Ferdi

We've been lamenting that Coronavirus means that our church, as in many parts of the world, cannot meet in-person currently. And like many other churches, we've been meeting virtually for our weekly prayer meeting and Sunday service. I've read some really good articles on what it is for the local church to meet together and how we long to be able to do that again (here's one). Meeting via Skype or Zoom, or livestreaming services, is just not the same. 

I'd like to tell you about Ferdi.*

Ferdi is a young man who lives in a city 80 miles away from our city but we count him as part of our church family. He started reading the Bible and researching Christianity on the Internet. His city has a population of nearly half a million people but there's no Turkish church there. Eventually he ended up in contact with the pastor of our church. When our pastor visited Ferdi's city, he met up with Ferdi. Ferdi has decided to follow Christ and a couple of months ago was baptised. 

But 80 miles is a long way and we are his nearest church. His circumstances mean that he isn't usually able to get to us for a Sunday service. In fact, his first church service with us was the one he was baptised at. When people from our church can, they go to visit cities like the one that Ferdi lives in so they can encourage any believers there. But our city has a population of 1.5 million and we're the only Turkish church in our city so we can't even keep up with the needs here. 

Last Sunday, as we all logged on to our devices and joined the call, nearly all of us were deeply saddened that the current situation means we were unable to be together in one place. Touch matters (between members of the same sex) in Turkish greetings - the women kiss, once on each cheek, while the men usually shake hands. But we waved hello instead. Some of our musicians led us in sung worship but singing in our separate living rooms clearly wasn't the same as lifting our voices in praise together. Our pastor prayed and preached to us but we felt the lack of being together. It was a meagre substitute. 

Yet while we were feeling the lack of church, Ferdi's experience was much closer to church than anything he usually has. Just as the rest of us joined our Sunday church Skype call from our homes, he joined in from his home. Security and technology constraints preclude us from livestreaming our normal Sunday services but last Sunday, he was able to be as much a part of the group as anybody else. Just like everyone else, he was able to sing along at home, to say amin to the prayer, and listen to our pastor preach, to talk briefly with everyone afterwards.

We can't wait until we can meet together again as the embodied local church. We know what we're missing out on. But we also remember that while we're meeting virtually in order to obey our leaders and love and protect our neighbour, trying to make the best of the situation in this sad and uncertain time, in terms of meeting as a church, this is a better-than-normal experience for Ferdi.

So as you look forward to meeting in-person with your church family again, will you pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ that have no local churches to attend? Will you pray that more churches will be planted and established in this country? That there would be enough local believers - even a handful - in a city of half a million people that a church could be formed and that people like Ferdi would be able to meet each week with the people of God? That there would be mature believers able to live in such cities and lead the churches?

*Name changed for security reasons.

Lockdown, small children and realising that I can't do it (but I know someone who can)

As countries one by one start encouraging their citizens to stay home or enforcing lockdowns, my social media feeds have filled up with ideas of activities to do with children stuck at home, advice on homeschooling, lists of resources for families, and messages of support to parents: You’ve got this! You can do it! Think of it as an opportunity to dig deep and invest in family relationships! Take the opportunity to get out the board games and get baking with the kids! Yes it’s all a bit scary and unknown but we’ll get through it!

Although the schools here in Turkey are closed, we home educate our eldest child anyway and the other two are too little for school, so we have been spared the sudden adjustment of having the children at home all of the time. And yet it hasn’t been until we’ve been cocooning ourselves away at home that I’ve realised how important the time is that we spend with friends and church family during the week. That time adds so much value and structure to our days and weeks in so many different ways. With the reality setting in that social distancing and self isolation is going to be our new normal for the coming weeks (at the very least), I’m grateful for the free resources and tips floating around on the Internet.

But I also realised that I cannot dare risk being taken in by the social media mantras that proclaim that I can do it, that I can wrest good out of this situation, that I can totally get through this strange period of time without losing my sanity.

Because the truth is, I can’t.

I’m weak. I lose my temper too easily. I struggle to summon up the right words to deal with yet another argument over the toys and who has taken whose piece of Lego. I don’t have the reserves of grace and patience to power through these weeks, one baking session and Playdough activity at a time. I don’t have the energy and goodwill I need when I’ve got two small children bouncing off the walls at the end of the day and a baby who likes being within touching distance of me at all times and dinner still to make and I haven’t spoken to an adult in real life other than my husband for days.

