Tom Patton and Elder Gordon Cloke are in Turkey right now for meetings with church planting pastors in that country. Please pray for them--and read their reports below:

From Tom:  Gordon Cloke and I arrived safely in Turkey on Saturday evening. Gordon worshipped with Pastor Turgay at the church in Istanbul on Sunday. I traveled to Anakara, the capital city of Turkey to join in worship with Pastor "Y." Let me give you a picture of my experience:  Ankara has a population of approximately 5 million people. There are only 4 other churches in Ankara. Approximately 200 worshippers of Christ in the city! Pastor Y's church is 6 years old. They were meeting in a rented building but the landlord decided he didn't want to rent to a church so he evicted them. They spent 5-months looking for a new place to worship. The place they found charges the church double the market rate for rent-- just to penalize them for being a church!
Each Sunday at the previous location, 12-15 uniformed officers would show up. They would park their police cruiser in front of the church door with the lights flashing. They would position police officers in the lobby and foyer in order to intimidate any who might come. Pastor "Y" was arrested and sentence to spend 3-months in jail and fined $1700 for leading worship in an unauthorized location (they suspended the sentence but still fined him)!Pastor "Y" continues to minister faithfully under difficult circumstances. Their sanctuary isn't as big as many of our master bedrooms (approximately 16'x18')! In spite of that, about 30 very dear brothers and sisters in Christ joined in worship. About 5-minutes into the service on Sunday, the power went out. We completed the service by candle-light. After the service we all sat around and visited and ate lunch together. Pastor "Y" has baptized more than 30 who have converted from Islam. Ankara Presbyterian Church was able to purchase a piece of property several years ago with the help of 10th Pres. in Philadelphia. The piece of property is approximately 90'x90'. They will need raise approximately $350,000 to build. Tomorrow morning, we travel back to Istanbul to meet with the rest of the pastors from across Turkey. Thank you for you prayers!

From Gordon:  While Tom was in Ankara, I was part of another team that made its way on Sunday (after worshiping at Pastor Turgay's church in Istanbul) to visit Pastor "I" in Antalya, an ancient Mediterranean resort town in south-west Turkey. Our goal during the day or so that we spent there was to learn more about his ministry and needs, to visit and encourage his family, and - briefly - to experience the culture in that place for ourselves, directly and in-person.

Having originally moved to Antalya to establish a house church among predominantly Russian immigrant believers in that city, Pastor "I" has increasingly felt called to embark on a teaching ministry that started when believers in Turkey encountered the materials published at his website: http://www.presbiteryen.org. Now he is regularly invited to visit towns throughout Turkey and spend time with small, isolated groups of believers (usually meeting in homes, with little or no access to other believers or Christian education of any kind in their own language). The cost of making such trips is a challenge, for him and for those he visits, since most are at or below the poverty line, so we brainstormed together about how to help meet those costs, or extend this ministry in a way that would help make it sustainable over time (for instance, through an increased focus on leadership development or parallel vocational training). Pastor "I" also maintains an active witness to his neighbors in Antalya, but also told of his struggles in establishing and maintaining a meaningful house-church (that might eventually become a church plant): the Russian immigrant population is very transient, mainly comprised of women whose Turkish husbands do not permit or approve of their involvement, and most people (believers or otherwise) are fearful or suspicious of any association with a Christian group.

The team spent several hours on Monday afternoon at Pastor I's apartment to eat lunch and spend time with the family. The family recently had to move when their previous landlord doubled the rent (a convenient way to evict unwelcome Christian tenants). The move to a new apartment (smaller, but beautifully kept in a clean, high-rise building) has also required the children to attend a school where the teachers are openly hostile to Christians and not afraid to take it out on the children. As you can imagine, Pastor "I" and his wife are very concerned, but also know that if they go too far in challenging the school, it will most likely cause bigger problems for them and the children. The cost of commuting to a better school, or moving again, are also beyond their means. Yet the abiding impression from our time that day was of a delight in serving the Lord despite the difficulties, a determination to persevere in ministry whatever the personal cost, and a deep gratitude for our visit and to all those who are supporting them in any way.

The day concluded with an informal tour of ancient Antalya - Hadrian's gate, Ottoman terraces, the harbor from which the apostle Paul once set sail - and a visit to a local "nargile" to debrief on all we had seen and observed.

Returning to Istanbul on Tuesday morning, we joined the teams returning from other cities to continue the work and establish the future strategy of the IGP partnership (a group of PCA churches collaborating with Turkish brothers and sisters for the sake of the gospel). Important steps were taken to configure the partnership to meet its future objectives, including a landmark decision to move ahead with plans to build a church on the property in Ankara (that Tom mentioned in his earlier email). If you would like to hear more about the work of the IGP partnership, please talk to me when I am back in the US.

One moment from the trip may help paint a picture of the situation for believers here: as the bread and wine were consecrated for a celebration of the Lord's Supper at Istanbul Presbyterian Church last Sunday, the noon-time call to prayer started to blare out from speakers attached to the minarets of the nearby mosque. As the believers took their turn at the front of the sanctuary, the quiet piano accompaniment continued to be dominated by the wailing but beautiful tones of this quite different call to worship. To me, this moment seemed a very poignant expression of the testimony of those who are worshiping and living faithfully in the midst of a rich, complex and often beautiful culture dominated by Islam (and other historical forces). Pray for the believers and people of Turkey: that God would bless and prosper the faithfulness of the often-isolated believers here, as well as the efforts of those (like us) seeking to work in partnership with them, and call ever more people to Himself from this place.