Let it snow...

It snowed last Friday during school, and we were able to play in it during recess. It was a blast! Some pictures are below.

Today was our last day of school before Christmas break. Though I am sure I will be missing my kids in a few days, I am definitely thankful for the break from lesson plans and grading. It's hard to believe that it's already Christmas!

Today was an exceptionally special day because I had to privilege of sharing the Christmas story from the Bible with our third through sixth graders. Students were only allowed to attend if their parents signed a permission slip, so not all students were in attendance unfortunately. Out of my five students who are not allowed to attend weekly Bible classes, two were able to attend this particular story-telling session, so we were very thankful for that. I know for a fact that one of these specific students had never heard the Bible story or the gospel before. My prayer is that seeds were planted, and the students have a clearer picture of the gospel.

Tonight I am flying out to Vienna for a little Christmas vacation. Another great thing about living in Turkey? Cheap flights to Europe.

...Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night :)

My students had a hard time focusing during class.

So we decided to have a little photoshoot.

Love.

 

 My little ladies

Playing catch up...

It has been TOO long since my last blog post and for that I apologize. Thank you so much for the kind messages and e-mails around Thanksgiving as it was my first major holiday away from home. Fortunately I was able to skype with the family while they were at Memaw's :) I definitely missed my family terribly, but I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to be a part of the Thanksgiving festivities here with some families I have become very close with. My director and his wife were so gracious to include me and a few friends in their feast. I cooked my first pumpkin pies, which turned out okay thanks to Grandma's instructions via e-mail, and my roommate made some really great stuffing. We ended up having a pretty "all-American" meal thanks to friends who have base access.

Thanksgiving definitely wasn't the same, but I am very thankful for the opportunity to be where I am, doing what I'm doing, with the people God has placed in my life.

Kurban Byram

Throughout the Kurban Byram holiday, some friends and I were able to travel a bit. We went to Izmir, which is on the western coast of Turkey and then to Solcuk which is where Ephesus is located. It was an awesome experience to see so many places from Bible times and actually walk where John lived with Mary after Jesus' death and where Paul had visited and preached. We were able to walk through Ephesus (a few pictures are below), visit the Basilica of John the Apostle, see the Temple of Artemis, Mary's church, and last but not least, the beach :)

 

What they believe to be Mary's house after Jesus' death

It is now a little chapel.

Coffee break at a cafe on the sea in Izmir :)

 

Ancient ruins in Izmir

 

In Ephesus

 The library in Ephesus

 

 

The amphitheater in Ephesus

 

The whole gang

 The Aegean Sea

Two months in...

and I finally completed a newsletter! I also finally have a few Turkish friends AND have figured out the heat in my apartment, which is fortunate because it is already quite cold.

Things are going very well here in Ankara. Fortunately we are nowhere close to where the earthquake hit this week. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers though! Please keep the people in the east in your prayers as the earthquake did impact a lot of people. Our school has already collected a truck-load of blankets, beans, and coats that is now on its way to the people of Van!

I am aware it has been almost a month since Dad's birthday and therefore since my last post. I will try to save you time and just catch you up on life in Turkey through a few pictures.

OIS

(my second home in Ankara)

According to Shi Eun, my route to school each day

Our school atrium

We have a flag hanging for each country represented in our student body.

The fine fourth grade class of OIS

(minus our two new students, one from Malaysia and one who just moved here from Libya)

They are definitely a good time :)



 Cappadocia

We woke up at sunrise one morning to watch the hot air balloons prep and take off. Totally worth it.

 

Exploring one of the few hundred underground cities in Cappadocia

And yes, maybe we're making fun of our Asian friend David a little too.

Turkish food is so good.

Me and the roomie

My roommate is a beast... in the kitchen AND on the rocks. She could probably climb this with her bare hands. Hoo. Rah.

To God be the glory in and through it all...

Robert Craig Nall I

The newness of living here is wearing off, and the reality that I now actually live and teach in a completely different context is setting in. No more Birmingham. No more weekend trips home when I get homesick. No more being there to hug friends in the states when they need it most. No more meeting college friends at Rojo after work. No more being in/attending fall and spring weddings on the weekends. No more Dove Chocolate.

While living here instead of there definitely calls for sacrifice, it also has its perks.

