turkiye...

... le , le , Turkiye...
Just came back from one of the most exciting trip of my entire ~ life...
Have you ever been surrounded by 370 Missionaries who go to places where you can be put into prison for being a "M" (in Turkey, Missionaries are regarded as Al Qaeda, so they use the abbv M). Or go to the poorest country in Europe to set up an anti sex-trade foundation to help young girls. Or get kicked out of countries for the sake of your faith...

A 60-ish looking couple American are about to go into the city of __(something i can't pronounce)__ in Russia where there is no hospital, no clean water supply, definitely no internet and GPRS system...
For what? To spread the gospel lah, what else...

Mind you, these 370 people are not poor people back in the States, they are people who have big houses(as i eavesdropped in the bus) and big cars...They fund most of their own trips and take only basic salaries from the main umbrella.

AND THEY ENJOY DOING WHAT THEY DO!

What some more? The main pastor who shared the word in the retreat is the head pastor from Central Assembly of Assemblies of God.The biggest denomination in the world right now, and the head pastor of the headquarters came to share...Seriously life changing messages...
It did mine.

Oh, there was this guy from Morocco or America and went to Morocco, has a PhD in Plant Pathology, but decides to go into ministry...
These people are nuts! Nuts for Jesus!
Nut from Morocco
















The main guy, Pastor Omar Beiler from America, he grew up in an Omish community, sort of like a Middle Eastern culture with Christian beliefs.
He accepted Jesus into his heart when he went to this revival meeting done by a Missionary who lives in a boathouse(because the area was too poor) somewhere in the jungles of Africa...
The moment Omar heard his story, he said to himself, "this is what i want to do with my life"

The next M that he went to his meeting, lived in a mudhut in another African country(again, the area was too poor)...and again, Omar said the same thing...

Can you feel the passion for Jesus there? Do you want to live in a mud hut to preach Jesus?
Would you?

Omar Beiler - coordinator for Eurasia Region

The already mentioned head pastor for Central Assembly, Pastor Jim Bradford..

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Well... of course its true that we got this all-expenses-paid trip(less souvenirs) to this 5 star beach resort by the Mediterranean Sea with soft white sand and cloudless sky with temperatures soaring at 40C for the entire week while you take a cold shower or dip into the pool right under the sun, not forgetting diving into the Mediterranean of a pier 2 meters high or from a rented private boat 3-4 meters high and food everywhere in the hotel for free at almost any hour of the day with fun activities like water polo or pool gladiator(which I won) or beach volleyball archery air gun etc, and even a night show every night and they had Notre Dam de Paris which was fantastic and then they had arm wrestling competition at the so-called disco
which had so many kids running around it...oh yeah, they had 5 diff water slides, one cooler than the other...this are Sunway Lagoon standard water slides...and oh, 5 diff pools










but you know what it reminds me of the most, this place?
Langkawi...

sort of the same temperature, same beach, got sea and pools and slides and buffets...

hahahaha...

Anyways, all glory to God, this is trully one week of blessing...
seriously blessed kao kao...
Both physically and spiritually also...



N.B. All pictures from wowe's flickr site...
he is a good photographer...he took about1000 pics in this short 6 days,
Sam took 10? Flora took 30-40? I took 50 max?

Praise God!

oh yea, N.B. 2 ...the worship sessions were wonderful...people come up to us and tell us that they've not worshiped in English for a very long time and that just bring us to goosebumps...
And i realized that older people don't really like the bass guitar so much, so 5 of the 6 soundmen that we had put me at 0 volume at all times...
I had to ask to be turned on so that I can tune...imagine that...
And all the free food! woo hoo..