MX3 Blog #12 – The End of the Journey
By: Melissa Thiessen
During the last week of this experience our team split into 3 teams and went to different parts of the country. The team I was part of spent a few days in the most beautiful small farming town. They grew olives and peaches in abundance. This town also has a rich history of art, specifically tile painting. As we walked around seeing all the history and art shops, I felt the age of this people. There are homes and structures built upon the ruins of the Roman Empire and older. Generations have lived here without a thought of moving.
One of the days we set out to pray as we walked. I strongly felt that instead of walking, I needed to sit and watch. So, I left the group to have a delicious cup of Turkish coffee. The area I chose was next to a school and within a small plaza of artisans. I took in the sounds and tried to pray, but no words came to me. So, I finished my coffee and walked across the street to get a better view of the school.
Here I saw a large group of parents waiting for their children to be let out of school. Across the school was a mosque and a small park. I sat here on a bench, in view of the school, the park, and the mosque. I watched as the children were let out, as a grandfather played with his young grandson, a group of boys chasing each other shouting “tavuk” to one another (which means chicken), and I still has no sense of what to pray. So, I sat in faithfulness to listen. My eyes were continually drawn to the simple existence of these people. I looked upon their faces, I observed a moment of love and joy between the grandfather and child, the rush of the mother, the frustration of the boy being called a chicken and I felt like crying. I felt God calling me to just look at his works of art. To take in the glory of what he has created, that which will not last for hundreds of years, that which man cannot replicate, and what no one stops to marvel over.
There is something about the glory of a person that causes the details of their face to slip our mind. We are able to recognize but if we were asked to draw our mother from memory most of us would have a very hard time. It is as if God has created us in such a way that we cannot handle the depth of how Good we have been created. Looking into the eyes of a sister must be broken with a smile as the intensity grows because there is something so inherently beautiful about a face. The image of God, a glimpse of Goodness, a being like no other, because they were made ‘very good’. This is part of what prayer has taught me while in this country. That sometimes God wants us to stop and really look at what is happening around us and praise him for the goodness he has created.