But when I realise that I am not enough, when I come to the end of myself, when my grand ideas of creating a clean, tidy, peaceful house while at the same time educating my children, looking after the baby, feeding everyone, keeping up with my Turkish, staying in contact with friends and family virtually, trying to keep up with the Coronavirus news but not be consumed by it, and loving my husband are all in shards at my feet, then Jesus can get to work.

His grace is sufficient for me. His grace will be sufficient for every day of quarantine. His grace will be sufficient when I think I just can’t do another day of this.

I have to give up on thinking I can do it all myself though. I have to put down my Pinterest list of ‘fun things to do with my children that are also subtly educating them’ and forget relying on crowdsourced tips and tricks for the ability to get through the day. I have to humbly admit that I am not enough.

And I can trust that Jesus’ strength is more than enough and just like my nine month old sees that I’m within a one metre radius of him and lunges out of the arms of the person carrying him and towards me, with the complete faith and expectation that I will be there for him, I can completely and utterly throw myself onto Jesus and rely on his power. For his power is made perfect in weakness.

Weakness

Our Turkish pastor and his wife have faithfully been sharing the Gospel with their family members for 19 years and only in the last 18 months have begun to see the fruit from their perseverance. Last month our pastor's brother Mehmet* and sister-in-law Reyhan* were baptised, praise God!

Reyhan shared in her testimony the impact of a sermon L preached last summer from John chapter 18, on Jesus protecting his disciples when he is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was as if the countless times she'd heard the Gospel before had been pushing her towards a cliff edge, and that sermon was the final gentle nudge she needed to go over the edge and into the arms of Christ. 

L and Reyhan were talking a couple of weeks back and Reyhan was telling L that she wished that others could here that sermon as L preached it. He replied and told her that she could relate it to others and it would sound much better.

Because the truth is, our Turkish is respectable for foreigners who have been here for four years but it's not what we'd like it to be. We can talk about all kinds of issues, but the faster and more off-the-cuff we speak, the more grammatical mistakes start creeping (and sometimes flooding) in. When we're talking to supporters, our least favourite question is 'would you say that you are fluent in Turkish?' because 'fluent' means all kinds of things to different people. Yet it is undoubtedly true that to be fluent in daily conversation is very different from fluency in giving a 25 minute sermon where language ability does not distract from the sermon content, where the right words, phrases and illustrations are used to teach in a way that is clear and helpful, where the Word of God is expounded with clarity and authority. Unsurprisingly L has to work much harder on his Turkish sermons than he had to do on his English sermons. He gets a friend to double check the grammar. He practises it several times before hand to make sure that he can avoid any semblance of reading it but properly preach it. And even then, he will inevitably stumble over a few words. The flow of words is never as smooth as he would like it to be. It is not going to be the most eloquent sermon ever delivered.

But Reyhan's response to L was humbling. She told him that the sermon he'd preached had impacted her not despite, but because of the foreign preacher's imperfect Turkish. Even in our native language, we struggle with the words to convey what it was for faithful Son of God to willingly lay down his life for us, his faithless friends. Jesus' actions as he is arrested are mindblowing. He steps out in the dark to meet an armed group of Roman soldiers, religious leaders who are ferocious in their desire to see him executed, all guided by one of his closest companions who has betrayed him. He identifies himself so that his disciples might go free, knowing that just a few hours later they would all abandon him. And his sacrificial death on the cross was for us who trust in Christ today too - we who know that we would have done the same as Peter, who know that we have not always been faithful in our witness for Jesus.

But as L struggled to get across to his listeners the courage, the steadfastness, the rawness of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Spirit of God took his foreign-accented words and slight stumblingnesss and used them to deeply effect a sinner who needed to come to Christ. The Spirit of God didn't use them even though they were imperfect. No, the Holy Spirit took L's sermon and used it so that the stumbling of speech magnified what was said about our Saviour who was, and is, faithful even when his followers stumble and fall.

So we marvel at our God's embracing of our weaknesses, our lack of eloquence, our unpersuasive words. We praise God that he uses the foolish and weak things of this world so that we cannot boast but give all glory to God. And we thank God that in this large country with just a tiny number of believers, he is at work in people's lives.

*Names changed to protect identities

Hudson Taylor and I - principles, not prescriptions

When I was a teenager, I thought Hudson Taylor was the epitome of what a foreign overseas worker should be like. I still think he is an amazing example in so many ways - his faith in the Lord to provide, his prayer life, his love for the lost. In fact, when we were discussing baby names for our boys before they were born, I even threw out 'Hudson' as a suggestion. My husband, whilst retaining the utmost respect for Hudson Taylor, swiftly vetoed the idea.

