Update of the Lord’s move in Turkey, October, 2011.
1. A total of 820 elders and responsible brothers from 51 countries attended the fall ITERO in Baarlo,Netherlands, on 6-8 October. 249 brothers were from Europe, and 106 were from the Russian speaking world. The Lord has done much to spread and establish His testimony in Europe since the devastation caused by the turmoil in the late 1980s. In the past 12 years the number of saints meeting in Europe has increased by almost 5 times. At present there are 73 churches in 23 countries with 2550 saints, and there are an additional 62 cities in Europe where saints are meeting who have not yet begun to take the Lord’s table. Praise Him for His victory over His enemy in Europe!
2. A group of 14 saints visited Istanbul after ITERO and had a 7-churches tour in southwest Turkey. It was really a wonderful time for us to blend with the saints and to fellowship with them the Lord’s move in this country. We also had an hour of prayer for the Lord’s interest in Turkey after the tour. Some of the saints and sister Sabine from Dusseldorf Germany joined our Lord’s table meeting on Staurday evening. Last two weeks we also had Johnny & Aida Wong from Berkeley and sister Lin from Taipei visiting us.
3. The Turkish translation project of 24 booklets of New Believers’ Series by Watchman Nee had been started and the drafts of the first 10 booklets will be received within this week. We are also working on the Turkish translation of the Rhema Distribution website. 6 Turkish gospel tracts were translated and printed in Hong Kong. There will be a conference in Dubai for Gulf area saints. Some saints from Hong Kong will join this conference and help bring the tracts to Timothy who will join this conference also.
4. After the Dubai conference, sister Eliza from Hong Kong will come to visit us for a week. It will be one of the religious festival holidays in Turkey. We want to use this time to visit some gospel friends in Izmir. So Elaine and Eliza will go to Izmir on Nov 9-10 to meet some friends (Nevzet’s family, Cem’s family and Enver’s mom) there. Please pray for this gospel trip.
5. Mehmet, who was baptized last year in North Cyprus, is now joinning a week short-term training in FTTM and going to join the conference there this weekend. Please pray for him and the Lord’s interest in North Cyprus.
6. There was a serious earthquake happened last week in Van, an eastern province in Turkey. Hundreds of people died and many were trapped in the collapsed buildings. Although Istanbul was not affected by this quake, indeed it situates on the same fault line with 17 millions people. It surely will be a great disaster to the people here and even to the whole Turkey if any earthquake happens in this populated city.
