On the Road to Bolu

We landed back in Turkey. I have a warm memory stored of all 7 of us going out to eat some pide (the unanimous vote!), then seeing all that CC had done on the campus over the summer. He was proud to show us; we were proud of him. We strove to stay awake each day so we could sleep on schedule each night. My days consisted of staying home in the morning (and enjoying things like canning some of the fruit our yard was producing) and working at school in the afternoon. The work at school was endless! It was like peeling an onion. Just more and more. We were all waiting and praying that our approval to open our doors at this new location would be granted by the authorities.

All of the staff left for a 3 day, back-to-school, spiritual emphasis retreat in beautiful Bolu.

We passed village after village.

It's such a beautiful drive. Even the drive began melting off some of the pressure of not knowing if we'd open our doors as hoped and the overwhelming exhaustion of all the work going into being ready to open the doors, should that be granted. We enjoyed time to sing and listen. It seemed through this we were able to remember that God is in charge of all that stuff. Our job is to just be His sheep and listen.

It was a lovely few days. I was able to get to know some of the new teachers. We got to pray in our new prayer groups. We played ultimate frisbee and took walks. And we were fed from the Word. We worked through some of our school-related meetings. We truly didn't have time to get away with all we had to do. But we didn't have time not to. Does that make sense? We needed it.

Soon, we headed back home. I snapped this lovely picture. All of these ladies waved at me and smiled after I took their picture.