Trabzon Pictures

I had a really great Trip to Trabzon this past weekend! I don't have time to write much about it now, but I wanted to make sure I posted links to the photos I took while I was there.

Day 1 - Trabzon
Day 2 - Trabzon / Sümela Monastery

I'm writing this now from the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, waiting for my flight back to Indy. I've been on the road a long time (esp. if you include my trip back to Istanbul yesterday), and I'm very tired. I will have more thoughts later, but for now it's all I can do to head to my gate...

Winding Down...

Well, I'm nearing the end of my trip. It's been a full and rewarding time. I've participated in a conference, spent two and a half weeks working hard on a website redesign and taken two weekend trips, and now I'm at the airport waiting for a flight for my final weekend excursion to the Black Sea coast city of Trabzon. Unless the British Airways crew strike results in my flight being canceled on Monday, I will be back in the U.S. next week. Wild.

I've been pushing pretty hard the last few days, trying to get things to a good place with the website, but unfortunately there are still too many loose ends to launch it before I go. My perfectionist side is disappointed, but we'll get things wrapped up before too long. All in all it's been a success, with a new design in place and a new back-end structure set up to facilitate future maintenance. I'm happy with it, and I believe my host here is as well.

I've learned a lot on this trip. On a technical level, I've had to dig into the inner workings of the Joomla content management system and learn how to customize and create new modules. The project has given me consulting experience as well, from working with my host to develop an Internet strategy (based on guidelines we learned at the conference I attended) to working with my designer friend back in the States to develop the design and a new logo. This is experience I'll likely be able to use elsewhere in the future.

In addition, I've had the chance to see what it's like to work in a faith-based context and to see some of the vision and potential for using technology to reach people in a meaningful way. I've had many interesting conversations about the cultural dynamics in this country and how they differ from the West. And I've had a whole month to re-acclimate to living in the main country in which I grew up.

I've really enjoyed my time here, and all these influences and experiences definitely have me thinking about how I can come back in the future. I'm praying that God will lead me and give me wisdom... who knows what the future holds? Is it possible He has a longer-term application of these and my past experiences in mind? Am I even at a stage of life right now where I should consider that?

I've got a lot to consider, but right now it can wait--I'm gonna be a tourist now. I've been looking forward to this final trip since before I got here. I'll be going further east than I've ever been, both within Turkey and within Asia. I have very little idea of what to expect, and I'm excited. One thing I did find out after I bought my plane ticket and was looking for a place to stay is that apparently Trabzon is quite a hub for Russian prostitutes, or "Natashas". Good to know. Apparently there are hotels to avoid.

Fortunately, just as I was heading out the door, a couple people at the office where I've been working told me they had friends in Trabzon that I should hook up with while I'm there. They made a phone call, and now I have a couple people I've never met expecting me and possibly providing a place for me to stay. I have access to a pretty awesome network here!

Well, it's time to board, so here we go on another adventure. I'll be sure to take pictures...

Changes come... bring the whole thing down...

Today I'm in Ankara, the capital city of this country, and the city where I grew up here in Turkey. It's not exceptional in the way cities go, but it's full of familiar places for me, and it was a lot of fun to stroll around downtown and see many of my old stomping grounds. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera along today, so I won't be able to show you pictures, at least not any that I've taken.

One of the things I noticed this time moreso than in the past was the number of abandoned building projects. There are various structures, from massive malls to smaller streetside shopping areas that are just huge skeletons or are standing empty, a sign that the hard times are hitting worldwide.

Apparently there has been a shift away from some of the traditional hangouts to these big new shopping malls. That had started to happen before my family left the country, but it sounds like the trend has continued. As a result older parts of town are suffering, like the mall attached to the iconic Space Needle-like structure, which was the first mall of its kind in the city.

Well, I suppose these things happen... things don't stay the way you remember them, and life goes on. In fact, life is continuing back home in Indiana as I speak. Weird.

One other different thing I noticed, an indicator of the shift in culture here, even as the malls grow in influence... on the bus I took here from Istanbul, an overnight bus, men and women are not allowed to sit next to each other. When I mentioned that to my hosts in Istanbul they said yep, things are becoming more conservative. This multiple continent-spanning country definitely encompasses an intriguing tug-of-war.

Tomorrow evening I will be returning to Istanbul to finish up our work on the website over the following three days. That's the goal. Lord willing, I will still be able to do some traveling after that. Then we'll get to see whether or not my British Airways flights back to the States will be affected by the ongoing crew strikes... this could be fun!

