Hello friends and family!
We have reached the three-month mark! We apologize for those who have tried to connect lately, without us responding. Our internet has been quite bad, sometimes disappearing for days, so we have not been online a ton. We would love to hear from you! Please let us know how we can keep you in prayer.
Is there anyone who can tell them?
According to the latest survey that was done earlier this year, there are still less than 7,500 Turks following Jesus (out of a population of about 60 to 65 million).
Taking a very conservative approach, that would mean that only 0.0125% of the ethnic population here is following Jesus. A person would have to talk to at least 8,000 people before finding someone who could tell her/him about Jesus! The northern region of the country with a population of more than 7 million has less than 300 known believers! Regions like these are very difficult to get permission to live in and tend to be very suspicious of outsiders of any kind.
God is at work!
As I (Alex) study scripture and hear stories I am becoming more and more convinced that the Holy Spirit is already preparing hearts that are hungry for Jesus. We need God to lead us to them, and we need to be faithful in showing them how to follow Jesus and make other followers—not just adopt a new religious mindset.
One colleague of ours recently came across a person to whom the Holy Spirit had been drawing for 15 years. He had a dream a couple of nights before their meeting of a man, a 6ft-tall blond man giving him a golden cross (our colleague fit the description). When they met, our friend told him with tears, ” I don’t have money or gold, but I do have a calling from Jesus for you.”
Three months in:
We are now close to three months of language learning and we are starting to grasp enough to build basic phrases, but we are nowhere near being able to have a deep conversation.
We’ve both started using an app to connect with others to practice the language. Sarah has been doing her best to connect and converse with local mothers at the park, which is very difficult and frustrating when you know so little of the language. The mindset here is very different from Canada. We are still trying to figure out how to communicate what we are doing here—in a way that is honest, but safe for our team, and not too weird.
Prayer points:
- Please ask God to give us opportunities, boldness and favour to share our testimonies about Jesus with these people as we learn their language.
- Please ask God to give us wisdom as people ask us why we are here.
- Please pray for our neighbour, Sam*, that the Holy Spirit would convict him of his sin and put a hunger in his heart to know what life is really about, that he be drawn to Jesus.
- Please pray for Xerxes*, that the Holy Spirit would bring conviction about the holiness of God’s word and that he would stop sitting on the fence of picking and choosing between religions.
*not real names
Until All Know Him,
English 
French 
