"Should I stay or should I go?"

So I guess google or someone is making progress on restoring blogger service back to Turkey. It is accessible sometimes and then will be blocked other times. It seems that they can't quite make up their mind of whether it will stay or go.

Well, that was originally going to be the sum of this update, but as I think about it there are a few other things that seem to be debating about whether to stay or go.

The weather has been very Colorado Spring-like lately. Just a few hours ago it looked like monsoon season and now we are back to bright blue skies. There have been a few really nice warm days and then others that are back to really cold. We even had snow just a week or so ago. Warm weather has been making its appearances but hasn't quite decided that it is ready to stay.

For us personally we are torn right now about whether we should stay or go in Gaziantep. Our time here has been profitable in many different ways, but we are unsure of whether or not it is the experience we want to have again for another year. We are looking into other options trying to see what opportunities are available to us.

Needless to say we are in an interesting stage of the year. We are excited about what is next - but not really sure what that is or ought to be. It is teaching us more and more what it means to be dependent and to learn to trust. It is teaching us to be "actively patient," a lesson we thought we'd learned in the past but is still as difficult as ever.

Well, now I know one thing...it is time to go home! Ready for the weekend!

Spring has sprung

So it has now been over a month since we have last posted on here. While the actual reasons of neglect and busyness are probably truly to blame we do have another development that gives us a great "excuse." About three or four weeks ago a Turkish court ruled to ban blogger/blogspot.com in Turkey. This came just a few months after another court decided to finally unblock access to youtube in Turkey. Youtube had been blocked because of videos that were "anti-turkish" and so this caused the government to get upset and cut off access to the site. The ban on blogger came from a different reason - a copyright dispute. The television station Digiturk has the exclusive rights to broadcast Turkish Super-lig football matches, but there were people using blogspot to post live streams to the games. I guess they had made attempts to get them shut-down but to no avail and so they ultimately resorted to blocking access all-together (though obviously there are ways around it since I'm now posting anyway!). So, we are holding out hope that sooner or later they will get it figured out and restore the service, but for now it is just a hassle to post on here. So that is our "excuse" for delaying so long in writing.

A few news updates on what is going on for us:
Classes for the third term have finished. This week we have final exams. So it will be a change of pace and then we will get geared up for the final term. We are hoping many of our students will pass the exams and move up to level C. So for them this is a big week, but for us it is a little more relaxing. The term went well overall. Our students motivation as always would fluctuate from lesson to lesson. It's always a challenge on our part to come up with new ways for them to interact with the language and see how it is useful to them besides for an exam. So it was challenging but helps inspire creativity (at least for Kylie!).

I'm into the second semester of master's classes. I'm taking two more again this semester. One of them is on Islam and Politics and the other is Turkish Foreign Policy. Both of them have been really interesting and are pushing my thinking. I have lots of articles to read but am really enjoying it. The courses are really interesting from an intellectual standpoint but also practical as well with all that is happening in the Middle East right now.

We are looking forward to the summer. Everything will start getting very busy the end of May. It looks like the summer group from Northland will be coming out to spend a few days in Gaziantep. So it'll be great for us to get to spend time with them here. They'll be able to interact with the students at our university. So we're looking forward to that. Then we'll be leaving to go back to Senegal. We'll be helping with a group there. We'll be teaching an English course again, as well as visiting the university, doing camps and schools for kids, and lots of other things with a group from Northland. Then after that trip we'll be coming back to the States for some amount of time. I'll be attending a seminar on Islam and Religious freedom in early July. After that our plans are up in the air but are sure to involve travel and family (and Red Robin, Chipotle, and Dr. Pepper!)

Our plans for next year are not certain yet. We are strongly considering being back in the same place again next year but are waiting on somethings to develop before we will know for sure. What we want to or feel like would be best for us to do.

