When a picture's worth a thousand words

Sometimes it's hard describing where we live to people in the UK because it doesn't really fit in any category of housing location that we're used to. You'd never find this kind of neighbourhood in the UK. We live in a flat in a 14 floor apartment building, surrounded by other apartment blocks. The ground floor of some apartment blocks is used as shop space. We live right on the edge of the city. We also live at the foot of a mountain. The streets are wide in this neighbourhood and there are small parks dotted regularly around, with grass and trees. It's hard to find a large grassy space, big enough for a game of football or ultimate frisbee though. Although the apartment blocks are well spaced out, there are no detached or semi detached houses as you might find in the UK. There are a few detached houses right on the outskirts of the apartment block forest, usually either rather basic houses with land attached, or villa-type houses (often used as summer houses).

Does that make any sense to you?!

If it's a little hard to imagine, some pictures might help.

Our apartment building, situated right next to (behind) a mosque

Our apartment building on the right, surrounded by other blocks and with the mountain in the distance

The view from our balcony. This is what we mean when we say we live at the foot of a mountain. L uses the mountain for his running routes.

Another angle from our balcony

And looking the other way from the balcony

Our neighbourhood, from one of the playparks

And again from the same park

Three cross-cultural amusing moments

Cross cultural differences can be amusing. We don't laugh at our Turkish friends but sometimes we laugh with them. Sometimes just the cultural differences make us laugh - what is so normal to us but is so foreign to them, and vice versa. Here's three cross-cultural moments that made me smile this week.

• While waiting to pay at the hospital for Z's two month check up, the lady next to me was giving her best shot to arguing for a discount for the cost of an X-ray. I've got used to paying when we go to a private hospital but the idea of bargaining for hospital services is so foreign to my British-ness, I couldn't help but smile - especially at the effort to which the lady was going to. Unfortunately for her though it was to no avail.

• After paying, I was sitting waiting to be called for Z's hip ultrasound (routine here and really not worth the effort of arguing that it's probably unnecessary for him!). J and S were sitting on the floor next to me colouring and I was holding Z. We'd already been at the hospital for nearly an hour at that point as we'd seen Z's paediatrician first, so the boys' patience was starting to wear thin. While trying to oversee the fair distribution of crayons and ensure they didn't end up all over the entire corridor, look after Z, and field questions about whether or not my husband was Turkish and where we were from, the older lady next to me was trying to tug the hem of my t-shirt down for me because in amongst getting Z out of the carrier that was strapped to my front and bending down to deal with said crayons and small children, the back of my t-shirt had ridden up and was showing maybe 1cm of bare flesh. At that point, I really wasn't too bothered (particularly as I had my back to a wall anyway) but the lady was obviously very concerned for my decency and was doing her best to help me out. I did my best to hide my smile and thanked her.

• And my personal favourite -  I was out walking with a Turkish friend one evening this week, pushing Z in the pushchair. It was nearly 8pm but the temperature must have been at least 25 degrees still and there was no breeze. Z was dressed in a sleepsuit, which I considered more than sufficient, but for a typical Turk that was definitely underdressed. As we passed one lady sitting on a bench, she tried to stop us while indicating to Z, ready to point out that he had no blanket and (in her opinion) would be getting cold. Without breaking a stride, my Turkish friend  - who is well aware that my children are almost always underdressed by Turkish standards, as most Turks worry about children getting ill from being cold, whereas I worry about them overheating - just waved to the woman and said 'she's English' - as if that was explanation enough and no further comment was needed. I laughed out loud and tried not to think what impression of British people I'm creating around here.

Summer days

How did July arrive so quickly? In just over a month, we'll have been in this city a year. It seems to have gone fast and yet it seems like a very long time ago that we were living in Istanbul.

July and August are hot here. The weather will be hot and sunny almost every day, with the temperature usually reaching above 30 degrees Celsius. In fact, it will be an abnormal day when it doesn't reach 30 degrees.

