Saturday 22 September 2018

Settling in

One month ago we arrived in our new city. On one hand it feels like we've been here ages, on the other hand we feel like we've just arrived.

It feels like we've managed to find some semblance of routine and normality fairly quickly. I do Turkish study first thing in a morning while L gets the boys up, fed, dressed etc. Then I look after the boys during the day while L does Turkish study, computer programming, job researching and hunting.

We are enjoying having a choice of parks within a 1 - 10 minute walking radius - all with grass and trees next to them! We're meeting neighbours as well - news of our moving-in has obviously spread through the building as every neighbour we meet seems to already know of us. It's not every day you get a foreign family moving into your building in this part of the world!

We are so glad to be out of Istanbul but at the same time we miss our friends and the community that we had in Istanbul. Moving from one city to another in a country that isn't your home country is an odd thing. We're used to living in a different country from our friends and family in the UK so although there are certainly painful moments saying goodbye to them still, it's a familiar set of emotions. But now we have also gained a whole new set of people to miss, and the routines and life that we shared with them. We knew when we went to Istanbul that we would only be there for a couple of years but we consciously made friends knowing that our time in Istanbul would be temporary. And I'm so grateful to our friends in Istanbul, who knew that we wouldn't be staying long term but still invested in friendships with us.

But we are not pining for life in Istanbul. We love having a bigger flat and not living in an area so dense that it was sometimes claustrophobic. We have been so welcomed by our believing family here and it is a privilege to join with them. Having moved to a much more conservative city, we weren't sure what kind of reception we'd get from our neighbours but everyone so far has been very friendly (thankfully we live in an area that is probably more welcoming and tolerant than other areas).

God is good :-)


The Feast of the Sacrifice - Part 3

This is Part 3 of a short series of blog posts on the Feast of the Sacrifice. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Kurban Bayramı, the Feast of the Sacrifice or Eid al-Adha, remembers Abraham's almost sacrificing of his son before he is stopped by the Angel of the Lord. The biblical narrative can be found in Genesis 22. The Muslim version differs slightly and is also a lot shorter.

 I don't think I'm alone in finding this account uncomfortable reading. It seems like God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice what he holds dearest and when Abraham is literally about to do so, he is stopped. He sees a ram caught in a thicket, which he sacrifices instead. And later, in the book of Hebrews, Abraham is commended for his faith in offering Isaac as a sacrifice.

A quick look at Wikipedia confirms that there have been many different Jewish, Christian, Muslim and modern scholars who have written about this account. I don't want to get into the details of the account here but I do want to use it as an example of what we can do when we come across parts of the Bible that, even after we've looked at the issue from every angle, still don't give us answers that perfectly satisfy us and might still leave us a bit uncomfortable.

What it comes down to is what lens we view the world through. If we view the world and history through our own personal lens of what we think is right and just, there's going to be a lot of unanswered questions. There will also be unanswered questions about our lens; what right do we have to assume that our perspective is accurate? Where our sense of justice and morality originate from?

The better option is to look at accounts such as Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac through the lens of the cross. I don't really understand why God tested Abraham in this way but I do know that this event points forward to someone else who willingly went to be sacrificed, the Father's own beloved Son. And when he was nailed to a cross, there was no one to stay the Roman guard's hand, no ram caught in a bush. Looking at the account of Abraham and Isaac through the lens of the cross does not give us any magic answers but it does show us that God has already demonstrated the depth of his love for us, a depth that we cannot fathom or understand. So we can have complete confidence in God even while we don't fully understand his intentions and plans.

It also reminds me that God is not my little pet God, who always acts in the way I would like him to and whose every action I can perfectly understand and rationalise. He is the Almighty God, and his ways are not my ways - thankfully, because my ideas, plans and reasoning is not flawless and are usually mixed up with all kinds of motives. But God is love, he is good, he is sovereign and he works all things for his glory and the good of those who love him. When he sent his Son to this world, he proved beyond all doubt how much he loves his children. So we can trust him enough to leave our unanswered questions with him.

