November 30, 2004
Dear brothers and sisters,
As of June 6th, 2004, the brothers and sisters
of the Istanbul Mesih Kilisesi (Istanbul
Church of Christ) have finally been able to
freely meet for worship as a legally
registered church in Turkey. The way God has
been working to help us here has
greatly increased our faith and strengthened our
unity. After now 6 months of freely
being able to meet in a rented facility, we are
still in awe of what God has done and
continues to do for us.
Up until a few years ago, it was very difficult
to legalize a new church in Turkey, a
country that is 99% Muslim. For the past eight
years since the church was planted, the
brothers and sisters here had been meeting in
homes for worship and bible
discussions. We had the threat of neighbours
reporting us to the police, and for many
months we were not able to sing songs at the
worship services. We had to rely on the
hospitality of brothers and sisters opening
their houses to us, just as in the first
century!
We feel truly blessed by God that now we have a
rented facility with a children’s
room, a worship area and activity room. We are
freely able to worship and sing in a
much deeper and meaningful way than before,
without hindrance from neighbours,
and we are able to invite our friends for Sunday
service. Having a legal church has
allowed us to evangelize much more freely on the
streets and even hand out leaflets
for special church activities. We are now
preparing for a special Christmas program to
invite people to, for them to learn about who
Jesus is. We’re also organizing a
program to help the poor in Istanbul, and we
want to reach out to the orphans and
elderly in the city, and meet their basic needs.
Already since we have become legally recognized
as a church, we have had two
baptisms! One is a student from Albania and the
other a mother of 3 from Armenia,
now wanting to baptize her whole family! We’ve
had one sister move in from
Moscow to join us, and she has been an
inspiration to us all. A sister who had been
here since the early founding of the church had
fallen away earlier this year, but has
just recently been restored and is doing better
than ever. We hope God will continue
to reap a harvest here as we try more and more
to win the lost. Praise be to God for
working powerfully here.
Our sincere thanks and gratitude go out to the
brothers and sisters around the world
who sacrificed in many ways their comfort,
careers, material possessions and God
only knows how much more in order to allow a
church in the Middle East to really
shine for God. Turkey is home to the seven
churches of Revelations, and just as Jesus
cared so deeply about those churches, so now he
has shown how much he cares for us
by meeting our needs through you. We can never
be grateful enough to God and you
for that. We hope very much that we can continue
to stay in contact with sister
churches around the world and would love to hear
from you and have you visit us.
You can reach us at
istanbulmesihkilisesi@gmail.com.
Much love in Him,
The Brothers and Sisters of the Istanbul Church
of Christ