So for the next couple of months, our entire routine shifts. We avoid being outside in the sun between about 9.30am - 4.30pm - it's just too hot and too much chance of sunburn, especially with small fair skinned children. Even at 5pm or 6pm, it is still hot but at least there's less chance of getting burnt. So we try and get the boys out either first thing in the morning or sometime after 5pm, fitting tea (dinner!) in as well. This usually means that the boys' bedtime shifts later. We end up going to the park when they would usually be getting ready for bed, or later. I can't quite embrace a Turkish mindset of 'the children go to bed whenever they want, usually post 9pm and sometimes at midnight' - mainly because that would definitely be too late for me! But I have definitely relaxed my British attitude of 'it's 7pm, the children must be in bed and going to sleep'. It just doesn't work when you live in a hot country, and that's okay.

Despite the heat, it's a lot more comfortable here than in Istanbul. Although we're in a flat and surrounded by other apartment blocks, we're at the edge of the city so we can get a breeze into the flat. We have a balcony that is shaded and the boys play out on (and we can even fit a small paddling pool onto it). As well as being significantly less humid here compared to Istanbul, we are also much higher up in terms of altitude, so the temperature drops a little bit cooler at night. Plus, we have a car so we can get to wherever we need to go in air-conditioned comfort - that makes a huge difference compared to walking and getting public transport around.

Summer here might be hot, but there are definite plus points too. We can plan outdoor activities (in the shade or the evening) with a strong degree of confidence in what the weather will be like. We're enjoying the summer fruits that are in season here - huge watermelons, ripe peaches, grapes, nectarines. We have friends who live in a house with a garden, a 5-10 minute drive from ours, and while they're out of the country this summer, we're helping with watering their garden. The boys are enjoying playing in the garden and 'helping' water while we have also been collecting kilos of cherries from their trees.

Third Culture Kids and Sundays

I've mentioned before how Sundays do not feel like the easiest day for us but we believe that they are worth the effort and the turning upside down of our usual routines. I've stumbled across a couple of blog posts and articles recently that have reiterated that point, which is always an encouraging reminder.

It's often mentioned in these types of articles that children absorb what is going on as they watch and listen to the service. But there's often been a nagging question at the back of my mind - what happens when the service is in their second language? Our children's Turkish is developing well but I am fairly sure that, although J knows a few key religious words, he is unable to understand most of what is said in the service.

I'm not going to turn this into a debate on whether or not children should sit through sermons. But I did have this feeling that our children were missing out on some of the blessings of being taken to our weekly Sunday gathering because of the language barrier.

And then I read an article on why children of foreigners like us should learn the local language and one of the points it made sparked a new direction of thought for me.

Our children may be missing out on some of the advantages of witnessing God's people worshipping corporately in their native language. But not only are there still plenty of benefits that do not depend on language, there are even blessings that result from experiencing Sunday gatherings in their second language!

Firstly, even while they do not understand much of what is said, there are still great advantages to them being there. We believe that there is a special privilege and blessing of gathering together with God's people each week and worshipping together. J and S see us making a priority of being there on a Sunday. And they still get to witness the form of a service - the singing to praise God together, praying, God's Word being read and expounded, the Lord's Supper and the fellowship.

But there are also benefits that come about because our Sunday gathering is in their second language, and it's these that I hadn't really considered before. We don't have to try and explain that people in different countries who speak different languages also meet together on a Sunday and worship God - our children get to see it first hand. They know that we can talk and sing to God in English and in Turkish because that's what they experience. They know that native English speakers and native Turkish speakers (and others too, we've a few international students around) can worship God together as family. And this is what is normal to them - not just as a one-off, but every week they get a little taste of what it will be like for people from different tribes and languages and nations to worship God together and a small glimpse of the global-ness of our spiritual family.

So, as is typical for Third Culture Kid in so many different areas of their lives, yes they are missing out on some of the experiences and blessings that would have come with staying in the UK. But they are receiving different benefits and blessings from living here. And that's something I just have to keep reminding myself of.