A couple of neat things from the past few weeks:
- Last weekend we went with a few students to the city of Mersin (about 3 hours from here). We had been there briefly at the end of the summer. It was a really good time with our students. We got to meet his family and get to know them. They were great hosts and it was a really good change of pace for us. The weather and walking along the Mediterranean was beautiful.
- Since we arrived in September, Arby's has been "Coming Soon" and then "Coming Very Soon." It finally opened about a week ago. We ate it for the first time last night. The roast beef was wonderful. The curly fries were great. Unfortunately they don't have "Arby's Sauce." They do have horsey sauce, but no Arby's. Highly disappointed! Now our food court is only missing Chick-Fil-A and a Chinese restaurant to be complete (we have Burger King, McDonalds, Popeye's chicken, Sbarro, and Arby's!)
- Most important about three weeks ago we were able to get in contact with some believers in the city. It has been great to meet with them. They've been such an encouragement to us. Even though most is in Turkish and beyond what we grasp (though it helps us learn more) it is still so good for us. We hope that we've also been an encouragement to them as well. So that has been a major blessing to us recently.

Well, I apologize for how long this is...and also for going so long between posts. We'd love to hear from you and how you are doing. We are excited for what the future holds and reminded to look ahead because of the hope that we possess.

(We'll add some recent pictures to facebook and you can check them out over there!)

Wow . . . February Already!

Well . . . it has been quite a while since we posted last, but in our defense, we've been off traveling the world and such. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of fun and excitement, but now we are back to the daily routine.
About 4 weeks ago we had group of students come over to our apartment for a "End of the Term" party. That was really fun. We squished about 12 guys into our living room and watched some T.V. ate some food, played some games, etc. It was fun and a good chance to hang out with our students aside from school. The next week was final exams for the students. We had to administer tests and help with the grading, then we were finished for two wonderful weeks! I never knew I would be so ready for a break. But just skimming over Christmas and New Year's with no time off set me up to be really ready for some time off.

Jeremy's sister Tiffany and her husband Tim arrived on that Thursday night of exam week. We were able to spend the next few days with them here in Gaziantep, show them around the city, discover that our favorite museum had been completely stripped of all of the amazing mosaics that used to be there, and spend time just hanging out and playing games. Then, we went to Istanbul with them. That was great fun. I love Istanbul. There is so much to do and see. We enjoyed the time there, but it went very quickly. On Tuesday, Tim and Tiff headed back to London and Jer and I got on a plane for Florence, Italy. We only had a night, a day, and a half in Florence, but I believe we did well. We mapped out everything we wanted to see and walked all around the city. I loved Florence. It was beautiful and the people were friendly and the food was amazing! (We ate a lot of bacon.) We got to see a lot of amazing things here, and then on Thursday morning, we got on a train for Venice.
Venice was really cool. It felt to me like a place that you always hear about, but never expect to actually see, and there's just nothing else quite like it. So, I really enjoyed that. However, Jer was a little less thrilled about the ability to navigate the really confusing maps. And, we encountered a little less friendliness in Venice, which made it easier to move on after our day and a half there. But, I must say, we did eat some really good food and we did see some really cool things. We were able to go up to the top of the Campanile Tower in St. Mark's Square. There were some really cool views of the city and the sea.

After Venice, we met up with my parents and Mollie in Istanbul again and spent a few days there touring with them. It's hard to get tired of such a big city, so we didn't mind in the least! We went up Galata tower for the first time, and saw a few other things that we'd never seen before. On our last day in Istanbul, we were working on getting to the airport on the Asian side (and we'd been staying on the European side.) So, lugging five suitcases and five carry-ons, we made the trek to the tram where I got on without my family or Jeremy, but we eventually met up again, and then made it to the ferry, the bus, the plane, the taxi, and finally home . . . with only a few mishaps, like Mollie getting shut in the bus door. We had the rest of the week with my family in Gaziantep, and it was fun to just hang out and play games and watch movies. But, sadly, the break had to come to an end.

Now we are back at school and working hard. Both of us are teaching Level B students this term, so we are enjoying the new atmosphere and getting back into the swing of things with our new students.
We hope you are all doing well, and looking forward to spring!

