June 16th

The day started with trying to take a shower without getting everything in the bathroom soaked. This might sound like it should be easy, but it was not! The bathrooms here are covered in tiles both floors and walls. On one wall there is a shower hose that does not really sit right in the thing to hold it on the wall. So you just take a shower standing in the middle of the bathroom with no actual shower wall or tub. I'm not sure if all the shower holders are like this but ours would make the water go sideways which would soak the toilet. The whole bathroom is probably 5ft by 5ft.

Anyways after that fun I went to breakfast which was good. We had bread and goat cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, orange and strawberry jam, and eggs. With the Turkish Chai of course. I  really do like Turkish tea I might have a to find some to bring home.

Group devotions and  Olive Grove planning was next on the day’s agenda.  Among the information we discussed was the profile of a TCK. Hmm we/they are complicated people!

Eventually, after hours of talking and lunch we were given the opportunity to go and just do something. I went swimming! (of course) I went and snorkeled a little bit in the area everyone else was at, I got far enough away to see some fish and an eel but never so far that they could not have heard me if I needed help. It was refreshing to get some time alone and just watch God's amazing creations. Most of the fish were small and ugly,  but there was one brighter colored fish.  I asked God to let a second one show up.  Right before I gave up,  a second one did show up! I  walked the shore and looked for sea glass, I thought of you, mom and the OR coast :-(, I actually did find some sea glass! It is small but a very bright green.

We had some more meetings and dinner. For those that don't know I will be helping with 9th - 10th grade girls. For electives I am going to be helping with adventure world, which involves sailing, kayaking, snorkeling, and rock climbing. We discussed how we planned on breaking up everything to make it doable. Myself and another young lady will be heading up the snorkelers. This means four days in a row we will take a group of high schoolers snorkeling around the end of our cove into another cove where we are supposed to be able to watch the big sea turtles. The kayakers are supposed to be somewhat close by us. Everyone is required to pass a swimming test. Two and a half  hours of snorkeling, four days in a row! Yikes! Can you say sunscreen?

We ended the night with another devotion worship time. The lady that shared incorporated Ps 125:1-2 in what she said. These are my life verses, and apparently there is a song based on those verses as well. It was really amazing!

Another highlight from the day was the session on prayer. Diny shared about thirty second blessing style prayers, listening prayers, and how to involve others in praying for their stuff. What she had to say was great. It was nice to see the importance of a quick thirty seconds to pray for someone when they have been sharing about their life. Could you imagine how nice it would be if after you shared something you were thinking about or struggling with the person not only said they would pray but took a few seconds to pray? I also enjoyed the tips and techniques she gave for the other two types.

I finished the evening by watching the moon on the ocean and thinking about the greatness of God.

 

Oh,  a real downer to the day was the court case. The other guy’s lawyer brought a false claim of bribery against James. James  was not allowed to share at all... They have another court date on November 5th. Be praying for everyone involved it is a hard thing to deal with.

June 15th

So today was the day! The beginning of Olive Grove. We started off the day with some yummy pancakes made by Christine and then finished the last packing up of our room and packing for Olive Grove. James dropped Christine and I off at La Paloma, the small inn in old town where people were staying, where we were to act as their guides.

After meeting everyone we headed to the ATM and then the exchange office. We still had some time before lunch and loading up, .so we went to the local Mosque where visitors are allowed.

We all had to take our shoes off and the  girls all had to wear head scarves. Those ladies not wearing a long skirt were given a skirt to wear. It was rather pretty inside, no statues. But plaques with the name's of God in Arabic, I think they were names. There was this narrow stair case leading to the top on the side of the stage area, that none of us were sure what it was for. They also had a lineage chart up that had Abraham and Mohamed. It was interesting to see. There is something awe inspiring to enter anyone’s place of worship, in some cases sadder than others... I would like to go back sometime with someone who could explain everything we were seeing.

