Unlikely Friend, Unlikely Sister

Unlikely friends

“Would this bright, beautiful Turkish girl even be interested in spending time with a middle aged American housewife like me?” That was my question when I met Bahar about 8 years ago. She was a social butterfly with a million friends, a Chrstn graduate student from a Mslm background. I was a stay at home mother, unsure about what kind of ministry I could possibly have outside my home since caring for my husband and two kids was overwhelming enough.

Best Friend in 2012

Now that it’s February, have you forgotten your New Year's Resolutions? Did you set any goals in January?  I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, but I’m intrigued by an idea I got from several fellow bloggers: choosing a WORD for the year, a word that encapsulates your hopes for 2012. Different friends chose words like Rest, Communion, Peace, and Surrender. 

I chose the word FELLOWSHIP for 2012.  This year I want more than ever to cultivate close fellowship with Jesus.

One reality of life as a cross-cultural servant can be loneliness. 
You’ve left your loved ones back home.  You sometimes struggle with feeling out of place in your new country.  It takes time to build friendships, both with nationals and with other cross-cultural workers, who often seem to come and go anyway. Do you ever feel this way?

What I Learned about Friendships with Nationals from Backgammon

From Wikipedia.org

Little did I know what I was getting into when I offered to play backgammon with Yeşim. Her eyes gleamed as she leaned forward and rolled the dice.  By sheer instinct she expertly moved the pieces along without even having to count or think. She won 6 games and let me win one.

Backgammon is the national board game of Turkey. You see people sitting on the street playing, and you hear the click of the dice as you walk past cafes. I learned backgammon as a child and am familiar with the rules, but believe me, that doesn’t cut it when it comes to Turkish backgammon!

Yeşim came over at 3:30 for a bit of advice and prayer.  We spent the afternoon drinking tea, eating cake and talking.  After we prayed together, I asked if she wanted to stay and help me make pizza and eat dinner with us.

In the afternoon, I was the abla (older sister) offering advice and prayer. When I got out the backgammon board after dinner, the tables turned and Yeşim became the expert.

Easier to Give or to Receive?

As a cross-cultural servant, I feel comfortable being a giver.  I came to the Middle East to share, to give, and to serve, but often God turns things around and puts me in the position of receiving.  I don’t quite know how to handle receiving from those we came to serve. It doesn’t feel as natural to me, but I’m learning.

Last weekend I received a gift that brought tears to my eyes.  Our small fellowship had a party to share the Christmas message with friends.  We planned games, food, and a program.  Before the party started, I was tired from all the preparation and feeling a bit anxious inside. Would any of our mslm friends come?

People over Projects

Our Visit to Zehra

Effective Cross-Cultural Servant

I still smile as I remember 60 year old Roy, a gray haired gringo in jeans, cowboy boots and plaid shirts in Monterrey, Mexico.  He spoke Spanish with a strong American accent, and he looked more like a Texas rancher than like the Mexican professionals he worked with. I was back in America after two years in the Middle East, and Roy invited me to speak on Middle Eastern culture and Islm to his young professionals group. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but with youthful zeal and ignorance, I judged Roy at first glance.  He looked and sounded just like an American. Surely he hadn’t had much cross-cultural training. 

I was wrong.  It didn’t take long to see how much the Mexican young people in his group loved him. A young woman told me “Oh, I just love Roy. He’s like a second father.  He’s one of us.  Anytime I stop by his office, he’s ready to set aside his word and talk to me.  He never says, ‘I’m busy.’  He just puts aside his work and smiles.” To her his accent and cowboy clothes didn’t matter.  What mattered was that he had time for her.

10 Keys to True Cross-Cultural Treasure: Friendship

Last week I wrote about my treasures: Turkish friends who grace my life with laughter, love and loyalty.  Ironically, missing out on this treasure would be all too easy. A great privilege of living overseas is life-enriching friendship with people from other backgrounds, but it’s easy to miss out due to challenges like:

Language barriers

Cultural Misunderstandings

Overwhelming responsibilities: juggling home, family, language learning, 

ministry

Fear that they might not like me

Cross-cultural frustration (Holding on to “MY” ways, looking down on theirs)

Insecurity

My first year or so in Turkey, I felt isolated. I found that after my neighbors’ initial expressions of hospitality and friendship were over, I wasn’t sure how to make friends with them. At the multi-national church we attended, I felt insecure about approaching Turks.  Would they want to be friends with me? Would they see me as just another foreigner anxious to practice my Turkish or “minister” to a national? After all, any foreigner might be here today and gone tomorrow, so why should they open up their hearts and and lives to me?

Faltering First Steps

I started with small steps I could manage. I’d gulp hard and force myself to take the first step, walking up to another mother at the park or knocking on a neighbor’s door. At church my husband and I started by inviting local believers to our house for a meal. I felt an affinity with single women in their late 20’s and early 30’s since I’d married at age 31 myself.  I’d take a deep breath and call one of them up just to ask how they were doing.

