Turkey Evangelism Report

To all of you prayer supporters in Antipas:

Thank you so much! I really felt buoyed up by God's grace. This was a clear evidence to me of supporting prayer. It was wonderful.

On Friday night Dec 23^rd the team met in a motel (some team members lived too far outside of Seoul to safely catch the early flight out of Seoul the next morning) for a 2^nd intensive Turkish lesson. We had to pick a leader and a treasurer. We prayed and drew lots and I was picked as the leader which surprised me.

We woke up early and flew out of Seoul about 10am. We arrived in our Hotel in Istanbul about 8pm. We flew out early the next day from Istanbul to Van. The flight to Van was delayed a few hours in Istanbul and so we were able to witness the gospel to a Turkish woman called Zeinab. We gave her a DVD in Turkish of the Jesus movie. We got into Van late on the night of Dec. 25^th

It was eery driving in a taxi through the center of the city, which was black because of the earthquake - people were not living in their houses and the electricity was quirky. I was surprised to see that we were being put up in a hotel as I was worried about its safety. However, the missionaries in Van said that it was safe. So we were to be based there for 2 days for orientation.

The next day we were up at 6am for a QT and then breakfast, communal worship and then orientation and Turkish lessons.

At 11am they, the missionaries, said that we were being sent out to a suburb of Van called Sabaniye. We had to give all our money over to the missionaries - they told us we would get it back at the end of the week. They then gave us a little bit of money for food and transport to go to the suburb, Sabineye. The missionaries also told us that this amount of money was not enough. We were told that we had to rely on the Lord to get us back. We got the bus to the place. We then looked for some people living in tents. We then started singing some songs and a small crowd of women and children gathered.

Then we did a little gospel presentation in Turkish. We were then invited into a poor woman's house for some tea. Some people were living in their houses during the day and then sleeping in tents at night, because they were afraid that the aftershocks, which were frequently occurring, might bring down their houses. [This apartment block (Picture to the right) was earthquake compromised.]

In her house she invited in the small crowd that had been watching and listening to us and gave us tea. We gave her and the onlookers some small gifts: Candies, stationary, hand-warmers. We were then invited into another house for a meal. In this house there were a lot of people living and we again sang some songs and did another gospel presentation.

We had learnt how to sing John 3:16 in Turkish. It was then getting time to return to the Hotel for a debriefing, we had been told to get back by 5pm. We found our way to a bus stop and because we had not had to spend any money on food we had enough to get the bus back.

Next day we were told to go to another area. Here we got detained by the police. Actually they did not know what to make of us. They took us around to different police stations because no one seemed to want to take responsibility for us. They gave us a really nice lunch. We were eventually driven back to our Hotel and told not to leave until we got a call from the Minister of Tourism. We, the team, prayed that the minister of Tourism would not call and praise God he didn't. I must stress that besides detaining us for about 4 hours they did treat us very well. That evening, perhaps because of the stresses of the day, two of our team members had a major argument even to tears. We recognized that Satan was trying to destroy our witness especially before our major upcoming evangelistic effort.

The following day which was Wednesday we were sent out to 2 towns (Gevas and Bitlis) for 3 days and 2 nights, again with an amount of money that we were told was not going to be sufficient for all the meals, transport and accommodation. We were told we had to be back by 12pm Friday for a debriefing before getting our plane out of Van at 2pm. We were by this point now really tired. However, I also felt wonderfully strengthened by God. We arrived in Gevas at about lunchtime. We decided to spend some money and have lunch as this would be a touristy thing to do. We walked up a hill just outside of the city center and did some open air evangelism. After awhile a small crowd gathered and we got invited into a house and did another gospel presentation there.

There was a sick child called Mohammad there. We asked the mother if we could pray for him in Jesus' name and she said yes. We did and are believing that the Lord will do a miracle with that child. We then left and went downtown. We picked a place and did another open air. Got a crowd and did a small gospel presentation. We were always trying to be sensitive as to who we should give the gospel DVD's too. We did another open air and gospel presentation to a group of rowdy but good-natured teenagers.

By now it was really dark and we still had nowhere to stay. Also we had not seen any Motels or Hotels in this small town. So we decided to do one more open air and see what would happen. I picked a spot under a streetlight and we started singing. I saw a man walking towards us; he walked past and then stopped and listened before walking off. So we started packing up and then this man came out of a house with some of his friends and was calling us over. We went over and they invited us in for some tea. It was a carpenter's shop and I felt so blessed to be welcomed into this carpenter's shop.