1. Paprika Pringles, which my roommate now loves
2. We have a bakal across the street from school that sells double chocolate magnum bars.
3. I can go to the bakal during my planning time at school.
4. Chai tea after every meal
5. Yemeksepeti - an internet site where you can order pretty much any kind of food from any kind of restaurant in the area and have it delivered at no extra cost. It has anything from McDonalds and Schlotzsky Deli to most to the local Turkish restaurants.
6. My kids love coming to school each day.
7. I love going to work every day.

Thank you so much for your prayers and e-mails, especially this past week. It included a lot of firsts as far as living in Turkey goes, but I feel completely at peace and rest knowing I am exactly where God has called me to be. Who am I to desire to be anywhere else?

AND Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you very very very much! Can't wait for you and Mom to come visit :)

Merhaba, Bir Kisi, Iki Kisi,...

Dur, Dus, Tavuk, Taksi.
Hello, one person, two people, stop, straight, chicken, taxi... these few words are what have helped me survive the past month. While, yes, I now know many other words and phrases, no combination of which would form a conversation with a Turk, I am definitely learning. We have officially started language classes, so I hope to be improving in the near future.

This past weekend we traveled a little bit and went to Beypazar, which is a town about an hour and a half outside of Ankara. This town is known for their great supply of carrots and beautiful silver jewelry. FYI... carrot juice? Gross. Corn in a cup? Very tasty. I recommend getting it without jam, ketchup, and mayonnaise, though.

Week iki (two, dos, zwei, deux...)

Today was the first day of my second week of school! It's hard to believe I have almost been here four weeks. I am still in love with Ankara, and I am now completely falling for my kids. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to serve them and their families this year at Oasis.

My fourth graders are AWESOME. During the first week of school, I gave each student little "flags" for them to use on our classroom world map. Students each wrote their name on a blue flag, a green flag, and various orange flags. The blue flags represented their passport countries, and the green flags represented where they were born. The orange flags represented every other country they have lived in, other than Turkey. Some students needed five or six orange flags. By the end of the activity, we had flags reaching from Hawaii to South Korea. My students are literally from all over the world. I have students who are from Kosovo, Romania, Jordan, South Korea, Gambia, America, and Pakistan, who speak Arabic, Romanian, Italian, German, Turkish, Korean, and one language that I'm pretty sure they are making up for fun, but I'm still not sure. Time will tell :)

Below are a few pictures of my classroom BEFORE the students came last week. It's funny how a week later, it can already look completely different. I am still learning and rearranging. I have definitely rearranged a few students already :)

  

A few things that will soon be ordinary but definitely took me by surprise this week:
- We have recess. What's better than that you ask? RecessES. That's right. My students have two each day. Take that. At one point today, I was sitting in my classroom WAITING on my students to come back so I could actually teach.
-  Students using chopsticks at snack time. It's becoming a fun game for my students to explain what they are eating to me. They literally bring things to my desk and just ask for me to eat it. THEN they tell me what it was, nothing too interesting or disturbing yet.
- I was fortunate enough to be invited over for dinner at one student's home this past weekend, and his mom cooked for my roommate and me. They were a Korean family, but she didn't know how we would feel about real Korean food so she cooked a Vietnamese meal. It was a great!
-  My students are better at geography than me. Go figure.
-  Also, are you aware that there are now FIVE oceans? I had no idea. For those of you that still think it's only the Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Pacific, think again my friends. Say hello to the Southern Ocean http://geography.about.com/od/learnabouttheearth/a/fifthocean.htm Aparently, some countries refuse to deem it a real ocean, but most have. Who knew?!

I am definitely missing my Adamsville friends very very much. It's definitely a blessing to just have them an e-mail away, and I am taking advantage. God has blessed me with wonderful new coworkers at Oasis though. I will begin working with another teacher next week in leading our "Bible Club" which is an extra-curricular activity (ECA). Many students are not allowed to attend our optional Bible classes during the day at school, but we are asking that these students may have the opportunity to attend this ECA.

So thankful for the people in my life, and I am continually amazed at God's provision and faithfulness. Thank you for your continual encouragement, support, and prayers... miss you all very very much!