After that we went to Hadrian's gate. I am waiting till I have pictures to tell you about this gate, but it is really amazing and old. We  spilt up and Christine took people to Starbucks and I took people to look around Old Town some more. We had a good time and did not get lost. It was fun to act as the guide for a change, I also realized how much I had learned. Although it was funny before we split ways because Christine was remembering the route by clothing on display and I was remembering by the old buildings...

I had my first Ayran at lunch. This is a very common drink here that is like runny Turkish yogurt, similar to plain organic yogurt with a little sour cream, with salt. It is suppose to be really good at refreshing you if you are dehydrated.

Next we all CROWDED into the van. After a little drive we arrived. Next followed the normal settling in and meeting everyone and information sessions. One thing that was fun was we did the human knot. We divided guys and girls but we had way more girls than guys so the girls then divided in half again. Both girls groups finished within two minutes and it took the guys almost a half hour and in the end they cheated to get done...

After a time of worship and sharing we walked down to the beach to see the full moon. There was a pesky cloud in the way. I learned later that we had been watching an eclipse :-)

June 14th

Camp prep 

Talya play

Krista's having troubles with her internet. She's sent eight pages for me to post. Stay tuned. 

June 13th

There is not a whole lot to say about Monday. We worked on camp stuff and ran camp related errands. We got stuck in a big storm, it is not suppose to rain this late in the year. Oh it was the day after the elections so we were watching the exchange rate to see what it is going to do. So far it has been dropping but we are hoping it will stabilize and then climb…

Hmm so now would be a good time to comment on the Turkish currency. They use Liro here, there paper money does not get smaller than 5 Liro, they then have a 1 liro coin. When it goes smaller than this it is a Kroishe and it goes in 50, 25, 10, 5, and 1 increments. When I first arrived the exchange rate was 1.6 it dropped to around 1.57 sometimes it rose to 1.58 or 1.59. Yesterday it dropped to 1.55 by the end of the day. It has gone back to 1.57 at the start of today and we will just see what it does from here. Oh to translate those numbers $30 would be worth 48 TL with an exchange rate of 1.6 and 47.1 TL with a 1.57 exchange rate, and 46.5 TL with a 1.55 exchange rate.

June 12th

This Sunday we had a wider variety of nationalities than normal at service. There was a Korean guest speaker who has been working in LA. Then a group of young people from Texas who are a part of an exchange program, so they were there but they also had their Turkish exchange people. Then there was an Estonian couple there. Plus all the normal nationalities, our little upper room was swollen to around a hundred people. It was neat to be there on Pentecost Sunday meeting in a hot upper room in an area that was mentioned in the section about Pentecost in our Holy Book.

After service I went to lunch with the youth group and then to their service. It was a bitter sweet service to sit in on. Because it was there last one of the school year and so there were many good byes. But it was nice to see the love and respect that had been built in their group.

Talya, Rhema, Danny, a boy (I think Zack), and I then started to walk to our homes which were in the same direction. It started to rain and we ended up rather wet but it was a fun walk.

I then relaxed and did normal Sunday stuff for the rest of the day.

June 11th

We started the day by not sleeping in as we were suppose to… Some people blame me for this saying I am loud in the morning. I think everyone was so excited about the full day ahead they just could not sleep.

After finishing the normal morning stuff and packing a lunch, Renata, Tressa, Manny, and I all headed out to the depo. The depo is their storage area and it was full of stuff for camp and other things. We met two ladies, Mary and someone, who are the head mistresses at the international school. Mary had a truck. After some amazing packing we got everything onto the back of her truck or into our van. It was quite the feat and you all should be really proud.

We then drove to camp, about an hour and a half, and unloaded everything. We were then very ready for lunch. The owners of the pansiyons where we have Olive Grove made us a pot of chi to go with our lunch. They have a different type of tea pot here, they are two tea pots that sit on top of each other. The one on top is slightly smaller than the one on bottom. Then they make really strong tea in the top one with loose leafs and the bottom one has just hot water. Then you pour water and tea into your glass vase shaped cup to the desired strength.

After we finished lunch Renata let Tressa, Manny, and I go swimming in the Sea while she took care of some business with the pansiyon owners. It was amazing and very refreshing after having moved all of the camp stuff.