Skiing Thoughts

This past weekend I got to go skiing at Uludağ (pronounced oo-loo-dah), the first place I learned to ski back in 3rd grade. I found an all-inclusive ski tour package for the weekend and got two good days of skiing in. The skiing was a lot of fun--during a wobbly first hour or so I remembered how to ride, then I found some steeper slopes, explored and worked on my technique. I'm nice and sore now, but it was a good workout, and I was able to relax with a dip in the hotel's warm pool after the first day. All my meals were included and served at the hotel, and the spread was plentiful and filling.

But I'm a little sad about the trip. I had a great time skiing, but I was alone for most of the time, and that made it difficult. It felt lonely to be there without a group of friends of my own like just about everyone else that was there. It appeared that I was the only foreigner at my hotel, and while my Turkish is decent, the cultural barrier (as well as the more insular nature of the wealthier strata of society that were represented there) didn't lead to many natural acquaintances. I probably could have tried harder, but I was tired in the evening and didn't feel like going out anyplace where that would be easier.

I've also been wrestling with a sense of guilt over taking this trip at all. The process of arranging it was a distraction while working on Thursday and I had to quit early on Friday in order to pack for the weekend. That time can be made up, but the bigger issue for me is that I feel like I shifted from a service mode into a self-serving mode, as though the work I'm doing here was secondary, just an excuse to go see exotic parts of the world and spend money on myself.

I know part of that is just religious accusations, but I definitely felt convicted as I started thinking about what I was going to do my final week here when I'd planned more vacation time. If we don't get to where we need to on the website project this week, but then I just go off to see the sights, something seems to be wrong about that. What did I really come over here to do?

And so I'm realigning my priorities. If that means canceling my plans for next week (which were vague anyway), that's ok. God is giving me all sorts of great experiences right where I'm at, and there will be other times to see the sights, and it will be better if I'm with people. So I guess I'll have to start recruiting for next time. ;) This evening I was reminded of the simple joy of being with friends as I enjoyed a glass of wine with my hosts here, and I'm looking forward to more such opportunities.

And Thank God that He is the redeemer of clouded motives, that He's patient with us, that He still blesses us with good things, including new friends and new experiences, even in the midst of our inconsistency. I am still confident of this, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Alive and Staying Well

To all of you who have asked how I'm doing, thanks! I'm fine. The earthquake that struck in Turkey yesterday hit over 1000km away and could not be felt in Istanbul. I found out about it when I got into the office, and today it was all over the papers.

Any earthquake news is a big deal here because there have been some incredibly devastating quakes that hit this country not too long ago. In August 1999, a 7+ magnitude quake hit the western coast of Turkey in the middle of the night. I remember waking up in Ankara, a few hundred miles to the east, and feeling like my bedroom was rolling back and forth like a skateboard on a halfpipe.

It was crazy to watch things unfold in the following days. Estimates at the time suggested 30,000+ had died. International aid flowed in much like it has in Haiti recently. The local church here dove in to help and was recognized in a very positive light as they helped set up tents and kitchens and later more permanent dwellings. In the end the death toll settled at nearly 18,000.

That said, even though I experienced the quake and even though I knew many people, including my family, who worked with the earthquake victims in the aftermath, it remained a distant thing for me. I left the country not too long after the quake to return to school. I saw some of the damage and continuing relief efforts a few months later, but in many ways it all remains in my memory as TV images and numbers. The trauma here must have been huge.

And it seems to be continuing all over the world. Have you noticed how many significant earthquakes there have been in the past few months? California, Haiti, Chile, Turkey, all over 6+ magnitude in the last two months (see the full list). It's pretty crazy. Kind of makes our time feel short, doesn't it?

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Things have been going well on the web project the last couple days. I've been working from an office on the Asian side of the city, while staying with my host on the European side. It's a pretty awesome commute. I get to cross the Bosphorus on a boat twice every day and see some of the world's most historic sites out the window on the way. It's quite a privilege.

This morning it was rainy and cold like it was yesterday. On the boat during the crossing, men selling tea and other hot drinks walk through the ailing calling out what they have to sell. Yesterday I bought a cup of "salep", a sweet rice-based hot drink with cinnamon on top. This morning my host suggested we stop at Starbucks after the crossing. Yes, Starbucks. It's a treat here. And it was freaky walking into the place, because I immediately felt transported back to America. I ordered my tall half-caf, no-whip mocha just like in the States and got the same drink I would there. Bizarre.

Anyone want me to bring them back a Starbucks mug that says Istanbul on it? They're $12, so pony up.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

P.S. If you're the praying sort, we could use some prayer for health here. My host's son has a really bad cough, so please pray that he would heal quickly and that it wouldn't spread. Thanks for your support!