One of the things that has always stood out to me about Hudson Taylor was his willingness to become as Chinese as he could in order to win Chinese people to Christ. In contrast to others at the time, Hudson Taylor and his organisation were known for adopting Chinese dress, living in local Chinese housing rather than the foreigner enclaves, eating Chinese food, adopting Chinese customs and working to achieve a high level of language ability (source).

In a letter written in 1867, Hudson Taylor wrote the following:

We wish to see Christian [Chinese] – true Christians, but withal true Chinese in every sense of the word. We wish to see churches and Christian Chinese presided over by pastors and officers of their own countrymen, worshiping the true God in the land of their fathers, in the costume of their fathers, in their own tongue wherein they were born, and in edifices of a thoroughly Chinese style of architecture.

If we really desire to see the Chinese such as we have described, let us as far as possible set before them a correct example: let us in everything unsinful become Chinese, that by all things we may save some. Let us adopt their costume, acquire their language, study to imitate their habits, and approximate to their diet as far as health and constitution will allow. Let us live in their houses, making no unnecessary alterations in external appearance, and only so far modifying internal arrangements as attention to health and efficiency for work absolutely require. (source)

I fully agree with the first paragraph of the section quoted above. That logic should hold true for whatever country we are working to bring the Gospel to. Christianity does not wipe away cultural distinctions or impose culture and language. Every believer is called to holiness, to become more and more Christ-like - that is universal. And at the same time, God created diversity in humanity and the global church should reflect that.

But what about the second paragraph? Does that logic always hold - that to see the growth of the Gospel in a certain country or culture, the foreigners should as far as possible, in everything unsinful, become as much like the people from that country as they can? I've heard that line of thinking from different sources before - to reach a culture, you should conform to that culture as closely as you can, whilst not sinning or damaging your own heath etc. And a few years ago, I would have absolutely concurred with that idea. It made sense to me - if you want to win people to Christ, you should become as much like them as you can, whilst avoiding all sin. Sometimes I think its the invisible (or maybe not so invisible) standard that we hold Christian workers who have been sent overseas to, where the more that a worker becomes like the people of their host country, the more dedicated they are held to be.

After all, this was what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:

To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

As a foreigner living in Turkey, this is not an abstract question for me. But it's not just a question for people like me. As Paul continues on a chapter later:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

This is an issue that concerns all believers - how can we use our freedom to seek the good of many?

As Christians, we have been set free. We are not under the law - we have the freedom to, for example, accept the meat that a neighbour offers to us after the Feast of the Sacrifice. But we are under Christ's law. And what is Christ's law? Galatians 5:13-14 sums it up:

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Here's the principle behind it all. And it's simple. We should love one another. When Hudson Taylor had his hair cut into the Chinese style and put on Chinese clothes, which would have looked and felt so strange from his English clothes, he was loving the Chinese people. At that time, Europeans were all lumped into one category together - the soldiers, the traders, the administrators, the religious workers and collectively known as the 'red headed devils'. Hudson Taylor consciously resisted being put into the category of European colonialists by becoming as Chinese as he could. He was imitating Paul and Christ by, in as far as he was able to, not being a stumbling block to the Chinese in terms of how he appeared and spoke. And his actions opened up opportunities for the Gospel - Chinese neighbours noticed and asked for an explanation.

I too am called to love my neighbours. But living in 21st century Turkey, that looks a little different for me than for Hudson Taylor - and that is exactly as it should be. How I love my neighbour here should look different to how my friends living in Muslim communities in the UK live. And both of those should look different to how a Christian living in a white, working class area should live. And each of those will look different to how a Christian worker living in rural Papua New Guinea lives. But the point is the same for all of us - loving our neighbour means stepping out of our comfort zone and living in a way as to remove all stumbling blocks to the Gospel.

The big difference for me as opposed to Hudson Taylor is that we live in a global world nowadays. Turks understand the concept of different cultures . They have exposure to different countries and cultures as they watch television, access the Internet and use social media. That doesn't mean there are no cultural misunderstandings (there are plenty!) or that the Turks we know here necessarily have a good understanding of what life is like in the West. But 21st century Turkey is connected to and aware of the world in a very different way to 19th century inland China. And compared to China one hundred and fifty years ago, there is more room here for diversity in how daily life is practised and greater freedom of expression.