We then headed back to town and stopped at the boat motor place to leave the motor to be checked out. We then went to the printers and picked up all the material for the councilors booklets. After this we dropped Tressa off at her bus stop and went home.

After a great dinner, we created a bag build and put together all the councilor booklets. We then got some ice cream and watched an episode of Alias and collapsed in bed.

June 10th

So Friday has arrived! We started the day by going to get a car inspection done, so we went to the mans world. The inspection took a little longer than we thought but their van passed and it gets another year of life!

We then headed to Metro to make the BIG Metro trip… Metro is like a Costco. But before we started shopping we decided to eat some lunch. Like Costco they have a little food court area. Unlike Costco was the food selection. They had these trout’s that were spread out and then wrapped up like a cinnamon roll with the fishes head on top. The fish had its mouth open and up and it looked like a bunch of weird looking fish about to attack.

Upon finishing lunch we attacked the shopping. We started with snack stuff for camp and filled up two of the large flat carts. We picked up PopKeks, DanKeks, Crispi and many other things I can’t spell with an English key board.

We also picked up about two normal shopping carts full of other stuff. But a few things that were interesting was that they had a whole Costco size aisle just with coffee and chi (all types of tea) it was amazing if you could imagine it they had it. Then they also had big things of yogurt, umm you know the five gallon buckets of laundry soap or paint they were just slightly smaller than that. There were also community coats for you to wear when you went into the cooler section.

After the shopping we loaded all of this food into the newly inspected van and went to get the camp shirts. I’m not sure if I have mentioned this yet but the sizing rather weird. The ladies shirts are European sizes so they are really small, I can make a large work but it is still rather tight. Then the men shirts are German in size so they are larger than normal, I would be swimming in a small.

We arrived home and did some more camp related computer work and prepared for dinner. Tressa and Manny came over for dinner and to stay the night so they could help with the depo move the next day.

We had an enjoyable evening of food, fellowship, games, and a movie.

June 9th

Happy Birthday Bre!!!! When you entered my life:-) it rocked my boat and life has been better ever since! Shoot the nine months in mom’s belly without you were terrible…

We, Christine, Tressa, and I, started today out with a re attempt of our meeting with Andrew. This time around it went much better and he was able to fill us in on a lot of information.

We then went back to the Bultema’s and hung out until Renata came home. After lunch we jumped head first into camp prep. It was a full and accomplished day of preparing for camp.

We finished the evening with dinner and then Katie, Andrew’s wife, came over and started teaching us ladies, Christine, Talya, Rhema, and I, a dance for camp. Yeah I still can’t dance but it is more music video style which I can do pretty good once I figure out the motions. But get this it is a high School musical song and I have not moved my hips that much ever! Oh well it is a good challenge and lots of fun to do.

We then watched an Alias episode to cool off after the work out.

As you have all possibly guessed the lines on the road here are mere suggestions. The same strip of pavement can go from 2-4 lanes, or one way to two way. It is real fascinating to watch the flow of traffic.

June 8th

Wednesday is the produce Bazaar (pronounced with a p instead of the b) it was the plan for Christine and I to meet Belgin over there to buy the necessary supplies to make a good dinner for Wednesday because we were having a lot of guests. Well plans never quite work out :-)

Tressa came over in the morning and we started to work on what we were going to teach at the English Speaking camp in Duden village for the Turkish youth. We decided that because Christine and my names are so similar that needed knick names. Yesterday while we were at Old Town when people would ask what our names were we would tell them and they would go “oh same name!” Also the double constant at the start of my name is hard for them to pronounce so my name is usual pronounced Karista (soft s).

After this Christine decided she would like to stay home and get the house ready for the evening festivities. Tressa volunteered to go with me to the Bazaar and the grocery store.

We first went to the post office and mailed a lot of postcards and a letter. It is always a little funny to go to the post office because the guy that is normally working there makes funny (exasperated to have to deal with me) faces. Well today it was a lady and instead of making faces and taking my stuff she handed us a pile of stamps and a wet sponge. So Tressa and I spent the next 10 minutes adding all the postage to the mail.