Touristing and Church

Well, I got all my pictures from yesterday posted! I've captioned them nicely so you'll know what you're looking at. It was a really tiring day, trekking around everywhere in the cold and the rain, but the sights were rewarding, and at the end of the day (after my camera battery died) we got to go to the Grand Bazaar and do some shopping. We had an excellent guide who knew the right people and got us some amazing deals.

After getting back to the home where I'll be staying for the rest my time in Istanbul, we relaxed and popped in the movie The Blindside, which I hadn't seen yet (and no, it's not out on DVD yet... this is Turkey :).

Today I slept in, then went to a Turkish church with my host. I was pleased that I was able to track with the sermon, which was on the end of Eph. 6 and focused on prayer. It was a good (and convicting) message... I know I spent far too little time praying for anyone / anything but myself, and I need a lot of grace to move beyond myself and pray for the spread of the gospel and for the needs of others.

We did get to walk around the spice bazaar today, and the picture you see here I took while avoiding getting hit by all the people crowding around each seller. There are a few more pictures on Facebook.

Thanks for reading!

Dan

Tongues

Wow, the last couple days have been really full! Where to begin? Perhaps I should start with the conversations I had last night with Turkish believers? Or should I talk about seeing the Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cisterns, and the Grand Bazaar today? I'll have to do both, but I don't know if I'll be able to fit it all in this post.

This isn't the first time I've thought to myself that Turkish believers are some of the most amazing people to be around. My experience so far has been one of encountering passionate men and women in love with Jesus who really know their stuff. In a country where one faces the likely possibility of rejection from family members and friends (think excommunication), it takes a lot more courage, faith and commitment to be a believer. The common understanding is that to be a Turk is to be a Muslim--so becoming a Christian defies tradition and culture. They better know what they're doing.

The last couple nights I've stayed with a few of these men, and it's been a blessing. Actually, a couple of them were here from Germany, and it was encouraging to hear their stories. It also was a lot of fun switching between all three languages, Turkish, German, and English, sometimes mid-sentence. I had sat down to read after making a sandwich (on some good Turkish bread, with some slightly different-tasting peanut butter and jelly), but I was soon drawn into conversation with one of the guys. He was talking about spiritual gifts, in particular speaking in tongues, talking about how what he saw in the scriptures was people talking in "the languages of Babel", i.e. languages that people have actually used to communicate with one another.

He was saying that in his experience, he had never actually heard someone speaking in tongues where he actually recognized the language, even if he couldn't understand it. I would have to agree with him... while both of us have heard of it happening, neither of us had ever heard anything that didn't just sound like gibberish. Now, we both appreciate the idea of a prayer language and that there is a place for that (and not in a service where everyone is speaking in tongues--otherwise their better be as many interpreters present), but why aren't there more cases of people speaking in tongues where the speaker is actually speaking a recognizable language? Please feel free to chime in.

In any case, that conversation along with other meaningful ones made me once again very appreciative of my Turkish brothers, and I will miss talking to them and enjoying their sense of humor, which was very Turkish as well. They are heading back to their respective homes today and tomorrow, and who knows when we will next cross paths?

This morning I woke up late along with my roommates, and we got in a couple last sessions to close out our conference. I figured I'd be sticking around to help tear down, but before I knew it I was whisked off by my host along with the conference speakers to see the sights. It was a cold and blustery day, but we braved the elements nonetheless... but you will have to come back next time to hear my thoughts on that.

Unfortunately I can't even give you a teaser picture at the moment because my camera battery is dead and I don't have a card reader... I'm sorry. But soon, I will post pictures, and they are breathtaking--well, at least the sights themselves certainly were. I hope you'll be able to get a sense of that--and why you should come visit this beautiful country yourselves!

Thanks for reading,

Dan

Conferencing

Today was a busy day of meeting people and talking tech. It was fun running into a couple old acquaintances from back in the day when my family lived here, including the guy who got us online in the first days of the Internet here in Turkey, back when it was amazing that I could download a megabyte in an hour. We heard some pretty cool reports about the growth of the Internet and other technologies in Turkey over the last few years. In addition to being the third largest user of Facebook in the world, Turkey is also in the top ten Internet-using countries in Europe. From the sounds of things, computers are becoming common enough in households here that people are having to figure out what home networking is all about. Things have definitely changed.

One cool thing I learned about today interested me not so much because of its application in Turkey, but because of another project that a friend of mine has been asking me about. He works with a US-based organization that works with other organizations on the ground in South Africa to help deal with the AIDS crisis there. They want a way to use cell phones and text messages to gather patient data in the field and send it back to a database at headquarters. Well, it turns out this has been done all over and there's already open source software out there for that purpose. The software is called Frontline SMS, is freely available, and it sounds like it's pretty straightforward to implement. I don't have the bandwidth for that sort of project right now, but if you're interested, let me know!