Ramazan

Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) started a few days ago here. It's a month of fasting that comes around once a year on the Islamic calendar. The Islamic calendar is lunar, so a year is 354/355 days. This means that every solar year (i.e. 2019 or 2020), Ramazan gets a 11 or so days earlier.

Fasting during Ramazan means refraining from eating or drinking between sunrise and sunset each day. Chewing gum and smoking are also refrained from. Pregnant and nursing women, children, the old and weak, and those travelling are exempt from fasting. Those fasting get up before sunrise to have a meal (sahur) before their fast starts and break their fast each day with iftar, a meal held straight after sunset, often a large celebratory meal shared with family or friends. For Muslims, it's the holiest month of the year and a time where they examine their lives and focus on their religion and God. Mosques are busier this month.

Not all of those who would identify as Muslim choose to fast but many do. Although this is our fourth Ramazan in Turkey, it's our first in the city we now live in. Different parts of Turkey vary vastly in how secular/religious they are, so foreign tourists who come to the very tourist-y areas of Turkey during Ramazan are unlikely to be impacted much. Istanbul has a mixture of more conservative and more secular areas. When we were in Istanbul, we lived in quite a secular area and walking down the nearby streets, cafes and restaurants would still be open and we'd see people in there eating and drinking in the day.Now we live in a more conservative city and so we assume that the majority of people around us are fasting.

Practically, that means this month we're avoiding eating and drinking out in public. We tried to do this while we were in Istanbul anyway, but we're more conscious of it here. Many cafes and restaurants are closed for the month, or at the very least have removed their tables from the pavements outside during the day. Cafes and restaurants that are still open may be closed during the day or have shorter opening hours, but then stay open much later at night, for those that want to eat out for their iftar meal.

To be honest, we don't go to cafes and restaurants much anyway - although there's something about knowing that you can't that makes you want to go more! Although children are exempt from fasting, I try to be sensitive and make sure that the boys have had their snack before they go to the park, rather than taking it to the park to eat there. We'll also avoid, for example, having a midday picnic at a picnic area at the weekend (and the picnic areas will be full quite early anyway, as people stake out a spot well in advance for an evening iftar picnic or barbeque).

We're also aware that the hour before sunset, traffic is often heavier as people are making sure they're home for the iftar meal - and drivers may be a little grumpier than normal if they haven't eaten or drank all day! So where we have a choice, we might try and avoid being out in the car at that hour.

One thing that we didn't know about before we moved to Turkey was the drummers. This is a long standing tradition in Turkey that drummers (sometimes wearing Ottoman-style clothing) go round neighbourhoods banging their drums to wake people up in time to have their pre-fast sahur meal. With the current sunrise time, we're hearing them about 3am each night. We heard them when we lived in Istanbul but they definitely seem louder here!

Fasting for a month from sunrise to sunset with no food or water is hard, especially in country like Turkey where in summer months it is hot and the daylight hours are long. I have a lot of respect for those who are fasting in the sincere belief that it will bring them closer to Allah and also sorrow that so many people are doing their best to earn their salvation through works such as fasting when I believe that there is no way to earn our salvation. I also hope and pray that as many people use this month to think on spiritual matters and to try to draw close to God that they would truly come to know God through the One he has sent.

The Comparison Trap

Last summer I was at a conference and sat next to a lady at one meal. We got chatting. She was probably in her 60s, a doctor, working in a village in Papua New Guinea. She was single and she told me about her work, that there had been quite a few families working in that village at one time but now it was just her and another single lady left. And then later she shared at a conference session later about different problems there had been but how God had been faithful through them.

As we finished our meal, my unspoken thought was that she was the real deal of what a worker looked like. I mean, she had spent many years working in such a remote and far off place, lived without access to many things that we take for granted in the UK, was exposed to so many physical hardships - and that was without even considering the pressures of work, the realities of singleness, the spiritual battle. I have so much admiration for her. Compared to her life, I didn't think my life was that hard at all.

But then she floored me. I'd shared a bit of where we lived and what we were doing and she turned to me and told me that she didn't think she could live where we lived when it was such a spiritual stronghold of another religion.

