Keep Going

"Merhaba, peynir pide? Iki. Evet, paket. Ne kadar? Tesekkurler." I stood in the little bakery and practised my Turkish with the friendly baker on the other side of the counter. He smiled rather bemusedly but patiently waited for me to place my order, confirmed he indeed had cheese pide, and asked if I wanted it to go. I said I did, so he cut the two pide in half, wrapped them in wax paper, and slipped them along with a couple of napkins into a small plastic bag. I handed the 40 lira to him and thanked him as I turned to go. 

Less than three months ago I stepped off a plane in my new home country of Istanbul, Turkey. I was excited, nervous, anxious, and tired. We'd arrived with 4 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, 2 backpacks, and as many miscellaneous bags of odds and ends that the airline would let us bring without charging us extra. 

A week later, I was sitting in Turkish language classes in Kadikoy. The friendly young Muslim teacher was reviewing the numbers and months with the class. We'd missed the first two days of class as we were in another city doing seminars, but my husband was confident we wouldn't miss much. He was wrong. 

I felt rather overwhelmed those first few weeks. Even though we were in the beginner level, studying at the slow pace, I still felt lost. The teacher was very good; she presented the concept, gave many examples, had us practice, and then gave homework to solidify it in our minds. Yet I often felt frustrated because the course was not set up for people with zero knowledge of the language. As the teacher began to speak less and less in English, and the grammar concepts began to get harder and harder, there were times I sat in class and just wanted to cry. 

"How can I answer the questions if I cannot even understand the sentence?" I wailed to my husband one day when we were doing homework together. He'd lived in Turkey for two years before and, while he hadn't been speaking the language for five years, he had a working knowledge of it and the vocabulary was quickly coming back to him. It took me three weeks in class to realize that when the teacher said, "Tennefus" before our ten-minute break every 50 minutes, that she meant "break-time"! 

Now I had ever so much more sympathy for my foreign language students that I'd been teaching English to just a few short months ago. Now I understood the glazed over looks on their faces, the confusion as I explained the idea of a hook or thesis statement using English words, even though they were advanced level students. Now, as a student, I understood what it meant to feel very very small in front of a language easily being spoken by millions of people. 

But I didn't give up. Even as I aimed my camera at a homework's paragraph and tried to decipher it using Google Translate, I reminded myself that it didn't matter how much I learned as long as I kept on going. There would be bad days but there would always be a good day waiting somewhere. I didn't have to have all the answers and I didn't have to be the star student. I just had to keep studying, keep going to class, and keep trying. 

And now, 2.5 months later, as I sit in class and the teacher chats about her day in Turkish or I copy a sentence off the whiteboard into my notebook, I understand what she is saying. I do not know all the vocabulary and there are still days when I am about ready to cry in class because the word on the board has 3 endings and I am not sure how to decipher all its conjugations, but I am so so proud of myself. I'm learning a new language, I'm speaking it as best I can, and I'm not giving up. 

The Lost Hat

I sat on the bus musing out the window as the city flew by. There was always something new to see as I went to and from Turkish class on the short 10-minute ride. Sometimes there was a shouting match between a taxi driver and our bus driver as both tried to claim the same side of the road. Once there was a scream and suddenly a lady was stumbling out of her seat into the aisle, clutching her ear and grimacing as her seatmate shouted at her. Most of us hadn't seen what had caused the old lady to scratch the other lady's head, but we all peered intently and listened to the old lady who continued her rant. The other lady had found another seat next to a rather portly man who cautioned her with a finger to his lip not to reply to the old lady's ravings. 

"Maniyac" I heard all around me. A young lady put her hand on the hurt lady's shoulder, asking her if she was okay. One little old lady next to me moved forward with great interest to see what was going on. Even though it was a full bus and an empty seat was usually prized real estate, the seat next to the old lady remained empty. She continued to shout. The bus driver leaned over and, in an equally loud voice, told her to be quiet. She refused to listen, reducing the volume but continuing to mumble to herself. 

As we got off the bus, a small crowd huddled around the hurt lady, making sure she was okay. Nobody knew her personally, yet they were concerned. The old lady hobbled off by herself, nearly bent double with age. 