We had tea and we were going to start a gospel presentation when a Haji walked in. A Haji is a Muslim who has done the pilgrimage to Mecca. These Hajis always have great respect in Muslim communities. As soon as the Haji came in one of the carpenters pulled out his prayer beads. There were four carpenters in the shop. Immediately the Haji started looking at us suspiciously. I am sure I heard him say that we were missionaries to the carpenters because one of the carpenters began to look at us in a different way.

I decided I would not do any gospel presentation until the Haji had left. I even thought perhaps we will just come back here tomorrow. However, I also knew that now would be the best time because the next day the shop would be busy. One of our team members had not drunk his tea so I picked it up and took a slow small sip letting the Haji see me. I was hoping to let the Haji see that that cup of tea was going to last a long time. Eventually the Haji decided to go.

Once he was gone we sang a few English songs, sang our Turkish John 3:16 and then did our Gospel presentation to these four Turkish carpenters. They all listened, hallelujah! I really enjoyed emphasizing to them that Jesus was a carpenter. Then they asked us where we were staying. At least one of the carpenters was living in a tent as his house had become unsafe. They told us there were no hotels in the town. There was one which was too far for us to walk to, so they drove us to it. It would have been very difficult for us to have found it.

When we got there, there was no-one there. The carpenters found a shopkeeper who knew the Hotel owner's number. The Hotel owner was doing some work in a UN relief camp city. He drove down to us and gave us two rooms (one for the three guys and one for the woman on our team) for what we felt was a fair rate - 25$ a room. We gave the carpenters one of the Jesus DVD's. What was nice about this hotel was that it was only 3 minutes walk from the bus stop for the town (Bitlis) which we had to get to the next day.

We arrived in Bitlis at about 1pm the next day. We saw a lot of Mosques; we did not know this at the time but this was a very conservative Islamic town - they had the call to prayer here at 5am (usually it is 5:30 or 6am) which we were to find out the next morning. In this town many previous teams had suffered from sickness even to throwing up as they got off the bus. Teams had also got into such severe arguments that they couldn't talk to each other and could not witness. We did not know any of this yet. We were advised by the missionaries at Van that when we got into this town we should book our bus tickets home. As we had to be back in Van the next day by 12pm. So we did this at a travel agent's. He told us the bus trip back would take 3 hours because of the earthquake, and it appeared there had been some avalanches on the road. To catch the bus we had to be at the station by 7:30am the next day.

In order to move around the town and evangelize easily we thought it would be a good idea to book a hotel room just to drop off our heavy big bags. This travel agent was able to get us a room for $15. This seemed such a good price that I decided to just get us a room each. We did this, and after resting for about 30 minutes in our rooms we met for a prayer and planning time.

We decided to go up to a high part of the town and slowly work our way down doing open air evangelism wherever we felt led. So we set off. On the top of the hill I picked a public spot and we went for it. A crowd appeared and the team began to give out candies and small gifts. One team member with the candies was almost mugged. A group of kids went wild and began to grab anything of his that they could. I had to wade in amongst the kids and physically pull him out.

These wild kids would shout out that they loved Muhammad. We started heading down the hill and a teenage Haji appeared and all the kids shouted out he was a Haji. We were giving out hand-warmers which were packets containing a chemical which caused a heating reaction if you squeezed and shook it. The Haji, for some reason, pulled open the packet and put some of it on his tongue. His eyes opened wide and he took off down the hill. Now we in no way told kids to taste this stuff and so we were all shocked when the Haji did that before any of us could see.

However, we were not sad to see the Haji running away because any Gospel presentation when one of them is around is very difficult. The other Muslims are a bit afraid to cross a Haji. We headed into the center of the town and I was looking for a public place were we could proclaim the gospel and get a crowd and yet not block pedestrian traffic. As we walked downtown I saw a spot that looked ideal: A small courtyard just off the main sidewalk on the main street.

So we decided this would be our last one for today. We began to set up - basically me getting my guitar out and us forming a semi-circle. So in this very conservative Muslim town one African American woman, one Korean American man, a Canadian man and me got ready to sing a few songs and proclaim the gospel. A crowd of men came out of a nearby teashop to listen to us. Quite a big crowd formed and got very close to us. As we were singing another very conservative looking Muslim (his beard appeared to be a little red so I think he was another Haji) began to berate the crowd for listening to us. I think he was shouting these are missionaries and you shouldn't be listening to them. Anyway praise God the men didn't listen to him. I decided not to do any Turkish Gospel stuff until this Haji was gone.

He went away and we did our Gospel presentation. Some of the men, you could see were suspicious of us but some were smiling. So we finished and the men then invited us into their teashop for tea. Inside they showed us a mentally retarded young man called Yusuf. So we prayed for him in Jesus name. 

