Humanitarian Conference in Istanbul

Every year the Europe East Area has a conference for humanitarian missionary couples, and this year it was in Istanbul. It was a wonderful conference, with 25 couples from Armenia, Baltics, Ukraine, several areas of Russia (Moscow, Samara, St. Petersburg, Rostov, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, and Vladivostok), Kazakhstan, Georgia, Belarus, and Turkey. We had good instruction, but best of all we shared experiences and enjoyed being with each other. We loved spending time with President Wolfgang Paul of the Seventy and some of our other leaders whom we previously knew only through the Internet.

Istanbul was beautiful—full of tulips and flowering trees. This was our fifth trip to the city, and we enjoyed all our favorite sites but also added a few new experiences. We went to several museums, among the most interesting the large and impressive Military Museum. There we saw armor worn by Genghis Khan’s warriors. They must have been huge warriors—no wonder the Europeans were frightened!

We also visited the Archaeological Museum, which housed a large collection of Hellenistic and Roman statues as well as a vast collection of other artifacts. Before, we always thought of Greece as the location of the Hellenistic culture—but there are an equal (and perhaps greater) number of Hellenistic sites in Turkey.

One of our favorite museums was a Christian church (now a museum) which was built in 1100 and decorated with frescoes and mosaics in 1300. Much of the inside of the church is still intact, and the frescoes and mosaics are breath-taking.

We walked along the Theodosian Walls, a great chain of double walls with 11 fortified gates and 192 towers, which protected Constantinople’s landward side against invasion for 1,000 years (412-1453) and then protected the Ottoman Empire’s Istanbul until 1700. At one end of the wall there are seven towers enclosing a dungeon, which we explored. We climbed the walls for a spectacular view of the Bosphorus.

We came home tired but very happy after spending four days with other couples. We found that, although we have less contact with other missionaries than most (we are alone here), we have less governmental interference. We love Turkey!

Adventure in Cyprus

In order to renew our visas for our last three months, we went to the nearest foreign country, Cyprus. It’s beautiful, with plants and climate like Southern California at this time of year.

Nicosia is the capital city of both North Cyprus (under Turkish occupation since 1974) and the Republic of Cyprus in the south. Turkish is spoken in the north and Greek in the south. There is a wide no-man’s land separating the two parts of the city, under UN control. We landed in North Cyprus at night, went to the checkpoint and then had to drag our suitcases through the abandoned area to the other side, where we were able to take a taxi to our hotel in the south section of the city.

Old Nicosia is enclosed by huge walls built by the Venetians in about 1500. The walls and bastions are still intact, and the few gates in and out of the old city are still in use.

Because of the long “administration” of the British, cars drive on the left side of the road, and most cars are right-hand drive. Because of that and the signs in Greek, we were a little disoriented at times in the south! But we loved the many beautiful museums there. We also loved seeing Greek orthodox churches and a whole museum full of icons and mosaics in the south. We also loved the Cyprus Museum, with exhibits dating back to 10,000 BC.

In the northern section of the city Turkish is spoken. There are no Christian churches remaining. Some of the beautiful gothic churches built from 1200 to 1350 still stand but are in service now as mosques. It is a little sad to see all the art painted out (representations of people or animals are forbidden in Islam) and very strange to see a minaret stuck on the side of a gothic church complete with flying buttresses. But of course the Turks have always been the soldiers of Islam and their victories always included replacing the existing religion with Islam. (That is one reason for the enduring hard feelings between Turkish and Greek neighbor states.) In the north we also saw an old caravansary (inn for caravans) built in 1572. (Shown above.)

We had only one day to see the sights, and we nearly walked our feet off. That evening we relaxed with some Greek food at a little café near our hotel. Our return flight left very early the next morning, but we returned with great memories—and new visas!

Easter in Turkey

We had a wonderful Easter with our friends and the Ankara Branch family. We had already enjoyed a little of General Conference weekend. The Saturday “morning” session came on from 7-9 p.m. on the Internet. We didn’t stay up to 1 a.m. to watch the “afternoon” session! We had hoped to be able to watch a session of General Conference together on Sunday morning, but no Turkish (or German) translation was available, so we had a regular sacrament meeting so that everyone could understand. We’ll watch the Sunday morning session in a few weeks, when the one session that is translated into Turkish is available.

After meetings, we came to our apartment for Easter dinner. It was a real American feast, with ham, turkey breast, potato casserole, green beans, and biscuits. We even had apple pie and a strawberry dessert--along with jelly beans, M&Ms and peeps. Eight adults and three children came, and we all had a wonderful day together. It was a lovely end to the day to watch General Conference again in the evening.

We continue to enjoy our Humanitarian work and feel we are accomplishing much here.