{Turkish} Delight yourself in the ways of the Lord...: Merhaba!

Hello! Due to a lack of wifi at our home, Hannah and I haven't been able to update our blog, but boy do we have a lot to say. Our journey here was definitely a rough one, filled with delayed flights (every single flight was delayed actually), missed flights, new tickets, lost luggage, and all around tiredness and frustration. BUT, we learned a lot about handling stressful situations and how each of us handle them differently. We met a lot of really helpful people along the way, including a very friendly man at passport control in Munich and a cheerful Turk on the plane to Istanbul who made a puppet out of a barf bag to quiet a screaming baby. Just a couple of wonderful humans that made us smile during a very unpleasant 48 hours.

Once we arrived to our destination, we met with our host family who fed us an AMAZING dinner and showed us to our home. The next day we attended church, both the English and Turkish services. Although we couldn't understand any of the Turkish service, Hannah and I had a good enough grasp of the alphabet to sing the hymns which were beautiful! My personal favorite was a song written by the pastor of the church, based on Psalm 37:

Her seyi Rab'be birak

o'na guven, O'nunla kal

O senin dogrulugunu bir isik gibi

aydinlatacak

Not sure what it says...but we enjoyed singing it. The Turkish service was devoted to praying for those who lost family members and friends in the Soma mining incident. The pastor specifically asked that his congregation pray for the living, those who are left to make sense of their grief. Hannah and I ask that you guys back home would pray for them as well, and for the working conditions in Turkey to change as a result.

After church we went to the beach which was GORGEOUS. Holy cow. I explained to my friend Alice who attends St. Peter's that beaches in Texas are brown all over. Sand, water, seaweed. Brown. The Mediterranean coast is unique because it has pebble beaches and sand beaches. The beach we went to was a pebble beach. The ocean was extremely salty and the waves that day were tall and rocking. We had a great time. We made a lot of friends around our age: Lance from England, Tom from France, Jack from Serbia, and Alice and Delores who are from Turkey. (Note: we are changing names on our blog for safety).

Monday (today) we took the bus to our first language class with Mamud, a professor of the Turkish language. We focused on greetings, the alphabet, numbers, and common verbs. We will be attending language class three times a week and hopefully will catch on quickly! I apologize for the rambling nature of this post, I'm typing very quickly because I have little battery left and no converter for my plug with me! I hope everyone back in the States is doing well; Hannah and I thank you for your prayers!

Here are some pictures!