I wanted to point out that in many ways, my life is so much easier than hers. At that time, we'd just spent two years living in Istanbul, where we had excellent public transport and shopping centres and broadband Internet and friends who spoke English. Where people could come and visit us relatively easily. Where the Mediterranean coast was a package holiday destination. That I'd been blessed with a husband to do all the transition of moving to a new country together with and two lovely children. I mean, it wasn't necessarily easy. There were enough power and water cuts, cultural adjustments and other issues to confirm that. But if it wasn't easy, it had to be easier.

How quickly we fall into the comparison trap.

The months since we moved to our new city have not been easy months, for a variety of reasons. Moving to a new city is always stressful and we've been navigating various bureaucratic processes to set up life here and get permission to stay. I have found my third pregnancy to be significantly harder than the previous two. I had worse morning sickness, we had quite a few bouts of illness, I've been more tired than before. And just when I thought that I had finally got out of the tiredness stage that traditionally finishes with the end of the first trimester but seemed to stretch half way into the second for me, my body decided to remind me that I don't have quite as much energy as I thought I did. So a a few weeks ago, I spent a pretty terrible week completely wiped out energy-wise, with a mouth full of ulcers that had me in pretty much constant pain and unable to eat or talk very much. Thankfully that is behind me now and has not recurred. Plus, ministry is just messy in every country and sometimes that can be compounded by cross-cultural issues, or at the very least having to do everything in a second language.

And I start to play the comparison game. Yes I had worse morning sickness this time, but it was only (constant) nausea. I've some friends who threw up multiple times a day for the first few months of their pregnancies. Or felt nauseous their entire pregnancy. Or felt nauseous and threw up their entire pregnancy. So any hint of me admitting that it was harder this time comes with the add-on that I can't complain, it could have been worse. Yes I've been tired. But I only have two small children. Imagine how much harder it is for those who are on their third or later pregnancies. And L helps out a lot around the house and with the children. So it's nothing to mention really. Yes a couple of months back I had a bit of a rough week health-wise. But it passed, at the end of the day it wasn't a serious health issue and there's always someone in a worse situation. And look at all the things I have to be thankful for - two healthy children, a healthy baby developing, a loving husband who supports me as much as he can and retains more flexibility to help me than most people. 

So often we want to compare ourselves. Often it's to other people, either real or imagined. But sometimes to an invisible standard that we think marks the bar of where our issues feel serious enough to warrant mentioning, or asking for prayer, or using it as a rationale to explain why we've had to back out of doing something without wondering whether everyone will think it's just an excuse, or even if we can possibly start classifying it as a 'trial' or 'suffering'.

We tally up the hardship factors on one side against the blessings of our life on the other, and try and work out whether one outweighs or merely counterbalances the other, and therefore do we meet the invisible standard of hardship or trials or do we just need to quit complaining and get on with it. I live in a different country and not only that but in a city away from most foreigners. One for the hardship column. But I also live in a large apartment on the edge of the city. And I can even do my food shopping online and get it delivered that day. That must balance out living in a different country/city, at least to some degree. Pregnancy is tiring and I miss the NHS. But the hospitals here are so much better than in most of the world and my mum is coming to stay when the baby is born. And it would be tiring as well if we were in the UK. And so it goes on.

But there is another way. We don't have to prove to ourselves or others that our troubles are significant.

If we have trusted in the death of God's Son for the forgiveness of our sins, then we are adopted as God's children and have the grace of God. And this grace flows into our lives, filling every nook and cranny, covering us completely. It says that we don't have to compare ourselves to others, we don't have to check and see how serious our problems are to consider them trials, we don't have to prove ourselves to be deserving enough to be heard.

Grace allows us to bring our troubles to our heavenly Father. And not just bring them hesitantly, but to cast our cares onto him. Cast as in throw, toss, fling. And not just the significant trials but our 'cares' - it doesn't matter how big or small they are, our Father wants us to bring them to him.