On the way home, I sat with my purple winter hat in one hand, the other protectively holding my backpack so it wouldn't fall and inconvenience the other passengers sitting across from me. As the bus neared my stop, I quickly stood up and followed a young lady to the door. Unlike the metro, which allowed a good 30 seconds for people to get on and off, most bus drivers would only open the door as long as they saw movement. The moment there was none, the door closed, at times trapping a stroller or a purse in its clutches. Then there would be a shout from the passengers and the bus driver would open the door again. As I grabbed my backpack and left my seat, my foot stepped on something soft. I was worried I'd stepped on the foot of the man sitting next to me but I had no time to check. I knew I had to be waiting by the door the instant the bus stopped, so I could get off. 

I stepped off, the doors closed, and the bus continued on its route. I started to walk in the direction of home, then reached to put on my warm winter hat. It was a chilly 5 degrees and my ears were already getting cold. Except my hands were empty. My hat, at that very moment, was sitting on the floor of the bus that was rapidly getting further and further away. 

In that moment I could hear my husband's voice, saying, "You're going to lose that hat one day. You should put it in your backpack." He was right. I'd already dropped it twice in restaurants and each time he had rescued it for me. Except that day he was home sick with the flu and I'd gone to class by myself so he wasn't there to notice when the hat had slipped out of my hands as I'd hurried to get off the bus in time. I was so so sad. I loved that hat. I'd worn it every cold day I'd been in Istanbul. It was in all my pictures. I could probably buy another hat but I didn't want to. I wanted my hat!

Before I knew it, my feet started running. I sent up a quick prayer for God to send traffic and red lights in front of the bus. I knew the bus was headed to two bus stops before reaching the end of the line and starting its route back. If I was quick enough, perhaps I could catch it at the last stop. So I kept running on the side of the road, keeping the bus in view, dodging pedestrians and mini busses randomly disgorging their passengers, praying with each breath that I could catch the bus. 

I didn't make it. The traffic wasn't too heavy and the bus didn't wait for long at the bus stops. Quickly rethinking my strategy, I decided to see if I could make it to the bus stop at the end of the line. The bus would have to do a U-turn and usually there were many passengers waiting to get on at that bus stop so perhaps I would have enough time. 

I reached the bus stops all out of breath. By this point I'd slowed to a walk as I couldn't run anymore. Quickly scanning the stops, I started to panic when I couldn't see the bus number anywhere. Then I looked to the left and saw the bus heading towards me. As it pulled to a stop in front of a very long line of people, I rushed to the back and banged on the door so the bus driver would open it. He didn't, of course, because everyone had to go in the front door so they could scan their cards. I peered inside and at first saw nothing on the floor. My heart sank. Somebody had taken it. Then I looked up and saw my jaunty purple hat, now seated comfortably on the seat opposite where I'd been sitting. 

With great excitement, I rushed to the front door and squeezed my way to the front of the line. A rather unhappy young man let me go in front of him and I quickly told the bus driver "I left my hat on the bus!" while vigorously pantomining putting a hat on my head. He motioned me to go back, opening the middle door so I could get off easily as the hordes continued to pile on behind me. I ran back, grabbed the hat, and waved it madly in the air. He grinned at me from the rearview mirror, giving me a thumbs-up as I hurried off the bus and he closed the door behind me. 

A moment later, I was pulling my purple hat onto my head as tears started to form in the corners of my eyes. I hadn't lost my hat after all. I'd taken a chance, refused to accept that it was lost forever, and ran to rescue it. And God had answered my prayer. 

I vowed I would take much better care of it from now. "I won't lose you this time!" I said as I began to walk home, the hat keeping my head and ears warm in the frosty air. And as I walked, I thought about how God cares so much more for each of us than I cared for my hat. How He was running to rescue each lost person, who perhaps knew they were lost or not. How He didn't give up and rejoiced greatly when the lost was found. Could I have this same passion for lost souls as I did for my winter hat?

