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We get many e-mails, phone call and letters at the BCC Office. We thought it would be good to share parts of some of those messages to encourage you to continue to pray for the ministry of the BCC in Turkey.
A woman from the south of Turkey called our office. She had never been to church and knew nothing about Jesus. For about a month it seemed like her remote control always would go to the Kanal Hayat TV channel (one of the Christian TV stations that we do follow-up for). She was very surprised by the programmes and impressed by what she heard about Jesus. Then she had a dream where she saw Jesus in a small room. He told her to go into the other room where she met a doctor who touched her chest. She felt heat in her chest and then she woke up. When she went to the hospital, they found her breast cancer which she had for seven years had completely gone. She has been going to the local church in recent weeks. "My life from now on will not be the classic Turkish Muslim life. I no longer want to partake of that type of life. Because of the knowledge of Islam, the feeling that Islamic culture and the Islamic way of thinking is no longer satisfying - You must help me fill the emptiness inside of me. This is troubling me to the degree that I felt it necessary to write this letter to you." Teacher/Director, University Preparatory School "I am hoping that the years of spiritual emptiness that is in my life will be filled through my connection with you. When I received the materials that you sent me I immeditely had a strong feeling that there was a big change starting in my life." No Name "I have spent the last 13 years of my life in police stations, jails, courtrooms and prisons. I am a sinner and one who has wasted much of my life. I never have stolen anything or been a thief or robber. In spite of all the economic problems and difficulties I have gone through I have never drank, sold drugs or done drugs. BUT I have left one man crippled and killed another and lived through many other problems and difficult times. I started thinking more deeply about life in my empty days...'What is life? How did we come to be here? Where does the universe begin and end?' Islam is the religion of my mother and father and they taught it to me also but I was never able to accept it. It always seemed like a foreign entity that never could satisfy the longing in my heart - there must be something more...I started a deep search for God and I've begun to find it in Jesus. Now I beleve my sinful life has been made holy and that death is not the end but only the beginning. My teacher and the one I was looking for was the Lord - the son of God - Jesus Christ. He has forgiven my many sins and paid for them with his life. I am now on the road to life. We are all the children of a spiritual Father and I'm now able to feel the Spirit of God working in my heart." Istanbul Ending with that we would ask you to pray for the many people in the prisons in Turkey. An interesting note to the last story above is that in the last couple months we received approximately 100 letters from prisoners. This is very unusual but we think it is because of our advertising in a new free newspaper that possibly is distributed in mass in the prisons. We hope to follow this development more closely in the coming month and how we might further use this opportunity.
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