We then headed to the big bazaar and Migros. You all should be proud we found it without getting lost and with no adventures! We looked around for a few minutes and then met Belgin. She does not speak English and as you are all aware Tressa and I don’t speak Turkish, but we were still able to communicate fairly well. After our shopping Tressa and I had a few more items we needed to get, Belgin was just helping us shop for dinner supplies. So we waved bye to Belgin and she then gave us a weird look and signaled we were to go with her. Since we did not know how to communicate the need for her to take what we had so we could get some more stuff, also no way to transport what we got if she took the cart, we went with her.

So we walked home and dropped off all of the stuff and then we were saying good bye when she stopped us because we were out of Margarine. After Tressa further investigated, hand motions and pointing, we learned she needed it right then. We were walking out of the kitchen to go to the corner store and get the margarine when she noticed we were out of eggs, one of the items we had planned on getting already. So we headed to the corner market and picked up those items. Then we were off again to the bazaar and Migros. We picked up a lot of really good fruit and the rest of our missing items and headed home. Tressa took her leave after dropping all of this stuff off at our house.

Christine and Belgin in the mean time had made a really good tart with olives, dried tomatoes, and cheese. I was rather tired and went and took a quick nap, since they did not want me in the kitchen. When I came down they just discovered we were out of cream and a certain type of cheese. Off I went again, after some great detective work I figured out which of the white cheeses Belgin was referring to and found the cream. I got a thumbs up when I arrived home! Although I think the cheese would work but was not her first pick…

After this Reneta and James arrived home and they had also picked up some fruit at the bazaar. We all finished setting the table and then had a great evening of fellowship with some real yummy food.

Oh something interesting about the Turkish green salads is that they shop everything up into tiny pieces even the lettuce so it is more like s coleslaw than a salad. They also add a TON of green onions, dill, and parsley.

June 7th

Christine and I went out of our way to make sure we had finished everything that needed to be done so we would have the afternoon free. We had planned a nice excursion into Old Town and planned on a Doner for lunch. We had been advised to take bus 15 to Old Town, but it did not take the expected turn and we became nervous so when we thought we were in roughly the right spot we got off. After about a half hour of asking nice people we found Old Town and then after an additional 15 minutes we made our way to the Doner place.

Doner’s are this bread which is a cross between Naama bread and pita bread filled with shaved meat, tomatoes, onion, and some seasoning. The meat is a big chunk of meat that is upright on a rotating spit by some heat source. They shave the meat off there and put it in your bread. It seems to be the equivalent of Burrito Boy; cheap, good, and convenient.

We took our Doner’s to a nearby park and ate them while watching the Mediterranean and listening to Turkish music some guy nearby was playing. It was really relaxing, but rather hot.

We then went and looked around a few of the small shops in Old Town. I purchased a lot of postcards and some other things that y'all will have to wait and see what they are.

We then went to catch the 15 to meet with Andrew to discuss the English speaking camps for Russian/Turkish kids. The bus did not turn when it was suppose to so we never made it to our meeting and it took about 40 minutes to complete the circuit and get back home.

We finished the evening with writing in postcards, dinner, and Alias. We have officially gotten Talya hooked on Alias.

June 6th

Hmm... not much happened today to write home about…

We worked on Olive Grove stuff and ran an errand.

Oh, this evening we made brownies! Once again parents left this afternoon, and it was just us in the house… This time Christine was also with us and the fun was even more intense. We tied our ankles together making a four legged person. Then the two people on the outside edges were blindfolded and could use their outside arm. The person in the middle could see, but could not use any arms.

I really have to say food made in this fashion does taste better than food made in the normal way. We have such a sense of accomplishment when we are done.

We finished up the evening by watching another episode of Alias and eating our must AMAZING brownies.

Another interesting Turkish tidbit: a law has been passed that all have to have the same type of sewage system. Everyone has had to install new plumbing. This has led to a LOT of random holes in the sidewalks where people have torn it up to connect the plumbing to the main lines. Sidewalks are made of bricks instead of slabs of cement so they can tear it out to do their work and then relay it...