I found myself translating between English and Turkish quite a bit today, which I didn't expect. It was in an unofficial capacity, but it came in handy and helped some folks out. The breakout group I joined, having to do with social networking, ended up being entirely in Turkish, and I ended up talking about Facebook and Twitter in Turkish, picking up the appropriate vernacular as I went. It was a lot of fun. One topic of conversation--privacy on Facebook. A big one.

During some of the presentations today I zoned out a little and focused on learning Joomla, the content management system being used for the website I'll be working on. While the speakers spoke about forming Internet strategies and relationship building, I was learning about how Joomla implements a model-view-controller paradigm with some pretty complex views. A model/controller can have multiple views, the views can have multiple layouts, and those layouts can be displayed in multiple positions within a template, which in turn can override some or all of the layout functionality. That raises a lot of architectural questions for me... it'll be insteresting to see how this all works out.

After dinner this evening I went out for a nice stroll through the restaurant district where we ate last night. It felt a little weird being on my own since so far my time has been mostly directed by my host and by the conference agenda. I hadn't had to depend on my Turkish entirely until then, but today's translating helped my confidence. I enjoyed going into a cell phone shop and not missing a beat talking about my options for getting a cell phone for these weeks that I'm here. I don't think I will making such a purchase, but it was still fun to have the conversation. :)

I don't have many pictures today... we were inside most of the day. But here are a couple.

Thanks for reading!

First Full Day

This day has been a busy one! After a slow start this morning we headed out, went down to the water and hopped a ferry across the Bosphorus. It was a beautiful day! The sky was clear and the sun was welcome--we may not see it for the next few days with the rain that's expected.

We made it to the office where I'll be working during my time in Istanbul, and I was introduced to a bunch of people. We didn't waste any time brainstorming about website ideas as well as getting me to a point where I could start playing with the site to test out some of those ideas. Looks like it will be fun!

I'm already enjoying the food. Lunch was a doner kebab from a quick little street restaurant, and it brought back a lot of good memories. Later on, we met up with the speakers for the conference this week, and after a short walk through a beautiful street market, we sat down indoors at a nice restaurant where I had a dish called "alti ezmeli kebab", which is a plate of beef cutlets over cooked tomatoes. Delicious.

I've been enjoying the many conversations with folks so far, and many are thought provoking. I am appreciating being around folks whose main focus is making Christ known, who are thinking big and dreaming about some really cool ways of getting the word out. For us, it's going to start with a redesign of the website, but it really comes down to the people involved who are making themselves available and praying and listening together. I'm learning a lot, and it's exciting.

I took some pictures while we were out and about today! See the album here.

An Airy Trip to Istanbul

At the Indianapolis airport, the still-new concourse ceilings soar high above me as I wait for my plane to Chicago. I board and settle down to read an article in Relevant about solo work from Sigur Ros front man Birgisson, whose celestial-sounding songs have become worship music for many. Most of this Icelandic band's lyrics aren't lyrics at all, but made up syllables in "Hopelandic", a fact that has actually made it difficult for me to connect with their music. Something about them singing in gibberish just seemed to say something about where we're headed as a culture, obscuring truth and robbing language of meaning. But the article I was reading suggested another perspective, that maybe their songs are closer to "groans that words cannot express" or a prayer language of sorts, something that expresses the deep longings of the heart without forcing them into the confines of words or our ability to express them. Maybe that's why many have connected with this music at a spiritual level. Interestingly enough, one of the Sigur Ros most popular tracks is called "Glosoli", not too distant-sounding from the Greek glossolalia, referring to speaking in tongues. Maybe Hopelandic isn't so devoid of meaning after all?

In any case, while I still don't connect all that much with their music, as I hit the air for Turkey, maybe Glosoli is a fitting first track of a soundtrack for this trip (listen/watch here). The video suggests a jumping-off point too, which is pretty cool and inspiring.

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I am now in Istanbul after an eight hour flight to Frankfurt, which passed fairly quickly with some fitful sleep, followed by a two and a half hour flight to Istanbul, a half hour light rail ride and a fifteen minute bus ride to the place where I'm staying. My hosts are very hospitable, and we had a good evening getting to know each other last night. I was soon exhausted, though, and I slept well last night, waking this morning to feeling like I had both under- and overslept. Weird. But I'm now thoroughly caffeinated and will soon be heading out to meet some of the folks who will be involved in this week's conference. I'm looking forward to seeing the city in the daylight, and I'll be sure to post some pictures!

Thanks for reading!

Dan