REPORTING FROM ISTANBUL, TURKEY

The flight from Manchester, England to Istanbul, Turkey
(on Turkish Airlines!) was full of great experiences and stories.
Most of us didn't sleep a bit again on the flight, which might have
had something to do with the fact they served dinner around
midnight on the jet. I think I finally fell asleep around 2am to 6am.


















Steve Cosgrove sat next to a girl from Indian whose name was Markeet.
They talked most of the flight and much of it about his involvement with
Amor and his faith in God. She couldn't imagine that people were flying
from all over the world to build houses for poor people in Africa, much
less Mexico. She grew up Hindu and attended a board school all of her
youth. She recently finished her undergraduate degree in Information
Technology. Steve at one point told her she should go on one of the
Amor mission trips. She said she would love to go but didn't know if her
family could arrange or have the resources for her to go. Steve said that if
she wanted to go he would find a way to get the funds for her to go. She told
Steve she was, "Kind of jealous of you are getting to do all this." She later went
on to say she had applied for for graduate school at UCLA, USC and the
University of Chicago. Steve said she should tell him when she gets accepted
at one of these places since he knows people at all of them. He handed her
his business card and they continued to talk as she flipped the card in her hand,
clicking the edges, and looking closely at the card like it was a precious antique or
or something. As we often see, Ministry doesn't just occur at the work site or
at evening camp, it happens whomever we come in contact with.

The Istanbul Airport had an array of unique sight and smells.
Never in my life did I imagine I would visit Turkey someday.
OK, it was for just 5 hours, but we did eat there.

Bill Hebner ordered what looked like a pastry. The first bite
surprised me, it tasted like peppermint! That was as adventurous
as I got at the airport.

While waiting at the airport we found a free wireless Internet spot
and we all did some Internet surfing, checked our emails, called
our families on Skype, and blogged. I found the way point
that our host in South Africa, Humprey Birkenstock had sent us of our
future work sites. The map below has a yellow pin showing the location
of our five work sites for next March. They are just outside Johannesburg,
near Pretoria.



















As you can see in the satellite photo below, it doesn't look
all that different from many of our typical work sites in Mexico.