June 5th

Another Sunday has rolled around. I don’t think I can fully express how amazing it is to meet in Old City. The place is full of so much history and is very special.

Tressa and I had Sunday school today with the little children. As always kids are a joy to work with. One of the special challenges with leading this group was that two of the kids did not speak English. One of the boys translated into Turkish for the girl and the girl translated into Russian for her brother. I don’t know how much of the story they actually got, but all seemed to enjoy the game and craft. We finished with extra time so we played games with the kids. We lost our translator … but you don’t need to speak the same language to build a relationship. By the end of the time I would say we were friends,  though the only words we could exchange was  names.

After  the service related festivities wrapped up we went home and had dinner.  Dinner was about five different types of salads. Then, Talya, her friend, Tressa, Christine, and I went down to the real swimming hole. We had a lot of fun! Have I mentioned how much I love the water? There is a good jumping rock that is a lot of fun.

We finished the day with an amazing waffle dinner and an episode of Alias.

June 4th

We started the day off with strawberry crepes and rushing to get all the girls ready and out the door. We then caught a bus from where we had all stayed the night to Old City for the Shakespeare Festival.

The Shakespeare Festival is a end of the year talent show for the kids here. Talya did a couple of different songs and she is really talented. There were quite a few other talented children as well.

After the talent show we had a bar b q in the court yard of the St. Paul Cultural Center. This was fun and a great opportunity to get to know more of the workers here. The interns and Cherann planned on going to the beach and hanging out, followed by staying the night at Cherann’s. But the weather started to turn bad and by the time we went back the Bultema’s to get swimsuits and then back to Cherann’s it was not really beach weather.

The doorman was upset. It is complicated to explain, so let’s just say after the four of us ate dinner. Cherann put us all back on a bus to go home. We prayed that the bus we would be on would have available seats and nobody would get on that we had to give our seats to. Well God answered our prayers and it was a very enjoyable bus ride.

Chrsitine and I stopped at the grocery store by our house to get some Ice Cream, because I am well programmed and crave Ice Cream on my birthday. Christine bought it for me which was really nice. We then went to the Bultema’s and enjoyed a relaxed evening of talking, Ice Cream, and High School Musical 3.

Something odd about walking in Turkey is that you have to watch for electric bikes on the sidewalks as well as cars. It is a odd thing to be walking down the sidewalk and to see a car driving towards you…

June 3rd

So yes as ya all know the third is my birthday, I had a really good birthday for all who were concerned. We had a more laid back morning at the Bultema’s then Renata and I jumped into camp planning. We then had lunch and ran to the shirt place to order shirts. The sizing here is different so I would say here I am a large, even though I am still average compared to all the other ladies. When we got back Renata had a different project she needed to work on so I laid down and relaxed.

In the evening Talya, Danny, Rhema, Tressa, and I all went to a youth girl sleep over at Cherann’s (a teacher for the kids of some of the workers here) there was eight of us total. We all made dinner, danced (yes I still can’t dance), cleaned up, worshipped, and watched a movie. It was a fun night and a good birthday full of birthday wishes. I have to say I am excited to get back to Eugene and be able to do this with my girls.

It is election season here so there are vans that drive by with the different candidates pictures blaring loud music. They drive by at least 15 times a day. Also something interesting I was told is that all the business are required to have a Turkish flag and a picture of Ataturk who is like the founder of modern Turkey.

And last but not least Christine arrived in Turkey!

June 2nd

We had the final ladies study of the summer today at the Bultema’s. Renata had asked me to prepare and Lee had asked Tressa to prepare so we were really prepared :-). The study seemed to have gone well and I wanted to take a second and ssay thanks to all of you who served as Guiney pigs this last year. We finished with a ladies pot luck.

After all the festivities died down Renata and I jumped into camp planning. There is not much to say about this other than we got a lot done and I finished the day feeling accomplished.

So a fact about Turkey that I have found interesting is not only does the traffic lights go green, yellow, red but it also goes red, yellow, green. So you can tell when the light is about to turn green.

