup mix sauce and
carrot and tomato salad. We ate it
on the balcony outside our room overlooking the city with the soft orange light
of a disappeared sun brushed pastel-like over a furrowed and sky-scraping
horizon.
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