From two weeks ago...
Amongst my ministry responsibilities – aside from shepherding the Church’s youth, translating my dad’s apologetics book, etc- I preach in the Istanbul Church once a month and in one of our Church plants once a month.
This weekend (May 22-23) I am visiting the Eskisehir Church as a guest preacher since Salih (Eskisehir’s pastor) will be out of town. Salih received a phone call from a Secular association called the “Eskisehir Volunteers Society”. They will be hosting a 6 hour open air event in the city center called “The Living Libraries”. What the event consist of is basically the following: They will be setting up a huge tent as a library, and people will be able to check out books throughout the day. The only thing is that the books are also actual people! What they have done is invite 15-20 representatives of marginalized portions of society (an ‘Alevi’, a Christian, a Homosexual, a Kurd, an Armenian, a Communist, an Atheist, etc…) as “living books”. Ordinary people from the street will come into the tent to have one on one conversations with these “books”. What the association aims with this is to destroy prejudices and create a setting for constructive dialogue. A similar initiative took place in Istanbul a few months ago and approximately 2,500 people showed up in 1 day!
Since Salih is absent, I will be there as the Christian representative ready to answer any questions that may come up my way. Please pray for this HUGE opportunity for evangelism as I will be able to share the Gospel with literally hundreds of Turks in a matter of just a few hours! Please pray for wisdom, a broken heart for people I encounter, that I would not be nervous and that Christ would use this event for His glory to plant many seeds in the hearts of so many lost.
-Marc
The Result...
Dear friends and family,
Thank you for all those who prayed for my outing to Eskisehir, last Saturday. As you know, I was both visiting our church plant over the weekend to preach, but more importantly to attend the event called "Living Libraries" where I was invited as the "living book" representing Christianity. The event lasted from 12:30 pm to 6:00 pm and drew a lot of people. Praise the Lord, I had the opportunity to speak with some 20-25 people and I was able to referance them to the Eskisehir Church after our talks. People asked me all sorts of questions ranging from "Is drinking, sex, etc, a sin in Christianity?" to "Do you believe in 3 gods?" "why don't you believe in the prophet Muhammed,"How do you know for sure that the Bible hasn't been changed," etc. I'm very grateful that I was able to share my testimony and the message of salvation with most of them, and most people asked for a copy of the Bible. Please be praying for them and also be praying for Salih (the pastor) as he follows up with some of these contacts.
Despite all this joy there is also much reason for sorrow. I'm reminded of when Christ was stirred by compassion when he saw how lost the crowd he was ministering to really was. As people approached the tent, they were presented with a binder by the organizing comittee that contained the titles of the "books" they could check out. Each page in the binder contained a title and below the title there were a series of sub-headings which represented the prejudices by society at large. Under the title Christianity the subheadings were: Alcoholic, sexually free, Missionary (in a derogatory sense), etc. Just from the subheadings you can tell the misconceptions people have of Christianity in this country and the need that there is for prayer in this country. There is so many rocks to be removed from the soil and so much ground to be tilled before planting seeds. In the midst aff this sorrow there is hope however: The three books that were checked out the most were "Atheism," "Communism," and "Christianity." Clearly people are undergoing a spiritual search and are unsatisified with Islam or the status-quo.
One of the things that I was reminded with this event is that Turks love to talk (being an oral culture) and are desiring to meet up with Christians to talk. (I remember when I was in AZ I was bombarded by questions from my Turkish friends because there were so many things that they were curious about but never had the chance to inquire). Yet there is also a certain fears of the "other" which are multiplied when you simply give out a bunch of bibles or tracts. They feel threatened. But a conversation over a cay (tea) or hanging out with them on a day to day friendship basis goes a long way.
I would be very appreciative if you prayed both for the people I was able to witness to and also for the country of Turkey. Let's not confine the Gospel to our neighbourhood and country, the global harvest is plenty but the laborers are few. Pray for more laborers, pray for the seeds that are planted to be rooted firmly, and finally pray for God's wisdom, strength, and grace for workers here in Turkey.
May the peace of Christ be with you,
Marc
