Eyes to See

We sat drinking our pulp filled fresh squeezed orange juice planning our “full” day in Istanbul before leaving for Sulaymaniyah, Iraq at 9:00 pm the evening of the 21st. We had plans to visit the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and to walk down to the sea and take a ferry. Only one of these actually happened in our ten remaining hours due to Tuesday closures, watching the inauguration, eating Turkish quesadillas, and of course more time spent chatting over cups of tea. Our first cup followed our juice and filled our bladders while we talked with “the juice guy”.

The night before he’d asked us to come into his juice bar/restaurant a couple times as we’d passed by the miniature place tightly packed with stuffed benches and at least 75 brightly colored hanging lamps. We promised to come back for breakfast at 8, which turned into juice at 10:30. He leaned against the table less than a foot from my chair telling us how he felt trapped in the service industry and hoped to go to Ireland next year in search of a better paying job. He spoke softly with little of the passion and vibrancy of the Turks we’d had tea with the previous night. Suddenly I felt a strong prompting to give him the Bible wedged between my laptop and passport in the bag at my side. I asked a couple questions about his Muslim beliefs, hesitated, and left the book that has given me such hope sitting heavily in my handmade bag from Laos.

The idea weighed on my heart throughout the day as we visited the mosque and met other Turks. While sitting on a carpeted restaurant floor leaning against plush pillows listening to live traditional music, I decided to pull my Bible out.  I asked the Lord if that was indeed Him speaking to me or if it was just the silly idea of an overly eager Christian girl with little knowledge of Islam and the Turkish culture? I then read this:

Psalm 50:1 God, the LORD God speaks

Still feeling unsure, I talked to Blanca about it and we decided we might just stop by later and see…

We went about the rest of our day ending the evening watching Obama speak on Blanca’s baby laptop splitting my ear buds eating yet another Turkish quesadilla and drinking our fill of apple tea. We exited the restaurant and were crossing the street to our hotel when the juice guy spotted us and waved us over. We had an hour before our shuttle was scheduled to arrive so we walked inside the 10×10 space yet again. A friend and fellow waiter from his previous job happened to be there this evening. We explained the purpose of our travels to his friend as he shared warm hazelnuts from his pocket a bit reminiscent of Blanca’s fish in South Africa.  The juice guy offered more tea which we politely refused as we were dangerously close to becoming apple tea after all we’d consumed the previous day and a half.

The clock ticked closer to 9 the Bible still securely in place in my bag and the desire still pressing on my heart. Finally, I decided I would regret not giving it him so I made a lame attempt at transitioning the conversation by asking, “Do you like to read?” Surprisingly, that did not naturally lead into him asking if I had a Bible I wanted to give him, so I just blurted out, “I don’t know why, but I really want to give this to you.” I then blabbered on a bit about how the Qur’an encourages Muslims to read the Injil (the Gospels) as I bookmarked the gospel of John and awkwardly handed it over. When I gathered the courage to look up, I noticed that rather than looking at me with confusion or anger, they were both smiling and eager to accept the gift.

Juice guy’s friend then said, “Just two days ago we were sitting here talking about how we want to read this.”  Unbelievable! Finding his hands empty, he then boldly requested one of his own to which Blanca generously surrendered her little pink Bible.  After the exchange, we said our good-byes and walked the short distance to our hotel to collect our luggage and meet the shuttle. Upon our arrival, the guys working the reception desk began planning our next trip for us, this time into Gaza to help rebuild, for which they decided to join us.  After that was settled, they told us the shuttle would be a few minutes late, so I grabbed my notebook hurrying back to the juice bar.

I secretly hoped to find them reading the Bible, but prepared myself to see the Bible tossed aside for a cigarette.  I was only half right.  I walked in to find the juice guy sitting at the table, prayer beads in one hand and a cigarette in the other with the Bible open in front of him. We quickly exchanged e-mail addresses and the name I didn’t quite catch the first time we met appeared in my journal… Veysi.

After a quick nap in our hotel room this morning after only a few hours of uncomfortable airplane sleep due to our red eye flight from Iraq, Blanca and I decided to head back to the center of town to visit the Hagia Sofia Museum.  Jessica from PLC used to live in Istanbul and suggested we visit the restored church in the heart of Muslim Turkey.  She said one mosaic was worth the entire entry fee.  It was.   As you exit you find people snapping pictures in your direction. They are not taking your photo but that of artwork once plastered over but now revealed depicting Constantine handing over the city then known as Constantinople to Christ.  May modern day Istanbul be given over once again, one juice guy at a time.

After our time in the museum, we decided to stop by and see Veysi and his friend Raheem before navigating the tram system back to our airport hotel. We weren’t able to talk much as Veysi’s cousin was in the shop dominating the conversation, but it was encouraging to hear that he had told his cousin about the Bible.  Before we left, the 17-year-old boy who works there part-time also asked for a copy. We had no more to give and certainly not the Turkish version he requested.  I guess we’ll have to find one and bring it back to the juice bar 2 doors down from the Kafkas hotel next time we visit this city we are beginning to love.