Itinerary in Turkey

We will have a very busy itinerary, with six cities in just 12 days!  We will start in Istanbul (Northwest by Black Sea), then fly to Kayseri which is in the middle of the country (southeast of Ankara).  We will then take a bus through the Cappadocia region to Ankara (the capital).  After a day in Ankara we will fly to Izmir (and Ephesus) on the west coast.  Finally we will take a bus to Manisa and then fly back to Istanbul for our return trip home.

Trip to Turkey

David and I are preparing for our next  travel adventure...Turkey!  We leave in just a few days and we've been making preparations for several weeks.  We will be traveling with our hosts and guides from the Raindrop foundation and the Institute for Interfaith dialogue.  They lead several of these trips every year and I have been wanting to participate for 2 years now.  The time has finally arrived.

Postscript

The exterior of the church did get finished and looks great...

Worship songs

I've always loved worship music, so I was eager to jump in and learn some of the songs in Spanish.  Here are the lyrics for a few of my favorites.  We also sang in VBS and I learned several more songs there.  I actually fell asleep last night with these playing over and over in my head!

Open the eyes of My Heart
Abre mis ojos oh cristo
Abre mis ojos te pido
Yo quiero verte
Yo quiero verte.

Y verte alto y exaltado
Briallando en la luz de tu gloria
Derrama tu poder y amor
Mientras cantamos santo santo

Santo, santo, santo
Yo quiero verte.

Open the eyes of my heart Lord,
Open the eyes of my heart.
I want to see you.

See you high and lifted up
Shining in the light of your glory.
Pour out your power and love
as we sing holy, holy, holy.

Jesus loves the little Children
Cristo ama a los ninos, todos ninos del mundo.
Todos colores y pueblos, son preciosos en sus ojos.
Cristo ama a los ninos del mundo.

Jesus loes the children, all the children of the world.
All colors and places, are precious in his eyes.
Jesus loves the children of the world.

This is the Day that the Lord has made
Este es el dia, que hizo El Senor.
Dia de alegria y felicidad.

Day 9 - glad to be home

When you travel, its often sad to leave the places you have visited behind, but its always great to be home!  Its the same for this trip. Delaney and I were a bit sad as we pulled away waving to the friends we left behind, but we were so happy to get hugs from Adam and David when we returned!

Some of the other things we are appreciating include:  being able to flush toilet paper, cereal for breakfast, a high today of 75 instead of 102 degrees, green grass (and green wheat fields), catching up with friends, and sleeping in our own beds.  

Day 8 - the long drive home

We managed to pull out right on time at 4:56 pm from Hermosillo.  I got to take the first shift from 5:00 to approx 9:30 when we hit the Mexico-US border.  Bill served as my co-pilot and helped navigate through Santa Ana and Magdalena toward the Nogales border crossing.  It was an interesting drive with some challenges to it that kept me quite alert despite a busy week.  During the first stretch, it was mostly straight, but totally under construction.  I would get about 5 miles of new four lane divided highway, then it would narrow down to two lane highway again for several miles, then a new stretch again.  I would accelerate up to 65 mph, then back down to 40 mph over and over- A bit frustrating when you know you have 23 hours of driving ahead of you and you want to keep up the speed.

The sun started to go down as we approached the border and the view was beautiful: mountain sillouettes in the distance with the pink sky behind.  The road became curvier as we went through the hills.  It was a bit difficult to know how fast to drive, there were few signs with posted speed limits, and we would come across "pedestrian zones" that were basically truck stops on the sides of the road with vendors in the middle of the road selling food items.  We approached these with very little advanced warning, except possibly unmarked speed bumps that were exciting in a van.

After driving this stretch of road, it became very obvious to me why the maquiladora factories are on the US-Mexican border and not farther into the interior - the transportation infrastructure is just not up to par to keep up with that much truck traffic.

We made it to the border and Bill went into the Mexican customs office to get his vehicle registration refund, only to be told that he was supposed to do that at a customs office that we had passed 10 miles back.  We turned around and eventually took care of that task and continued on into the US.  There were long lanes for traffic at the border, but very few cars crossing at 9:00 at night.  We had to get out of the van and open the trailer for inspection, but it only took 5 minutes thank goodness.  Everyone turned on their phones again and checked messages etc.  Matt remarked that he was glad his phone was a phone again, not just a large clock : )

We stopped for a rest stop once we got into US Nogales and changed drivers, then everyone settled in to try to sleep as best they could.  Chris took the shift till midnight, then Bill, then Jay took us into the sunrise and Albuquerque where we grabbed breakfast to go.  Terry took his turn at the wheel and then it was my turn again.  The roads across the panhandle of Oklahoma were not nearly as interesting as northern Mexico.

The excitement began to build despite 20 hours in the van as we crossed the Kansas Oklahoma border. We arrived back at Trinity at 6:00 pm, 23 hours after we left Hermosillo.  Jay dashed off for a wedding rehearsal that he was supposed to be at that started at 6:00 across town.  The rest of us said our goodbyes and the group from El Dorado headed out for home.  It was great to be back!

Day 7 - misc observations

•  We have mostly avoided getting sick, thanks to regular bottled water and the care of our hosts in food preparation.  In the neighborhood a water vendor drives through almost every hour honking his horn as he goes.  We've taken this sound as a reminder to hydrate ourselves :)

•  I'm not surprised, but I am reminded that everyone here is a master in recycling and re-using materials.  When we ate our meals, our 'disposable' plastic cups were washed and re-used.  We also ate with a wide variety of plasticware that had seen many uses.  Cardboard boxes, 2x4 wood, everything has multiple purposes.

•  It was pleasing that all of the Spanish speakers were willing to try to understand my very flawed efforts at Spanish.  No one corrected.  Some looked confused, but kept listening with a smile until they could understand what I was trying to ask/say.  This was a different experience than some of the other places I've traveled where people are less accepting of others' language skills (or lack thereof).

•  All the houses in the Hermosillo neighborhood had large black water containers on the roofs.  The city water was pumped to the roof, then the elevated barrels provided some (but not a lot) of water pressure.  The black containers provided warmer water during the heat of the day, but neither of the places we stayed had hot water heaters.

•  More evidence regarding the working class/middle class status of the neighborhood is the attire of the children.  Their clothes are in good condition as are their shoes.  The girls' hair is beautifully groomed and often braided (I wish I could get Delaney's hair to lay so smoothly!)  These children do not come from families who struggle to clothe them.