Izmir, Istanbul and HOME!!!

Well here it is!!! Our last city in Turkey - Izmir. This is where the church of Smyrna is found. Also about an hour away is the ancient city of Ephesus!!

This is Izmir. God brought us SO many divine appointments there's no way we could write all the stories right now. But here are some pics etc. We'll have to share more when we get back home.

Izmir is right by the ocean. This is a water inlet where you take ferry boats back and fourth across to the different city centers.

They have incredible produce... and it's DIRT CHEAP!!

Luke and I found some funny things here that just perfectly show the "randomness" of another country other than your own... like this huge pile of over-sized underwear all for a buck each....

or this fat mannequin for the pleasantly plump... =) Luke found this amusing... that's a big chick! She's like 6' 6"!!!

Or check this poster out! I thought this was such a perfect depiction of what goes on in a woman's mind even when she doesn't look that fat... Oh if only men would understand...

And how bout this sign! Gotta love it!

And this last one is great.
Luke in a sea of Muslim women! AAAAWKWARD! hehe.. ya woman and men don't quite mix.. it's like oil and water!

They have nice flowers here!

and awesome bread!

Our apartment we rented was super dirty so we decided to do a little spring cleaning! Go Hanne.. that fridge was FULL of mold!

And poor Luke had the job of cleaning the bathroom... here's the classic poop brush... FULL OF POOP! uhhhh

One morning we prayed and felt like we should just go out to the park area, bring a guitar and start playing... and praying.... to see what God might do to bring people to us... and...

...we found some friends: Mehmet and Alex. They are from Marmaris, which is a few hours away. They were up here for a few hours trying to get Visas at the embassy and had to wait for the processing to go through. Soooo they decided to talk a walk at the park... and who did they run into?... US!!! It was so the Lord... we hung out the WHOLE time and gave them gospels of John ... we both realized it was God who put us together... We had so much fun!

We met two guys while sitting here by the water drinking cay (chai in Turkish) which means tea... not like Indian Chai... it's just black.

They brought their other friends and we ended up hanging out ALL day.. playing cards, talking about life and our beliefs. These friends ended up being people we hung out with the whole time we were in Izmir. They are so awesome!

They invited us into their home and made us an amazing dinner!

We worked with this small church plant. There were two new converts and we helped with the baptism. It was so cool! This church is so small... just starting up with only a couple members.
I played worship with them.. it was so cool seeing Turkish believers worship Jesus. There are only 3000 known believers in ALL of Turkey so it was really cool to encourage them in their faith!

There is no place by the ocean where we could baptize them so they got a baby pool.. Hey whatever works!

After months of Turkish food we were dying for an AMERICAN BURGER... so we went to the market and found some ingredients!

And cooked up a storm!

The ancient city of
EPHESUS

Luke bought this headset that told us about each station we stopped at in Ephesus. He would get all the info and then teach us...it was perfect! Luke's such a good teacher!

Oh my Luke has boobs! Babe!

This is the amphitheatre where in the book of Acts there was the riot about their goddess Artemis!
Ephesus was one of the coolest things we saw here in Turkey.


ISTANBUL
We left Izmir and headed back to our first desitnation- Istanbul. We spent 3 days there to debrief and then head HOME to Hawaii! The crazy thing is that we came to Istanbul for "rest and relaxation" but we really wanted to see all our Turkish friends we had made. So we just went ALL day and saw EVERYONE! God met us more that we could ever say. It was amazing the timing of everything.


We hung out with Savas and his friends and family! They are Kurdish and SO SWEET. They cooked us dinner! We love them!
This is his sisters and cousin!

Savas, Luke and Ikmet

HERE IS A COOL STORY
ABOUT A GUY NAMES BENJAMIN!

We got back into Istanbul from Izmir and happened to run into a guy named Benjamin. When we first got to Turkey we met Benjamin on a ferry boat. He really wanted to learn English and instantly started talking to us. We shared with him that we were believers in Jesus and that we were traveling around Turkey telling people about God's love for them. At the end of our time we had given him a gospel of John and an apologetics book explaining the differences between the Koran and the Bible. We prayed for him and then said goodbye and left.

So we travel all throughout Turkey and Northern Iraq not thinking we'd EVER see this guy again. Well on our LAST week in Turkey we travel back to Istanbul to fly out. On one of our last days there we happened to be by the ferry again. Keep in mind there are 17 million people in Istanbul alone... and at the ferry there are thousands of people traveling every hour. So we are heading to get on a 2 o'clock ferry and as we are standing back to back with a million other people Luke hears this voice calling out amongst the crowd. Catching his attention he looks over and who is standing 3 people away from him.... Benjamin!!! Oh my gosh... we couldn't believe it! So we sat on the Ferry together and Benjamin in all of his excitement just talks our ears off. In the 2 months we were gone he read everything we gave him, he remembered EVERY little thing we told him about God and he remembered when we prayed over him. And he just kept saying how cool it was that we "work for God"... that it's the greatest profession out there... granted he is Muslim but he is open.

So by the time we got to the other side of the waterway we told him more about Jesus and got all his info and will be keeping in touch over Skype and email. He really wants to learn more and more about what we believe. We said goodbye and headed for our hotel just jaw dropped! So yes please keep praying for Benjamin. He seemed like an Apostle Paul if he gets saved. He is very smart and bold and unafraid! I KNOW that God had us meet him again.
What are the chances?

We headed to the airport and this is our little marshin saying goodbye to Tukey for us.... Ohhhh so sad!

Goodbye Turkey!!!

HOME!

Well it's been a fun run! You all have been AMAZING! Thank you for ALL of your prayers and for traveling with us! It would not have been the same without you! We are so excited to see you all in Santa Barbara.

We will be in SB for 8 weeks leasing our neigbors apartment while they are gone... then we'll see where the Lord leads us next........ on an adventure with HIM!!!