Day 1, October 24-25

The team is starting to gather in Türkiye, two leaving Thursday and two more on Friday to meet in the Istanbul airport.  It was a good thing Fred had a long layover planned as a thunderstorm in Istanbul landed his plane in the Tekirdag Corlu airport for four hours, making it land 5 hours late in Istanbul.  This is why we pray for the trips, so connections are made.  Now it is night the next day (25), and it has been a long day as there is an 8 hour time difference with not the usual sleep.

Day 2

This was an easy day as we slept in as long as desired, had meals supplied, and went to meeting at 2 pm.  The rest was on our own, catching up on computer work or studying the Turkish language.  Let me add a couple pictures, one of early morning and the other of several houses we will be working on.  We are staying in the one with the open door near the right center of the picture.  The other two members of the team arrived late after missing their flight the day before.  The leader for our project is on his way back from the Netherlands as he had car trouble.  This impacts our material supply and direction Monday morning.

 Day 3

It is Monday, we are settled in and starting into the work.  The first business was to walk around the property to find what was needed.  Then, as direction was not immediately available, we started picking up and cleaning up some of the leftovers from other construction.  Apparently I was not clear about our leadership.  There is our team with our leader, Jonathan, then there is the one who has determined what our team is to accomplish.  Normally this refers to the missionary we are serving.  In this case the missionary is kept from entering the country, so we are working with a local, who at this moment is traveling from  the Netherlands in his car 

starting Tuesday.  Jonathan spent the rest of his day traveling with one of the local helpers to get supplies and choose material, all the while being in contact with the leader in the far side of Europe.  The other three team members were given the responsibility of putting a large window in a warehouse wall.  Surprisingly it took the rest of the day to complete it.  The evening was spent catching up with one we spent the day working with who has fled Iran, lives in Cyprus, works with Russians and other nationalities for an Israelite company and is away from Cyprus awaiting approval of a work visa.

Day 4

Another workday, getting more of the warehouse taken care of.  This time we had to move supplies out of the way of the day’s construction work while the window frame was put in place.  After clearing the work area, we were designated to put an overhead shelf in place along the wall.  Cutting all the pieces and getting them in place took all day.  One of the difficulties is the boards are sufficiently hard to either nail or screw that all fasteners had to be drilled first.  In addition to the framing work time was taken to attach the electrical panel and nearby switches appropriately to the wall (they were extremely loose).  As sunset drew near some of the team hiked up the nearby hill to see the beautiful view of the valley below.  Conversation during supper and following was with our Iranian friend about his Persian culture and our American culture

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

day 9