This month we experimented with Twitter.com as a prayer tool. We invited three churches to follow us as we took a research/EV trip deep into Eastern Turkey.  It was encouraging to know that we could ‘Tweet’ a prayer just before making an EV visit and know that friends in America would pray for us.  At one point, we really felt the power of this instant prayer tool.  We were working with a local believer to make calls to a list of seekers we received from a Bible Correspondence Course.
We had the names of 30 people in the area that had asked for Bibles or some other materials. Wow!  30 people to share Jesus with!  As we began calling the list, our local believer partner became very discouraged and fearful.   We stopped to pray but then he just refused to continue making calls.  What to do? That’s when we sent out the following tweet:

“After several calls and a rejection, our believer Z is discouraged (afraid?) and doesn’t want to call the list. Our area is very conservative.”

I guess several folks took up the challenge and prayed for us, because about an hour later we had an idea.  Why not finish calling the list on our own?  We will be modeling the importance of follow-though and faith in God to our Turkish brother, and our belief that we have to call this list because these people are seekers.  They want us to call them!  So after praying together, we started calling the list.
God was gracious to my fellow partner as he spoke his best Turkish.  After 20 calls we were determined not to be discouraged and as we called another name we lifted up a prayer and made the call.  “Yeah…yeah  I would like to meet with you..  Let’s have tea in the park in an hour” was the response this time.  PTL!  God is faithful and hears the prayers of his saints.  PTL, God is also continually training us to depend on him and trust him every step of the way and after making 30 calls with only 1 meeting we finally learned that lesson!

When I first came to the city I live in, I called a Facebook friend of our Turkish tutor to locate an apartment.  His name is Thomas, and he introduced me to his office mate and boss, Matthew.  Matthew had been married for about three months to an English speaking Turkish lady from Turkey.  Matthew and I looked for houses together, but we not able to find anything.  Still, he insisted I come back and visit him once we moved in.
Last week Matthew had really been on my heart so I planned to stop by his office briefly. I intended to suggest visiting when he had time since he was working. When I got to the office, Thomas was the only person there.  I told Thomas I was just dropping by, but he insisted I stay and see Matthew, who was due in any minute.

Thomas and I visited briefly, and then Matthew arrived.  “You’ll never believe what happened to me,” Matthew explained.  “My wife divorced me!”  Shocked, I listened as Matthew explained the story of how Matthew’s wife had apparently been “working” Matthew’s friends to get Matthew‘s money and leave him.  Concerned, the friends had confronted Matthew, who was shocked and went to his wife.  In the end, they went to the government to get a divorce, which is still in process. The wife took everything she could from the house and headed back to Turkey.
I continued to listen and looked for opportunities to share truth, but couldn’t seem to find the moment.  As we left his office building, Matthew turned left out the door toward his home.  I do not know the town very well yet, but I knew enough to know that following him would take me further from home in a direction I was not familiar with.  Still, I decided to follow along in hopes of getting to share.
Matthew continued to share his hurt and his discouragement over the broken relationship as we walked along.  As I had prayed, there came a time when I was able to tell him that I would be praying for him in accordance with Jeremiah 29:11 which had been encouraging to me during difficult times.  He thanked me and told me he would like to get together again soon, maybe even introduce me to some of his friends or relatives in the villages.  What a privilege to be invited into this man’s life during such a difficult time, and to bear the truth with me!  Yet if I had headed home when I knew the way, I would have passed up this chance.
I am continuing to pray for Matthew and I hope to meet with him again soon.  Meanwhile, I am challenged to go out of my way–both literally and figuratively–to look for opportunities to share.  After I parted with Matthew a few blocks later, I followed my sense of direction and, after taking two more left turns, found myself back at the center market, from where I easily made my way home.

When roommates have the opportunity to share together, twice the Truth is shared. See both sides of the story:

1) When a team from California came for three weeks this spring, I tried to meet as many of their friends as I could. I am trying to keep up with some of them and finally got to hang out with one, Rachel. Rachel is covered and her father is a police officer.
After many attempts to meet up, we finally had the opportunity one night this month and I brought my roommate along. Over dinner, Rachel opened up the idea of talking about the differences in Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. We talked for a while about the differences and what I believe about Christianity personally. We also talked about my belief that Christians and Muslims worship different Gods, which is different from what she believes. That conversation led into a conversation about what Christians consider sins.
After discussing sin, Rachel asked me about my tattoo on my wrist, which says “redeemed of God” in Hebrew. This gave me an opportunity to explain how Christ redeemed us when He died on the cross for our sins.  I explained to her that His death on the cross removed my sin from me and allowed me to be seen as righteous because I believe in Him as my Savior. It was a great transition from talking about sins and how sinful we are. She asked about going to church with me. I am hoping to take her to church soon and to give her a Bible in Turkish.

2) My roommate and I ate dinner with Rachel, a bubbly covered girl a volunteer team introduced her to. She is interested in learning about Western culture and asked us a lot of questions about Christianity. I got to tell her about the importance of Christ, about His mercy and saving power, our only means of reconciliation with God. She smiled and nodded very post-modernly. She is so persistent in our friendship that it will not be difficult to keep up with her.
She wants to go to church with us sometime to see what it is like. We haven’t been able to work it out yet, but we will keep trying. She is so friendly and effervescent, I have a feeling she will be a great networker into a group of people we’d not have a chance with otherwise.

As we were traveling back from Virginia for a company meeting, my husband was getting tired so we pulled into the parking lot of the only gas station for miles to change drivers. One of us needed to go to the bathroom, so we asked the lady at the counter for the key to the restroom.  A lady in her late forties with most of her front teeth missing grinned at us and handed me the key.
The lady noticed my shirt, which happened to have a scripture verse written in Turkish on it.  I explained to the lady that it was in Turkish and what it said.  The lady replied, “I thought that looked like Turkish.  I’ve been studying Turkish with a friend of mine over the internet!”  She was overjoyed and remarked that she recognized some of the words.
She stopped me so she could copy down what my shirt said and share it with her friend.  I proceeded to pick out a candy bar; feeling somewhat obligated to buy something for using the restroom and walked up to the counter.  The conversation continued as she began explaining to me about how she had met a Turkish man back in 2001 in a chat room.  A couple of years ago he mentioned that he wanted to teach her his language.  So she had been studying Turkish ever since.
Apparently, he had sent her a version of the Koran in Turkish and she was studying it.  Concerned, I mentioned that my shirt was not a verse from the Koran but from the Bible.  To my amazement, she got even more excited!  For some reason, she proceeded to open up to me and began explaining a problem she was having with her roommate.  I asked her if I could pray with her right there about it, we held hands over the counter and prayed over the situation in the Name of Jesus.
She was thrilled and said she was amazed at how God had sent us there to meet her.  We had to agree as what were the chances of finding someone studying Turkish in the middle of the mountains of West Virginia?  We left her by exchanging emails and presenting her a Turkish Bible from which she could study and share with her Turkish friend.