Saturday 15 September 2018

The Feast of the Sacrifice - Part 2

This is Part 2 of 3 about the Feast of the Sacrifice. Click here to read Part 1.


Our second full day here, we walked into the city centre past a place that had been used for sacrificing animals for Kurban Bayramı. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have known what had been done there the previous day were it not for the single van left with (live) animals inside and a few entrail-y bits and dark stains on the pavement. But just those remnants were enough for me to realise that animal sacrifice is a bloody, messy business. As a Westerner, I want to shy away from the blood and gore. When we lived in the UK, I didn't think too much about animal sacrifice and the killing of animals. My meat comes neatly packaged from the supermarket.

There's a temptation to distance ourselves from the blood and sacrifice of the cross too. I mean, we might pay lip service to it but when we sing about being 'washed in the blood' or the 'Lamb who was slain for us' but if we properly think about it, it can all seem a bit gruesome.

But I was reading a book a couple of days later which made me think. The author (Jack Klumpenhower) was talking about the Good News being a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles/Greeks. His point was that we can see similar types of people to the Jews and Greeks today. The Good News was a stumbling block to the Jews because they were trusting in their self-righteousness based on doing the right things (like sacrifices). There are people like the Jews today, who are either uncomfortable with or outright reject the idea that all of our sin was dealt with at the cross, with absolutely no contribution from ourselves whatsoever. But it was what he said about Greeks that got me thinking.

"The Greeks were worldly-wise; they considered themselves smarter than people of backwoods religions, where blood sacrifice ruled the day. The cross violated their enlightened sensibilities... [But to the people who are like Greeks today] the cross is an embarrassment. It's about sin and the wrath of God." (Jack Klumpenhower)

This year, Kurban Bayramı has reminded me that I come from a society that is far removed from blood and sacrifice. There is a temptation to think that we have moved beyond messy blood sacrifices (although the sacrifice of unborn children in a clinical setting is of course permitted), that we're far too "civilised" (ha!) to sacrifice animals in public places in the cities.

But actually our culture is anomalous in world history and we need to be careful that we read the Good News conscious of how much our cultural background has shaped our thoughts and presuppositions. Let's never think we are too wise, too educated, too enlightened for the cross.

So rather than letting our Western worldviews cloud our minds to the realities of blood and sacrifice, let's instead ask that despite our cultural background, we would appreciate the magnitude of a sacrifice once-for-all and that we would truly know the glory of the cross.

Tuesday 11 September 2018

The Feast of the Sacrifice - Part 1

This is Part 1 of 3 about the Feast of the Sacrifice.

When we arrived here this summer, it was the second full day of Kurban Bayramı, which in English is the 'Feast of the Sacrifice'. It is also known as Eid el-Adha and is one of the most important religious holidays in Turkey and also a 4-5 day public holiday. As one of the most important events in the Islamic calendar, Kurban Bayramı is a bit like how Christmas is celebrated (rightly or wrongly) in many Western countries.

The holiday commemorates the account in the Qu'ran of İbrahim (Abraham)'s willingness to sacrifice his son and God's provision at the last moment of an animal instead. It parallels the Biblical account of Abraham being prepared to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah and God providing a ram instead.

People often attend special prayers at the mosque on the first day of Kurban Bayramı. Then a family, if they can afford it, will often have a sheep, goat or a cow/bull sacrificed. It was estimated that over 3.65 million animals (including 2.8 million sheep and goats) would be sacrificed this year for Kurban Bayramı. As far as I understand it, the sacrifice used to be done by a butcher or head of the family in the street or the garden but now there are special places designated for the sacrifices, where there should be a mobile slaughterhouse and trained butchers to carry out the sacrifice. And the sacrifice places are usually listed on the Internet.

Some of the meat is used for a feast and family and friends will usually visit each other over the holiday. The tradition is that the meat is divided into three: one third is kept for the family, one third is given to family and friends and the remaining third is given to the poor. Alternatively instead of sacrificing an animal, money is sometimes donated to charity.