The key question is what does it look like for me to love my neighbour here?

Practically, I love my Turkish neighbours by adhering to Turkish customs and traditions where I can. We don't wear our shoes in the house, we have slippers ready at the door for our guests and serve Turkish tea to our visitors. We add the abi (big brother) or abla (big sister) title when we're talking to or about people older than ourselves and use amca (uncle) or teyze (aunt) if they're significantly older than us - and we expect the same from our children. We make sure to say kolay gelsin (may it come easy) when we see someone working and geçmiş olsun (may it pass quickly) when someone tells us they, or their relative or friend, are ill or having a hard time.

When I cook for Turkish people, I love them by cooking food that they will like, first and foremost. Our slightly older Turkish friends usually prefer Turkish style food to anything else, so that's what I make them. When we have the youth group over, I often love them by making pizza. When it's just our family at home, I love my children and my husband (who are also my neighbours) by cooking Turkish food some days and non-Turkish food other days. They love Turkish food, they just love non-Turkish food as well and I would be doing a poor job of bringing up my Third Culture Kids if they looked at all British food as 'foreign'. Our Turkish neighbours know that we are not Turkish and do not expect us to eat Turkish food all of the time. In fact, they would probably think it strange if we never ate non-Turkish food. Where we live and at the time we live in, it is no barrier to the Gospel for us to eat non-Turkish food. And if we were to eat Turkish food all of the time, I don't think that would be much help in commending the Gospel.

I also love my neighbours here by dressing in an appropriate way, so as to endear the Gospel to them. We live in a conservative city. Many of the women here dress in a conservative way - making sure their clothes cover all of them except their hands, feet and faces and often wearing a headscarf. Other Turkish women here may dress in a slightly less conservative style, for example leggings or knee length (or even shorter) skirts. There's a pretty wide spectrum of clothing that Turkish women wear. I have freedom in Christ when it comes to my clothes - and yet I have deliberated curtailed my freedom for the sake of the Gospel. Because in the issue of clothing, it is not enough just to make sure that my clothes fall into the range of clothing that Turks wear - as a Western woman, Turks apply different rules to me. For the sake of the Gospel, I dare not dress like some of my Turkish friends do!

For example, the skirts I wear here are never, ever as short as knee length. It is a very commonly held assumption here that all Westerners are Christians. Turks see Western women in Hollywood films and assume that these actresses are Christians and that this is how Christians dress and act. This is considered proof that Christians are immoral and fulfills every negative stereotype held concerning Christians. I am one of the few Western women living in our city of over 1 million people - it is extremely rare that I see another Westerner while out and about in my local area. People are looking at me to see if Western women really are as immoral as they seem on the television screens. So when we're in our city, I don't take advantage of the full spectrum of clothing choices that can all be truthfully considered to be 'Turkish'. Instead I dress more conservatively than some Turks do with the aim of preventing this being a stumbling block to the Gospel.

There's obviously a lot more that can be said on this and the examples above are just a few practical instances. I can see lots of ways in my life where I have become in tune with Turkish culture and loving my neighbour here comes naturally. I can see other areas where we've broken with Turkish cultural expectations because we believe it's a wisdom issue. I've talked and laughed and lamented with Turkish friends over the positives and negatives of both Turkish and British culture.

These are nuanced issues. I've been wrestling with questions over this since I came to Turkey and will undoubtedly continue to do so. I'm aware of the temptation to use this line of reasoning as a convenient way to hold onto some of my British-isms. I'm not claiming I've always got the balance right in what to adopt and what not to. That will always be a work in progress. And there are not always simple answers. For Hudson Taylor, disassociating himself from other Europeans by adopting Chinese dress and customs was clearly the right thing to do for the sake of the Gospel. He honoured God by loving his Chinese neighbours in this way.

I long to see more strong, faithful churches in this country, filled with Turkish disciples of Christ, who shine like stars in the universe as they hold out the word of life. Yet I am convinced that it does not mean I must become as Turkish as I possibly can. It means that I should use my freedom in Christ to serve humbly by loving my neighbour - my Turkish non-believing neighbours, my Turkish brothers and sisters in Christ, my husband, my children - in whatever form and shape is necessary for the sake of the Gospel. And I think Hudson Taylor would approve of that. May I love and serve the Turkish people as much as Hudson Taylor loved the Chinese people.