Outreach is over!!!

Hello everyone!!

Wow, I haven't written on here in almost 2 months and I am so sorry about that :( Unfortunately while we were in Turkey to keep us more focused they limited our computer time to 1 1/2 hours a week. I would have written on my blog but I wanted that hour and a half to talk with my family on skype so I apologize if you have been wondering what was going on.

Ok! So I am officially back in Scotland now! We arrived in Glasgow last night around 9:45pm. The flights went very smoothly and I am very happy to be back in the small village of West Kilbride. :)

OH Turkey...what can I say about you?! Istanbul is an interesting place...it honestly feels like any giant city you would find, except there are mosques EVERYWHERE!!! In fact the flats we were staying in had a mosque right next to it. I don't know if any of you know that in the Muslim faith they have to pray 5 times a day. In order to make sure they remember the exact times when they should pray the imam(Muslim priest) sounds the call to prayer from loud speakers at the top spire of the mosque. One of the times when this happens is around 5 am....and it is LOUD!!! So in case you haven't caught on...every morning at 5 we were all woken up by the insanely loud call to prayer hahaha!

Also I did get to go see the Blue Mosque and the Hagia of Sophia (one of the seven wonders of the world) and the Topkapi Palace! They were absolutely breathtaking! The artwork is amazing...I will be posting pictures soon I hope :) Oh and we also got to go to Ephesus which was brilliant! It was so cool to be in a place so old. The ruins were something to behold :)

As far as our ministry went...I'm going to try and explain this without sounding really chaotic haha. Our weeks were fairly structured with a specific schedule. I'll tell about my week because we all seemed to have a different one. Sundays we would go to church and some of us would help with the worship (it was a church for long term workers in Istanbul). Mondays I was part of a prayer team that would go and pray around the city (I loved Mondays). Tuesdays were our days off which were much needed because we only had one day off a week. Wednesdays was doing local EV (evangelism) work around the city. It never looked the same twice haha. Thursdays we would go to a place called the Jubilee Cafe and would pray and worship there for awhile before going out to do more EV work in the afternoon. Fridays I would help out with a Jewelry ministry. Refugee women make the jewelry and then we would go over to a ladies house and check to make sure they jewelry was up to standard and then label and package it so it could be sold and they would make money. Fridays were my favorite day :) Then last but not least Saturdays I would go out with a small group and do EV work in the city wherever God seemed to be calling us to go.

I know this is a somewhat vague description of what we would do but seeing as I just got back to Scotland my brain kind of hurts trying to remember every little thing we did haha! :P Overall it was a great trip and I consider it a complete success :) God did amazing things and He really did teach me a lot about different cultures.

Now we have 2 1/2 weeks left here to talk about what we learned and what we feel like God is calling us to do when we get back home. Then I have about a week and a half of Scotland and then Ireland after that and then I come home on July 14!!!

I will write again soon with more details of how Istanbul was but at the moment I am still trying to get unpacked and organized in my thoughts haha! I miss you all so much and I will talk to you again soon :) God bless you all!!!

-Kaitlyn