Istanbul at last

The last two years are suddenly gone. I am back where I left off, as if awakened from a long detailed dream. How is it that everything is so clear, so familiar, unlike the foggy haze when you come out of a dream? The smell of coal burning, the squeaks of the minibus brakes, the call of the street sellers, the buzz when an apartment door opens.. the crowds, the traffic, the smog.

Istanbul is a place that holds so many memories I find it hard to distinguish the emotion wrapped up in them. I walk up the hill toward our first house and I remember the Electric man hailing us into his store on the evening of 9/11 to watch what was happening in New York live on his TV. Aidan at 15 months was entertained with screws and wires while the owner cursed the Arabs. I look at the walkway along the water and recall the day Ella was born when Chris and I made a grueling stroll, stopping every few minutes, to speed things along. I pass by our old office and think of the night an intern and I stenciled John Piper quotes on the wall by the light of one bulb.

I worshipped in a Turkish church this morning and wept, remembering the day we gathered in the same place to pray for our co-workers who had been killed for their faith. Was that really two years ago? We sang songs that the Messianic congregation danced to at our Seder Meal in Seattle just weeks ago and tears streamed down my face, the beauty of cultures that make up the body of Christ! I experience God in Turkish worship in ways that I do not in American churches. His presence among these believers seems heavy, evident, real. It is a reminder of what I miss. Something tangible to hold onto in a city that otherwise saps one of life.

An hour of walking the cobblestone streets of Kadikoy, surrounded by masses of people and cars finished with a minibus trip back to the Taylors packed with people squeezing, one after another into the bus, and I am done. My feet are not used to the wear and tear these streets create and I am reminded of why I named this blog as I did. Interacting with Turkish friends, as sweet and wonderful as it is, brings back all the frustration of language limitations. The painful reality of my desire to have heart conversations, but the lack of language, confronts me in all the same ways it used to.

The tears are both for all the hard days and years of living life here as well as the sweet memories that I desperately want to keep. Bittersweet emotions that I wish I were sharing with Chris right now. But alas, my adventure is over. Tomorrow I return to my family and begin to process all that has been stirred up within.