June 1st

I started by doing a typical not so bright Krista thing… I dropped my contact into the soap dish I then picked it up and cleaned it off briefly and put it into my eye. Yeah if you have not tried putting a soap covered contact in your eye then you should not try it.
I then went to the produce bazaar with Renata to get more produce. We also did some shopping. We also had a meeting about camp, which resulted in a list of things to do. When we got home I started working the list.
Tressa came over for dinner and to help with camp stuff. We made a fair amount of progress on the list of stuff.
It was about 8:30PM and the big new mall Terracity had just opened and Tayla really wanted us to go see it. We all set out and the new mall is huge and it was extremely kall-a bett (crowded). We had a good time and Talya and Renata found some needed cloths for good prices. While they were trying on clothes, Tressa and I were standing in one of the hall areas watching the different ways people got their strollers up and down. When a couple of French men approached us and wanted to go get some drinks… hmm this seems to be a universal problem :-)

May 31st

Today was a bit more busy than yesterday which was nice. I created a few spread sheets for the Sunday Services. Then worked on trying to fix Skype on the Bultema’s computers, no luck L. Then I worked on sorting cards for camp.

I was suppose to me a bunch of ladies at the Eldridges at 2:30 to go to the Haman. I left my house before 1:30 to stop at the post office and catch the bus over there. Well after the post office I decided to walk straight to the next big intersection that was only a block ahead and then follow it down to the main street and then catch the bus instead of back tracking. The street I got on did not go straight and intersect though it looped. By the time it intercepted I was at the She Mall, I will write later about the name. which is half way there. I knew we passed the She Mall on the way to the Bultema’s on the bus the other night so I knew I was in the right area but there were two possible streets that could be correct, the windows were hard to see out because of the rain last time. But I saw a bus and hopped on. It became clear that I was not on the right street. After signaling a couple of times the bus driver stopped to let me off. I then walked up a couple of streets till I was on the right street but at this point I was not sure if I had gone too far or not, I had a map but there is not a lot of street signs. I called and was able to get directions and showed up just on time. I think it would have been quicker to just walk the whole thing J All the streets I was on were well traveled by tourist and I did not stand out for those concerned.

Warning I am going to discuss the Haman, Turkish Bath, now so if you don’t want to hear skip to the next paragraph.

The Haman is a Turkish Bath, keeping with my mother’s tradition of course I had to try it out. You start out in this room that is all marble with little basins with plastic bowls. There are faucets at each basin and you douse yourself with water. Once you are soaked you then lay on this big marble slab that is in the middle of the room. The marble is hot. After a while a lady came in and said something in Turkish and one of the ladies in our party left. Then a little later another came and another left. Well eventually it was just Tressa and I, the two non Turkish speakers, We waited and waited for someone to come and get us but nobody was coming and we were getting extremely hot, I felt like a lobster and I was red enough to look like one. Tressa poked her head out and they said we could move to the other room which was cooler, we had been forgotten. A few minutes later one of the ladies that worked there had me lay back down on the marble slab. She then using a mitt scrubbed all the dead skin off. It was kind of gross how much dead skin there was. Then they use this pillow thing to put bubble all over you and give you a quick massage. I felt really clean and was very red afterwards. I think the Japanese Onsen is more relaxing, I enjoy their tubs of water you sit in, but I did enjoy the massage that comes with the Haman they should combine the two and it would be great!

We finished the evening by going to a good bye dinner, where I met up with Renata and Talya. After the dinner the three of us went home. I worked some more with Skype still with no luck other than to determine that the problem is probably the actually mic jack and not the mic itself. I then added names to the housing chart for camp, now everyone has a bed!

May 30th

Nothing much happened today. I wrote some letters and postcards and made a couple of trips to the post office. Yep that is about it.

Oh but a fun thing about Turkey, I also used this today, is that they have exercise parks spread throughout the city. These parks have all the basic workout equipment but it is set up to use your body weight as the weight… I will have to take pictures to better explain. But they are everywhere! There are two of these parks within a three minute walk from my place.