Time

Most good things in life take time to grow, and my friendships with Turks were no different. As the years have gone by, God has given us a rich harvest of friendships with people we trust and appreciate, people we can laugh and cry with.

Here are some keys to cross-cultural friendship that I’m still learning myself:

1. Don’t be afraid to reach out and take the first step.  If you haven’t seen them in a while, don’t wait for “them to call you.”
2. Be humble and willing to learn and serve. 
3. Keep any complaints about their country to yourself 
4. Be flexible to do things their way sometimes.  Where I live, this means being open to spontaneity, as in “Can I come over right now?”
5. Give your relationships time.  Building trust can be slow business.
6. Be honest about your own struggles (I believe this is one of the greatest keys to impacting the lives of national believers.)
7. Approach them as equals, people who can encourage you.
8. Visit them in their homes. In our corner of the world, it is normal to call up and ask if you can come over.  This was hard to get used to, but we suspect new friends are initially more comfortable receiving us in their home than visiting us.
9. Don’t let uncertainty about how to receive visitors or what to cook hold you back from inviting people into your home. You won’t be perfect, but you’ll learn. 
10. Don’t take it personally if they refuse your invitation the first time. They may truly be busy or they may feel unsure about you. Give it time and invite them again!

Warm, positive relationships with Turks open the door to greater understanding of differences and give me more tolerance for the frustrations of living here. 

Question: What has been your experience with cross-cultural friendships? 

You might also like: 
Sisters Across Cultures
What Turkish Coffee Reminded Me About Establishing Friendships

My Turkish Treasures

I’m always looking for a reason to celebrate or have a party. This week my family experienced a joyful homecoming. We welcomed our fifth member, a young Turkish woman, back from HER six week trip to America.  Two days later we had a great time hosting a birthday party for her. 

Bahar surprised me by arriving two hours early the day of the party. Still under the effects of jet lag, she’d left work early to rest before our guests came. When the doorbell rang I was in shorts and a tank top, sweaty from working in a hot kitchen, and I hadn’t put on makeup or combed my hair all day. 

In my earlier days, when I was more preoccupied with being Mrs. Perfect and having everything go smoothly as planned, I would have been jolted by a visitor arriving two hours early while I was preparing for a party. But this time I was glad Bahar felt enough like family to come.  I set her up in a bedroom to rest while I made dinner, and ironed my clothes. Then Bahar made the salad and set the table while I got dressed. We had a quiet dinner with my husband and the kids at 6:30, followed by the hurry to get ready. 

It was a memorable party. The doorbell began ringing at 8:00, and we had about 15 guests who continued arriving until 9:30. My son left three or four times to collect first time visitors from the bus stop. Two guests broke their Ramadan fasts in my kitchen with left-overs from our dinner, the Mslm at 8:10 and the Chrstn at 8:30, while the others had cheesecake and snacks in the living room. One friend arrived with her huge dog, which stayed on our balcony 10 minutes before beginning to howl. I spent the evening between the kitchen and the living room, sitting down to talk with friends when I had a free moment. What I enjoyed most was hearing Bahar’s animated laugh as she talked with friends she hadn’t seen for six weeks.

True Value

If I left Turkey tomorrow, the most valuable thing I would take with me would be the friendships my husband and I have cultivated with Turks. It’s easy for cross-cultural workers like us to stay in our own cultural ghettos when it comes to genuine friendship, and in all honesty I am tempted to approach nationals as a teacher or mentor, instead of as a learner and friend. That’s a mistake I don’t want to make.

Let me introduce you to a few friends who enrich my life and consistently teach me new things:

• Bahar, who is 15 years younger than I, continually shows me what faithfulness and loyalty look like.

• Eda is a feisty, free-thinking literature teacher, a Mslm who freely explores all kinds of spiritual systems and beliefs. She has shown me something about how modern Turks think.

• Handan is a pillar in her church, active in discipling others.  When I visit her, we laugh and talk plenty, but we always take time to read a scripture passage and pray together. From her I’ve learned about hospitality. Handan is always ready to welcome a guest with a glass of tea and homemade cookies from her freezer, even if her kitchen is piled with dishes and the living room is a wreck.

• Elif is a working mother raising two children alone.  She is always excited to share the message with people God puts in her path.  From her, I’ve learned about joy in the midst of trial.

These are my Turkish treasures, friends that bring joy and value to my life. 

How to Handle Goodbyes with Grace?

Did you know that the average American moves 11.7 times during his life?

 In today’s mobile society, farewells are part of everyday life, especially during the summer when school is out.  Last week I wrote about making new friends, but you probably spend as much time and energy saying goodbye to old friends as you do to making new ones.

If you’re serving overseas, goodbye is part and parcel of your calling.  You say goodbye to your family when you move overseas.  You say goodbye to national friends when you go home on furlough.  You say goodbye to fellow workers who return to their home countries. 