Because we arrived on the second full day, we had missed the first day when sacrifices are usually done. But what we did see was outside every butchers shop were big mincing machines on a table on the front, usually with tubs of spices alongside, and a sign saying "sucuk doldurulur". This translates as 'sucuk is made here'. Sucuk is a yummy, spicy kind of sausage found here, a bit like chorizo but obviously not made from pork but usually beef and usually with spices such as garlic, salt, pepper and cumin. The meat is ground several times and mixed with the spices before being put into sausage casings and left to dry. Slices of sucuk are often fried (sometimes with eggs) and eaten as part of a Turkish breakfast or can be grilled on a BBQ, added as a filling to toasties or savoury pastries or added into bean stew. When we're cooking at home, we sometimes make pasta carbonara with sucuk as a bacon substitute (it's all about the Turkish fusion cooking!) but I haven't dared admit that to any Turk yet, they would probably be horrified!

The Feast this year has sparked a few different thoughts related to it. I'll share a couple of those in the blog posts following this.

Sunday 2 September 2018

Diary of a first week (and a bit) back

Day 1
We arrive in our new city mid afternoon. We arrived into Istanbul at midnight last night, got to bed sometime after 1am  and, after a fairly interrupted nights sleep, were back at the airport by 10.30am for our domestic flight. So by the time we (and quite a lot of luggage) have arrived at our friend's flat, where we'll stay until we have a flat to move to, we're all completely exhausted. Our friend welcomes us in, shows us round and chats to us in Turkish while our brains scramble for Turkish words and grammar. After she leaves, we collapse on the sofas for a couple of hours then head out to try and find some dinner. However, we turned up on the second full day of Kurban Bayramı, one of the Eid celebrations, and most places are closed. We find a supermarket to stock up on some basics and also manage to find a place that does Turkish pide (kind of like pizza) for tea. We attempt to put the boys to bed at 8ish but it's soon very clear that with all of us still on British time and late naps, no one is going to sleep. So we go for a family film night instead. 

Day 2
We decide to start investigating the area that we think we want to live in. İt's just outside the main city, next to the big university, and has a population of about 50,000. İt's about five miles from the city centre and connected to the city centre by a tram line. İt's hot but we wander around one neighborhood that we were thinking about, have a picnic in a park and start to get our bearings. Just by looking around, it's obvious that almost everybody lives in big apartment blocks and realistically that's what we're going to end up in. But there are lots of children's parks around- and with grass as well! We're realising that coming back this time has been very different from when we first arrived in Istanbul. Although there have been some similarities (staying in temporary accommodation while we look for a house to rent), it feels very different. Some of the first time admin we obviously don't have to do this time and we have residence permits (although we do have to transfer them to this city), so things like setting up utilities will be a lot more straightforward. Plus we can communicate in Turkish so getting out and doing things by ourselves is not too daunting. Saying that, we're already feeling that this is going to be a very different place from Istanbul. There are a lot less foreigners here and almost everywhere we go we get stares or people giving us a second look.

Day 3
We go back to the neighborhood we've chosen today to start looking at flats. Someone we know shows us a flat, which is a possibility. It has some upsides (we know the landlords) but also some downsides too. We work through all the adverts for flats in the size we want in the neighbourhood we want. There's really not many available. A couple have gone already, one has changed his mind about renting, we can't get through to somebody else. But we find one more to view, which again has upsides and downsides. We head back to our short term accommodation torn about what to do. But then as I log onto the Turkish equivalent of Rightmove again, I spot another flat that has just come up for rent. We phone the estate agent and arrange to view it the following afternoon.

Day 4
We head out to view this last flat. Although the neighbourhood we want to be in is well connected by tram, getting to the city centre for the tram involves either walking a few minutes and waiting for a bus, or a 25 minute walk (at adult speed!). The temperature is in the low 30s every day and the travelling around, change of country and complete lack of routine is starting to show itself in the boys' behaviour.  We really like this flat but decide to sleep on it first and continuing 'thinking' about it.