Christmas! and such Holiday things

Wow. It has been a long time since we posted on here! Sorry about that! There's been a ton happening and going on. We've been learning and growing a lot, and we've been enjoying the adventure!
I guess we should start with Christmas. Which, by the way, all of our students believe is tomorrow. It has been so strange to be in a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas! Our students kept telling us we were confused because we thought Christmas was last week. They just combine the Christmas idea with New Year's and so don't understand our excitement or traditions. But, we had a good Christmas nonetheless. We made do with a few things we could find for decorations. We got a shrubbish kind of evergreeny tree and found some lights and balls to put on it. We couldn't find stockings, though, so I got a new pair of slipper boots to substitute for our missing stockings. We enjoyed Christmas eve with movies and food, and I woke up at 7:00 on Christmas morning, all excited like I was still a little kid or something!
But, we had a fun time giving presents to each other, even though some of them are stuck in Istanbul in customs at the moment. Later on in the morning we went to meet a friend at the mall and watch some girls from our University help in making the biggest ebru (a type of marbling art) ever. It was an attempt for us to get in the Guinness World Book of Records even! After that, we headed home and talked to our families for a while. It was a wonderful weekend for us to relax and celebrate Christmas and remember why we have Christmas in the first place. We sure did miss our families, but we are thankful to have each other while we are here. Tonight we'll be celebrating the New Year, and as tempting as it is to wake up at 7:00 and celebrate it with the East Coast again, I am looking forward to sleeping in. :-)
Aside from the holidays, we've been working our way through another semester. This one has been challenging because Jeremy and I both have repeat students - those whose grades were not good enough to go to level B. So, they work well sometimes, when they come to class, and feel like it, but many days it is a struggle to motivate them.
We've also started working on the language more fervently by buying the Pimsleur program. It has been fun to go out and work on our Turkish with people we meet. We still have a long way to go, but it has been fun. Thanks so much for all of you who are thinking of us and missing us. We miss all of you and are thankful for your love and encouragement!

Happy New Year!!

Thanksgiving! (sorta Turkey style)

Well, it seems that the holiday season as fully hit in the states. Though both of us have been away from our families on Thanksgiving before this year was definitely a lot different than any other one. It was somewhat difficult to watch friends at school counting down the days till they got to leave school to go spend a long weekend with families. Or to see the pictures of families getting together for the holiday. But we are very grateful for where we are and what we are doing.

We did not get Thursday off here so had planned to celebrate on Saturday. Last year we started a few traditions that we hoped we would be able to continue wherever we were in the world. Partly because neither of us are huge fans of turkey, and cause we were hoping to travel, our thanksgiving meal is non-traditional. We made three different kinds of meat this year: lamb meatballs, cubed beef, and chicken fingers. Then we each scoured the internet to find dipping sauces to make. We've discovered that we are both really big fans of mayonnaise based sauces. So we had two very similar mayonnaise and ketchup sauces (but both had some special ingredients to give them a unique twist!). Then Kylie made a pepper tarter sauce. I made a honey mustard. Then we had a repeat from last year with our alabama white bbq sauce. Then we also had some really good mashed potato balls, cabbage, and a baked, kinda breaded onion (that one needs some work still!). For dessert we had really gooey brownies.

We both finished the meal quite stuffed! We were also very grateful that the power came back on. We had just put the first of the meats on to cook when the power went off. Sometimes when that happens it is a few hours before it works again. This time it was just 15 minutes or so.

Another thing we had started last year was to set out all of our post-it notes. Then throughout the day as we think of things from the last year that we are grateful for we write them down and stick them on the wall. It is a lot of fun to think back on all the incredible things we have been given over the last year.

Thanksgiving wouldn't be completely right without some football though. So we went out in the evening and played together. It was good to burn off some of the calories from the meal!

While it was definitely not the same as most traditional thanksgiving celebrations, we still had a great time. We really do miss our family and friends. We are so grateful for how all of you have stayed involved in our lives. God has blessed us so much in allowing us to know and be influenced by each of you. So while we are far away from you we are grateful for you. We are also so grateful for the ways that we have been able to grow to feel more at home where we are now. It is a huge gift to be really happy and excited about where we are now. We are grateful for the many new friendships and experiences that we have had over the past few months here. We have lots to be thankful for!

More pictures: http://on.fb.me/hG3hNg