We got some email addresses we gave out some Jesus DVDs and headed home. In the hotel I noticed a blind man. I asked if we could pray for him. We prayed for him to be healed in Jesus name. He didn't get healed but he listened to our gospel presentation and was crying.

We got back to Van by 12pm Friday had a debriefing and flew out of Van to Istanbul later. We got to our Hotel in Istanbul and decided we would do one final open air Gospel presentation in Istanbul just outside the Blue Mosque in the Hagia Sophia complex. Praise the Lord we did it.

A small crowd stood and listened videoing us. It felt fantastic to be worshipping Jesus and proclaiming the Gospel in that place where from 530AD to 1453AD Jesus was worshipped. (The Hagia Sophia was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian about 530AD.)

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God bless you all!

PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU WANT US TO VISIT WITH YOU AS WE "PASS THROUGH" YOUR AREA. EMAIL US AT STAFF@ANTIPASMINISTRIES.COM - AND GIVE US YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS, LOCATION AND TELEPHONE NUMBER AND WE WILL CONTACT YOU WHEN WE GET NEAR. We plan to visit every place where so-called Christians gather together to promote the alliance of the church with the American New World Order System - for example, in Wisconsin where the church has allied herself with the Koch Brothers to rob the poor of what little they have left; in Washington DC where a "poor people's march" is being planned; at political demonstrations; at churches such as John Hagee's mega church in San Antonio, TX, etc. In each and everyone of these venues we will pass out our DVDs, Antipas flyers, etc. showing the poor of the earth that God has NOTHING to do with the alliance that the church has made with the American New World Order System. We also plan to carry a banner that will read: "THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT + THE FINANCIAL RIGHT + THE POLITICAL RIGHT = AN ALLIANCE MADE IN HELL." We will be wearing white T-shirts emblazoned in red with the same message. We will keep you updated on a special area of the website; we will be filming what we are doing and posting it there. WE WILL CONTINUE TO NEED YOUR HELP AS WE GET OUT ON THE ROAD We urge you to send whatever you can to: Antipas Ministries 1112 Long Rd., #40 Centralia, WA 98531 Or support us through Paypal:

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IN ADDITION, WE URGE YOU TO DOWNLOAD THE NEW ANTIPAS PAPERS, PRINT THEM OUT YOURSELF, AND STUDY THEM CAREFULLY; SHARE THEM WITH YOUR FRIENDS.

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FINALLY, WE URGE YOU TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT OUT THE FLYER WE SENT TO YOU RECENTLY.

Then make copies and take these copies out to the campuses where you live; pass them out; OR if that seems too "daring" for you right now, post them on telephone poles, the sides of buildings, on campus bulletin boards; post them in union halls, in the neighborhoods of the poor and downtrodden, near employment offices, wherever you can.

Once again, we URGE you to read (or re-read):

• The Good News of the Coming Kingdom.

• The Kingdom of God Is at Hand.

• The Principles of the Kingdom.

• The American New World Order System Must Give Way to the Kingdom of Heaven.

We need your help to spread the word concerning Antipas Ministries and the eschatological viewpoint it represents; WE NEED YOUR HELP BECAUSE WE DO NOT "LINK" WITH OTHER SO-CALLED "CHRISTIAN" WEBSITES which are, for the most part, "in the tank" insofar as their loyalty to the United States is concerned - a loyalty that has made them partners in the BLOODY trail the American military has left in its TERROR-RIDDEN rampage throughout the world, as well as making them partners in the abject poverty that American corporations have imposed on the peoples and nations the American military machine has ravaged - A BLOODY, TERROR-RIDDEN RAMPAGE THAT HAS TO A LARGE DEGREE BEEN CARRIED OUT IN THE NAME OF THE "PRINCE OF PEACE." [Please see our articles, "The Third World as a Model for the New World Order," Inside the American New World Order System" and "The American Empire: The Corporate / Pentagon / CIA / Missionary Archipelago."] YOU CAN HELP BY EMAILING THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS PRESS HERE If you wish to SUBSCRIBE to our website, please feel free to do so; the subscription is free; all you need to do is give us your email address. There is no need for you to give us any other information. Your email address will NEVER be shared with others. PRESS HERE PS Have the courage of your convictions! Contribute to the ministry by making out a check to "Antipas Christian Ministry" and sending it to - Antipas Ministries 1112 Long Rd., #40 Centralia, WA 98531 Or donate through Paypal by clicking the Paypal image below: We DESPERATELY need your continued SACRIFICIAL financial help. Time is short - and we need to be about the Lord's business as quickly as possible. If you have any questions, please email us at staff@antipasministries.com.