Day 5
Today we meet with the local gathering of God's people. We're excited to be back in a Turkish gathering. The place where they (now we) meet is undergoing some restorations but there's one room that can still be used. Afterwards everyone stays around and chats for a while. We telephone the estate agent to tell her that we'd like to take the flat we saw yesterday. She calls the landlord, then calls us back with the good news that there's no problem and we can rent it - and then asks if we can get to her office that afternoon. The type of flat in the neighbourhood we want is quite rare, so we don't want to lose out on it. By the time we've we've got to her office, it's tea time for the boys so I reach a new low of giving them grapes and biscuits for their tea. But we sign all the paperwork and put the deposit down - we'll complete the process tomorrow. The landlord lives about an hour's drive away, which means that he signs a scanned copy of the agreement we've signed and sends a photo back to us. We'll have to get the original agreement properly signed within a couple of weeks so that we can transfer our residence permits to this city but we'll sort that problem another day. We take the boys to a cafe for some proper tea and then get them home to bed late - but we've got a flat!

Day 6
This is a waiting day. Because of Kurban Bayramı last week, this is the first day since we've been back in Turkey that the banks are open. So we're waiting for money to arrive into our Turkish bank accounts from our British bank accounts before we can make the rent payment and take the keys to the flat. Other than a quick food shopping trip, I stay home with the boys as they badly need a day of normal routine and nap times. L, on the other hand, has a slightly more stressful time visiting banks etc. before finally meeting the estate agent at the flat and getting the keys. Once he's got the keys, I call the removal company who have all of our things in their depo to arrange moving. I want to arrange it for two days time, but they can't do that day so we settle on three days time. They say they'll be there about 11am.

Day 7
I spend the day at home with the boys. Having failed to get them out of the house first thing in the morning, we have to wait until mid-late afternoon to go to the park, as it's just too hot between 10am and 3pm. L, with the help of the estate agent, goes first to an insurance broker to get earthquake insurance (a requirement for setting up the electricity) then to the electricity, water and natural gas offices to get all of the utilities turned on. All the utilities have to be set up by going in person to a central office in an area. He calls in at the local Population Office too - we need to register there but they tell him that we won't be able to register until we've changed our residence permits. So he also stops by the Immigration Office in the city, who confirm that we can transfer our residence permits and give him the list of requirements. That will be a job for next week once we've sorted the contract.

Day 8
We make it out to a park in the morning! L has to be at the new flat in the afternoon because somebody from the gas company needs to come and turn something on. He heads off just before lunch to start the process of getting our Internet before going on the flat to await the gas man. It's also standard practice here to get the locks changed when you move in, so L gets this done as well. Meanwhile, the boys and I end up spending the rest of the day at the house as I pack up everything back up again and start cleaning the flat. After the best part of three months and staying in thirteen different places in total, while we are very grateful to everyone we've stayed with and have loved seeing so many different people and places in the UK, we are ready to be in our own space. Luckily tomorrow is moving day! And then the removal company call me in early evening and ask if they can do the move now - to which I politely say no, we are nowhere near the new flat and we agreed tomorrow. At 9.30pm I'm texting with the removal company to confirm our address. They tell me they'll turn up at 07.30am but we eventually settle on 09.30am.

Day 9
Moving day! A friend kindly takes us and all of our luggage to the new flat. The removal men arrive on time and within an hour and a half have got everything in. We start unpacking. J is delighted to see his train set and all his toys again, slightly less happy that he has to share all these toys with S. By late evening, we've assembled all the furniture and are well on the way with unpacking. There's still quite a few things more to sort and lots of uncertainty still around residence permits, jobs etc. But 'each day has enough trouble of its own' and we'll worry about those another day. For now, we're just thankful to God for our new flat and for everything we've been able to accomplish in these first few days here.