Levantines of Turkey

Prayer Requests

• Pray for the believers of the new church that they would grow in their faith and that the gospel would spread throughout their village and beyond
• Pray for the dozens of other Arabic speaking villages in Turkey that have no gospel witness
• Pray that the Lord would raise up the right workers to labor in these fields

The Levantines of Turkey

06 Sep 2006

As many as 1.5 million people in Turkey today are from an Arabic speaking background. Much of their heritage comes from Syria and other parts of The Levant thus we call these people The Levantines of Turkey. Arabic speaking Turkish citizens can be found in every major city in Turkey but the vast majority live in southern Turkey along the Syrian border.

There are only a handful of known believers among these people and also only a few Christian workers focusing on sharing the gospel with them.

Recently a new church was birthed in a Levantine village growing on its own until now a number of families are meeting together in homes to worship the Lord. Their times of worship take place in both Arabic and Turkish, reflecting the two languages that characterize their lives. This village is located just outside of the ancient Biblical city of Antioch. Could it be that after hundreds of years of Islamic influence, the Lord has chosen to reestablish his church among the Levantines in the same place that Paul and Barnabas left from to take the gospel to the Gentile world two thousand years ago?

Comments