Young children are the perfect example of this. My children do not consider whether or not a problem is significant enough to bring it to my attention. If I am occupied with one child's issue, that does not stop the other coming with his own problem. The level of seriousness of the first issue that I'm dealing with has apparently no bearing whatsoever on the other child's problem and whether that moment is really the best time to bring it up with me. They simply do not compare their issue to their sibling's issue. And they definitely do not calculate how serious their problem is in relation to all the other good things in their lives.

They assume that if they think it's a problem or issue, they should let me know about it immediately, regardless of anything else and presumably because (even if they can't articulate this yet), they know at a deep level that I love them and will listen to them and try to help them. When my children come to me with their cares and problems, I do my best to listen to them, to be patient and to take them seriously. Sometimes my 'help' may not be what they think the 'help' should be but they hopefully at least understand that I hear them and their problems. In my better parenting moments, I understand that however insignificant their problems might seem to me, they matter to my children and because I love my children, those problems then matter to me. (In my less impressive parenting moments, I show my impatience at why exactly something that seems so insignificant to me is such an issue and can't they please just get over it, but that is why God is our perfect ultimate Father and parents will always be rather imperfect in imitation.)

We are to be like little children. We come to God with the faith that he hears us, he loves us, that nothing is too small for him to be concerned about, that we don't need to compare ourselves to our spiritual siblings. We don't have to try and work out if our troubles measure up to the invisible bar of significance, or calculate if they are outweighed sufficiently by other things that we should just grin and bear it. We know that God is infinitely patient and loving with us. We don't need to worry about how big our troubles are but we are free to express our hurts, doubts, frustrations, disappointments, anxieties, troubles to our Father in prayer safe in the knowledge that he cares for each of us individually.

Cappadocia - Swords Valley

It was slightly embarrassing to admit that we've lived an hour's drive from Cappadocia, one of Turkey's most famous regions, for seven months now and hadn't been over to there since we moved here. Cappadocia is famous for its unusual landscape and rock formations, especially since the inhabitants of Cappadocia many hundreds and even thousands of years ago carved their houses and churches into the rock. So it tends to be on any must-see list of tourists travelling around Turkey.

But the first couple of months we were here we were busy settling in and then the weather turned rather wintery - which is definitely not the best time to visit Cappadocia. And in our defence, L and I visited about 4.5 years ago when we were on holiday backpacking in Turkey so we have been before.

However, today we finally made it across to Göreme, a village in Cappadocia which is surrounded by valleys perfect for hiking. With two small children, we chose one of the shortest valleys to walk - Kılıçlar Vadisi, or 'Swords Valley'. It's only a couple of miles long but more than made up for its short length with an impressively long (apparently about 300m) and rather narrow tunnel and a good section of the valley being more akin to a super-narrow gorge, with rocks towering above us.

In retrospect, it was probably a slightly challenging walk for us to manage with a nearly 4 year old and a nearly 2 year old and me 7 months pregnant, but we all loved it (although for J and S, going through the tunnel once was enough...). We reached the end, explored a little and then had a picnic lunch (which had been a significant motivating factor for J). It was lovely to get out into nature and to have the opportunity to point out things like wild flowers, butterflies and even lizards to the boys. And while we had thought that L might have needed to walk back and bring the car round to us, the boys even had enough energy that we all managed to do the walk back up the valley to the car again - going up was definitely easier than going down!

Swords Valley

This was one of the steepest/narrowest bits

Classic Cappadocia scenery

View from our picnic spot at the end of the valley, with some of the rock caves visible.

We sat eating our sandwiches looking out across at this scenery, L and I thinking that the last time we came to Göreme we could never have imagined that 4.5 years later we'd be coming on a day trip from our home an hour away, with our two boys and another on the way. God has been so good to us. 

We finished off with a quick trip into Göreme to get our first ice creams of the year, realising that despite it being only early April we had all managed to get very slightly sunburned. Oops. And then headed home, with both J and S fast asleep in the car within 5 minutes of setting off - definitely the sign of a successful day out!