21st Century Explorer

I've always been jealous of people like Christopher Columbus. Or Marco Polo or Magellan or Lewis and Clark for that matter. I've always thought that if I lived back in Medieval times and I were a serf, I wouldn't submit to the feudal system. I mean, come on - seriously?? Who wants a life like that? I would sell my cow and my land and my hut and my goat and set off to explore the world. Maybe I'd go down to the port and get a job sailing on a merchant ship, or maybe I'd set off for the hills and join a band of brigands, or maybe just head straight in one direction until I crossed the edge of civilization and found a beautiful paradise to settle in and call my own.

Serfs were dumb...

I remember when my family used to go to Pedriza national park in Spain. It was a place designed for little kids with huge imaginations. It was a small lush valley nestled back in the mountains of Navacerrada, covered with pine forests, divided by clear mountain streams, and spotted with monstrous round boulders that seemed to have fallen there as giant hail stones thousands of years ago and then petrified over time. In the spring it was covered with wild flowers. It was a place of dreams for a kid.

I could never wait to get out of the car and explore. My brother and sisters and I would arm ourselves with stick swords and pine cone hand grenades and climb every boulder we saw, hop every creek we found, and pretend that savage indians, armed robbers, and wild beasts lurked behind every tree. I found myself addicted to the thrill of exploring.

It wasn't until some time after this realization, however, that I became depressed because it hit me that I had been born several centuries too late to be an explorer when I grew up. Satellites had ruined everything.

When I attended Urbana this December, though, Father opened my eyes to something exciting. I was talking with a recruiter for an organization that works with unreached people groups when he used a word that made my heart jump and my brain unable to focus on anything else he was saying. He described their work as work in uncharted regions of the Kingdom.

And just like that, something clicked, and all of a sudden Christopher Columbus didn't seem that far away anymore, and I could just see Father grinning at me in the throne room, with his hands on my shoulders, looking me in the face and saying, "I need some more men like you. Will you go for me? Will you take My standard to the uncharted places? Will you go to expand the boundaries of My Kingdom - to make known the name of the King where they have not heard?"

It felt like my heart would explode. The thought of the opportunity of being a scout on the front lines of the advancing Kingdom - the very place where light meets darkness - is one of the most exciting thoughts that has ever gripped my heart. Because that's where the action is.

I want to be where deliverance happens.

I have very little experience being in such a place so far. Everything that I have heard about it says that it is hard. It is dangerous. It is a place that swallows people whole. Some deep part of me is scared that I don't know what I'm asking for. But some other deep part of me remembers the words of the King: "Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid. I am with you wherever you go." Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies....my cup overflows. A cloud of smoke by day, and a pillar of fire by night... You hem me in, behind and before - you have laid your hand upon me. Where can I go from your spirit? Have you not seen? Have you not heard? I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

This is where deliverance happens. Why would I ever choose to spend my life anywhere else?

I don't know what He has for me next, but I know now why He chose to make me an explorer in the 21st century.

Pictures! :-)

Here are the promised pictures of my first few days (although I just realized that I don't have any pictures of the school itself...I'll work on that):

Welcome to my massive room...

Including a walk-in closet.....aka, the back of my door.

Our beautiful living room, where I lesson plan and do homework while listening to one of the 6 Turkish soccer TV channels playing in the background. ;-)

Ours is the far pink one. Yes, the giant pink one.

Part of the view from our balcony...a poorer part of the city. You can't tell very well, but those "houses" are nothing more than shacks. Lots of them are patched up with tin siding, and hardly any of them have a full roof without huge holes in it.

This is looking to the left out of our living room window. Part of downtown Ankara is in the distance.

And this is looking to the right out of our living room window. The dirt area in the middle of the picture is part of a park. The green on top of that hill is actually a fenced in public turf soccer field. I could live here. :-)

Since it took me the better part of 2 hours to post these pictures since our wireless is going slow for some reason, I'll be back later with an update. Although it's not spelled this way, in Turkish the way to say "See you later" is Gurooshoorooz! ;-)

First Impressions

Whew! It's been a long time! Let's see if I remember how to do this... :-)

Turkey.

What an interesting place! I got in late last night, so I wasn't able to see too much of the city as it was dark on the way from the airport to my apartment, but my initial impressions of the place this morning have been like a cross between an eastern European country and what you would think of as a typical, Middle Eastern Islamic country. Really, the city and the countryside itself appear to be more eastern European (pretty green country with rolling hills and lots of trees, and then old, breaking-down apartment complexes and neighborhoods - it certainly has the feel of a more impoverished city than the main cities in western Europe, but then again, we're on the outskirts out town), but the abundant towering mosques and the people themselves give the place more of a Middle Eastern feel. And I guess those two things make sense considering the location of Turkey; I think I was just expecting something a little more Middle Eastern looking. Hmm.

But my adjustment has gone great so far. My flights over here were uneventful except for the fact that we flew out of Chicago in the middle of a storm, and I have never flown through so much turbulence in my life! If it weren't for some fear the the plane was going to snap in half, it was actually pretty fun - like a 40 minute long Six Flags ride. It seriously felt like a giant baby had a hold of our plane and was shaking us like a rattle or like what I imagine it must have been like for WWII pilots to fly through anti-aircraft flak on bombing missions (I know - pretty much the same thing, huh? Haha). But other than that I made it here safely, met and chatted with my 2 roommates - J.J. and Mitch, also teachers at the school - got settled in the apartment, and had a shower before bed around midnight.

I decided I'd see how I felt in the morning before committing to church, but I slept great all night and woke up at my alarm at 8 feeling like a champ, so I went for it. Church was an interesting experience as well. The building itself is a few minutes walk from the apartment, and is an unmarked, transformed 2 story store front. Other than a military base church about an hour away (that is only open to American citizens for security reasons), it is apparently the only Evangelical church in all of Ankara - a city of 4.7 million people. There were about 50 people there this morning. There are 3 services on Sundays - the first in English, the second in Turkish and translated into English, and the third in Farsi, for a local Iranian minority group. I only went to the first service today because I got invited out to lunch afterwards, but I'm planning on going to the second service regularly too. I really want to get involved with more of the local community. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there are security personnel at the front door who screen you with a handheld metal detector before you first walk inside. A LITTLE different from what the greeter does at Crossroads Bible Church! ;-)

Anyway, after church I had lunch with the principal at Oasis as well as his family and we had a great time. They have one 4 year old - excuse me: 4 and a HALF year old - daughter who wears her hair in 2 pig tails and is probably one of the cutest kids I've ever seen. After lunch my roommate JJ gave me a tour of the school and showed me around town. Tomorrow I get to try my hand at shopping! Haha. Oh boy - not only am I on my own for food for the first time in my life, but I have to deal with buying completely foreign products, and not only that, but all labeled and priced in Turkish - and then I have to experiment with how to prepare them. And also not starve. It will be an adventure. ;-)

Well I don't have a ton yet, but I promise that pictures will come soon! :-) I just wanted to let everybody know that I'm here, safe, and off to a good start. Thanks so much for all your prayers!

-Aaron

P.S. - I forgot to mention the coolest thing of all! I'm literally RIGHT across the street from a park with an outdoor TURF soccer field that was in use all afternoon today by a bunch of local high school Turkish boys. I know where I'll be spending my Sunday afternoons!! :-)