Ozcan & Meral Newsletter (터키에서…
Dear Pastor Baik Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep. Hebrews 13:20 OUR MINISTRY: The semester break is over, and all universities have reopened. We are entering into our campus ministry with great hope and excitement for this semester. Praise God that our Deep Life meetings have started again, and we hope to continue them through mid-July this year. Last month, we could not do the retreat and training time that we planned to do with our students from our Bible study as the weather conditions were bad. We postponed it to this month. Our Bible study group is going very well. There were about 10 people meeting with us in the beginning, but now we have about 20 people meeting with us. As we have started our Deep Life meetings again, we decided to change our Bible study days from Friday evenings to Tuesday evenings. This month, we desire to have a large Easter celebration that will include varieties of Korean, Chinese and Turkish food at our Deep Life meeting and share the gospel. Our six-step lessons continue with my disciple Ümit. When we finish these lessons, we will move onto our baptism lessons. My other student, Baran, has still been going through a challenging time in his life as he continues to struggle with his father’s passing. Despite this, he has started attending our Bible study group. When he feels like he is ready, I want to start baptism classes with him this month. We often meet with spiritually seeking students like İsmet and Bülent to talk about Jesus. They are continuing to come to church and are doing their own research. Over the last few weeks, several other college students have been coming to our church and researching about Christianity. Meral has bonded very closely with some of them, has invited them to our Deep Life meetings, and has been meeting with some of the girls when they are available. One student, Sude, has not been able to come to church these days, because she has been preparing for her university exams and working at the same time. She has not had time to start baptism lessons with Meral. Our Instagram ministry is ongoing as we use this resource to share the gospel through short films and other things. Praise be to the Lord that people are seeking, reading, and researching about Christianity in this season. We thank the Lord for the opportunities that He provides. BARAN'S STORY: Baran is 21 years old, and he is a third-year student at Ankara University in the Computer Engineering Department. We met Baran about three months ago at church. When I went to church that day, he was sitting alone and not talking to anyone. So, I approached him and sat down next to him during the worship time. After worship was over, we drank tea and chatted for a while together. I made a follow-up appointment with him to meet another time during the week. Baran has a very interesting life. Baran started attending the mosque and praying 5 times a day at a very young age. He even worked as a muezzin in the mosque during his high school years (this is a person who recites the call to prayer in mosques). Many years passed by and one day he came across an internet ad that asked people if they wanted to receive a New Testament. He filled out the form and shortly after a Bible arrived at his location and he began to read it. He was very impressed by the mercy that Jesus Christ showed to people especially when he opened of the eyes of the blind, healed lepers, and healed diseases. He prayed to God asking, ‘if you are real, show yourself to me.’ The night he prayed he saw a vision. There were two bright angels one on his right side and the other one on his left. They came close to him and spoke to him. Because of his experience, he chose to believe in Jesus on his own. Later, he found our church’s address on the internet and started coming to our church. Baran is a believer, but he does not that know much. I wanted to start lessons with him last month, but we have not been able to start meeting regularly because his father had a sudden heart attack and died. His father was only 55 years old. They had such a good relationship, and he was a very gentle man. Baran has been very upset, and I often pray for him. I have especially been working hard to get him to come to church and meet other believers so that he does not turn away from the Lord. If the Lord leads, I want to take Baran to our retreat time outside of the city. I do not want him to stray away from the Lord and I hope that he can establish closer relationships with other believing students. Thank God that he is recovering more and more. Please pray that the Lord will fill the void in his heart that he has been feeling because of the loss of his father with His presence and comfort. Thank you for your partnership in the Gospel, Ozcan, Meral and Jon