One Week In

I have officially been in Turkey for a little over one week now, but it feels as if I have been here so much longer! This past week has been extremely busy, but I have already learned so much about this country and culture. I cannot wait to learn and experience even more. This past week was new teacher orientation which included sessions on the history of our school, our ministry while we are here, and school policies. We were even able to meet with some of the workers who serve here, and these meetings definitely brought great perspective to how we are "working” as teachers. The faculty members, the workers here, and even some of my kiddos that I have been able to meet have ALL been so encouraging and helpful. I do not think there is anything more that someone could do to help us during this huge transition. I cannot wait to meet my entire class next Monday!

The biggest struggle so far has definitely been the language barrier. People here speak Turkish. I do not speak Turkish. At all. See the problem? Everyone in our neighborhood knows that the Americans in this part of town teach at the "American College" or American school. They have shown SO much patience at the grocery stores, restaurants, and even on the public transportation throughout the city and for that I am extremely thankful. I long for the day when I will be able to go to the grocery store, find exactly what I need in a decent amount of time, and ask for help if I need it. I pray it will come soon! I know it will come with time but hopefully sooner rather than later. For now, I will just continue to depend on my handy English to Turkish dictionary (props to Krystal) in the grocery store, on the dolmus (kind of like a bus), in taxis, and at restaurants.

To mark and celebrate all we have learned during our first week here, my roommate Brittany and I went out on an "adventure" last Saturday. Someone told us the easiest way to learn your way around a new town is to get as lost as you possibly can and then try to find your way home. Well, we didn't go to that extreme, but we did brave public transportation to go to the closest mall. Before this past weekend, we have always had someone who speaks decent Turkish with us when we use the dolmus to leave our neighborhood. This is how it went down. We managed to get on the dolmus, go to the mall, and from that mall take another dolmus to go to another mall. We shopped a bit at the second mall, and then we managed to get lost a bit which is VERY easy to do when no one can help you because they do not understand English. Then, we asked for help, hitched a ride on a dolmus that wasn't the one that went to our neighborhood, found the correct dolmus stop for our neighborhood, waited for the correct dolmus, which then turned into PRAYING for the correct dolmus. Eventually the correct dolmus came. The evening ended with us scrambling to look up how to tell the bus driver to stop when we got close to our neighborhood and then trekking up "the hill" safely to our apartment. It was an eventful venture to say the least. You can imagine how this would have gone much differently had I been able to speak Turkish. If I spoke Turkish, I would have been able to ask, "Where is the nearest bus stop to the Cigdem neighborhood?" to which the nice Turkish security guard at Cepa would have been able to respond with, "Take a left on the main road, walk until you get to an overpass, cross the road, and then take the dolmus to Cigdem" which in all honesty he probably did say to us initially. We just couldn't understand him. Instead, in extremely broken Turkish, I just said "Dolmus, Cigdem Mahallesi?" with a questionable look on my face to which he responded with, “?!?” Exactly. Eventually, after repeating "Dolmus to Cigdem Mahallesi?" in many different tones, he motioned straight forward with his arm, then lifted his arm in an upward direction, across, and then back down again. We said thank you in Turkish (we think), smiled, and walked off in the direction that his arms were pointing. And this is the reason Brittany and I had absolutely NO idea where to go to catch a bus back to our neighborhood. Eventually we hitched a ride on another dolmus, found our correct bus, and made it home safely, like I said earlier. No worries, Mom, I'm a survivor.

Below are some pictures of some of the delicious Turkish food, my neighborhood, and views of Ankara from my apartment building and "the forest." Ankara is a HUGE city, and the view is absolutely beautiful, especially at sunset and at night.

Part of my neighborhood

Ankara - population 4 million people

A closer view of some of the apartment buildings from "the forest" The forest is an area right down the street from my apartment with a lot of walking trails, courtesy of the university. The forest also includes many, many wild dogs.

This is a small portion of the open market in Cigdem which is open every Thursday and Sunday. The people here offer a wide variety of fresh fruit, vegetables, dried fruit, and spices.

 

What most Turkish meals begin with

Tavuk Beyti (Chicken... something)

This keeping a blog thing is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. My goal is to post about once a week. My classroom is almost ready, so expect pictures of it soon!! Thank you for your continued prayers and support as school begins next week!

Missing my family and friends at home terribly but feeling incredibly thankful to the Lord and blessed for the opportunity to teach and work in this amazing place…