A Lady With A Wobble

We made an incongruous couple—the little old lady and I. She, dressed in a thin dress, threadbare shawl over her shoulders, and a scarf covering her head, all three of different fabrics, with her feet shuffled into thick black slippers that were so worn, they were pilling on top like an old sweater. I, in my burgundy pants, bright yellow ski jacket, bright blue shoulder bag, and purple hat with ear muffs to keep me warm in Istanbul's chilly winter, clashing colors yet unconcerned as how warm I felt was of more importance than being a fashion statement at the moment. I stood out; she was lost in the crowd. So lost that I encountered her nearly falling down the incline of the side road we lived off of. I was on my way home after Turkish class, a bag of toilet paper and a paket of cheese pide in one hand, when I passed her. She was struggling to pull a metal cart with a giant bag of recycling plastic strapped firmly onto it. The cart had one wheel; the other was missing. In her right hand she held tightly to a single metal hospital crutch, its screws long gone, a thick white elastic band wrapped around it to keep it together. I hurriedly took the cart from her and asked, "Okay, where are we going?" 

She spoke no English; I spoke just a few words of Turkish after 2 1/2 months of class where we mostly learned how to conjugate past, present, and negative statements. I could recite to her the verb endings for I, you, he/she/it, we, you (plural), and they, but I doubted that would be very helpful. So I pulled the cart and followed her as she stumbled down the road. 

A moment later, her uncertain feet nearly slipped as the wobbly crutch hit an uneven spot. "Yavash, yavash!" I exclaimed, using one of the Turkish words that had managed to stick in my mind. I hoped dearly I was telling her to slow down, not speed up! She slowed her pace a bit, then picked it up again. I kept in step with her, maneuvering the cart around obstacles along our way, a restaurant sign, a chair, a corner of a building, righting it when the single wheel jammed against the obstacle and tipped the cart sideways. Undeterred, the little old lady kept going, step by determined wobbly step. We went down the incline, across the road, down another road, and turned right. At one point she looked at me and asked who I was. Or at least that was what I assumed as I had no clue what her toothless smile was saying as she peered at me out of her flowered scarf. I summoned up all the words I could muster and said, "Hollandalym. Turk'ce orgenciyim. Yabanci." She was confused, thinking I was from Poland, so I shouted "Hollanda!" at her several times until she finally understood. I knew I had butchered all the tenses but at least I had communicated I was studying Turkish and was a foreigner. That was enough for her and off we went. 

After we'd been walking for about 10 minutes, I asked, "Evde nerede?" wondering how much further it was to her house. She pointed up the road aways and continued hobbling along. The thought briefly entered my mind that she could be pretending to be a little old lady and was perhaps leading me down some deserted alley to then attempt to rob me. I didn't have much money on me, though, and decided that if we didn't reach her final destination soon, I could always turn the cart back over to her and be on my way. 

Finally, she stopped next to a door and thanked me. Two older men were standing inside. One came out, thanking me also, and began to untie the recycling bag. I promptly forgot how to say goodbye, smiled awkwardly, and turned to go home. As I started to walk back, I wondered how she would get home. Would she do the trip in reverse—wobbling her way home, only this time with an empty cart? The cart hadn't been that heavy; it was just unwieldy to maneuver. Should I have waited to help her back home? I decided I had done my good deed for the day and continued on home. 

That evening, when I excitedly recounted my day's adventures to my husband, he promptly reprimanded me. "You shouldn't help people," he said. "People who shine shoes drop their kit on purpose, you go to pick it up, and then someone steals your purse. It happens all the time. What if the lady had fallen on the ground and died? What would you have done then?" 

He was right. I'd grown up in an extremely sheltered Adventist bubble my whole life. I'd never lived life in a big city like this where we were on our own. I didn't speak the language and I didn't have a community of friends around me yet. I didn't have any street smarts and I didn't know what to do if I got into a difficult situation. He had a black belt in judo, had lived in big cities most of his life, and knew how to read people while I was a very trusting person. 

"But as Christians, aren't we supposed to help people?" I wondered. 

"Yes, but you need to be careful," he replied. I agreed. And yet I couldn't forget about the little old lady, hobbling and wobbling along with her cart of recycling plastic. What if that had been my mother? A friend? How would I be able to share Jesus through my actions if I couldn't help others? 

It was a question as yet to be answered.