Two farewells in particular stand out in my mind.  Two years ago when we left Turkey for a furlough, my Turkish sister cried a river and hugged me tight at the airport. Last spring when we left Texas in order to return here, my sister-in-law cried and my nieces and nephew huddled around us while we said goodbye.

Last Thursday we gave a going away party. Karl and Ellen, some of our closest friends, are moving back to Sweden after 9 years.  We came to Turkey the same year, and our children have grown up together.  We’ve lived near each other and have worked together.  They’ve added laughter and joy to our lives, so although we’re happy for them, their leaving represents loss for us.

Frankly, I don’t like good-byes, but I might as well learn to live with them, because whether I like them or not, they’re something I have to go through!  I might as well weather them with grace. Here are a few thoughts that encourage me.

Use Goodbyes as a time for reflection

I try to focus on the positive and give thanks for beautiful friendships God has brought into my life.  It’s a gift from God to have people I love so much that it hurts to say goodbye.  What would be sad would be to have no one you care about enough to not want to say goodbye to.

Letting go of friends also renews my eternal perspective on life.  Other friends may come and go, but Jesus continues to be my closest, most faithful friend, the only one who will never move away. 

Allow yourself to grieve, but keep looking ahead

At our going away party for Karl and Ellen, one of our Turkish brothers wept openly as we prayed for them.  This tender scene touched me deeply, and I have shed many a tear as I’ve thought of them leaving. Giving myself permission to grieve ultimately helps me to move on, embrace the future, and look ahead to new relationships God has for me.

Look forward to keeping in touch

Goodbye doesn’t have to be the end of the road. Of course a dilemma of modern life is that even if we have 600 Facebook friends, we can’t maintain every relationship we’ve ever had at the same level, but we instinctively know which people we really want to continue investing in. It takes effort, but keeping in touch through e-mail, occasional phone calls, or yearly letters adds richness, joy and continuity to our ever mobile, changing lives. My husband and I have shared many special moments with old friends we look up when we travel.

So when we take Karl and Ellen to the airport next week, I hope to smile and focus on thanking God for such special friends! Have you said goodbye to anyone recently?

What Turkish Coffee Reminded Me About Establishing Friendships

My neighbor took me totally off guard.  All I wanted to do was to drop off a plate of cake for her kids at the door.  My afternoon tea guests had just left, and I was thinking about cleaning up the kitchen, getting chores done and cooking dinner. What WAS I going to cook for dinner?

But Ayla said, “Meltem and I are going to Kahve Diyari for Turkish coffee in ten minutes. Why don’t you come?” I looked at my watch. Almost 5 o’clock. No way could I have dinner on the table at 7.  I was too tired.  Too peopled out already.  

Then I thought, “Why not? Haven’t I been looking for the opportunity to spend time with my neighbors? The world won’t end if dinner is late.”

Our one hour coffee date ended up being a serendipitous ending to my day.  I laughed to learn that Ayla and Meltem had already had coffee at the same café at 11 a.m. that very day. We sipped our coffee in the 5 o’clock shade, enjoying the breeze and talking about our summer plans.

That cup of Turkish coffee started me thinking about friendships. Ayla and Meltem have been neighbors for 10 years.  They drink coffee together every morning at 11 a.m., usually at home. They shop together, go to the doctor together, and eat breakfast every Thursday with a group of women they’ve known for 20 years.

Maybe that would be too much togetherness for an American woman like me, but Ayla and Meltem can teach me a lot about community and friendships. Turks live in tight knit communities, and it’s easy for a foreigner to feel like an outsider once the initial show of Turkish hospitality is over.  Cultivating friendships across cultures is challenging and takes time.   Here are some keys that have helped me.

Take the First Step

Don’t wait for people to approach you.  If you want to develop friendships, be willing to pick up the phone, and make the first call.  Step out and knock on someone’s door, or speak to a stranger at the checkout line in the supermarket.  Call someone you haven’t seen in a long time, instead of waiting for them because “it’s their turn” to call you.

This sounds obvious, but sometimes it takes a bit of courage. Living in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and now Turkey, I’ve often had to force myself to be bold and take the first step, but I’ve been rewarded with many friendships as a result.

Be approachable and available

Whenever possible, I try to be open to people approaching me spontaneously. This means being flexible and ready to set aside my agenda for interruptions, even if it’s not always convenient. I hope this communicates to my friends that I value them.

Build Bridges

I look for common interests: hobbies, children, jobs, cooking, books, and vacation spots.  If I’m lost for conversation, I just ask people questions and listen!

Give Relationships Time to Grow

We moved to a new apartment building a year ago, and although I knocked on a few doors to invite neighbors to my house, they rarely came. I thought they didn’t like me!  Slowly people have gotten to know us, and they’re more open to us.  I’ve realized that not everyone opens their hearts as quickly as I do to new friends.  Growing friendships takes time. 

How do friendships and community develop where you live? Do you have any advice for me about growing friendships?

Sisters Across Cultures

Last week I wrote about looking at the bright side of cross cultural living rather than grumbling about the challenges. What I enjoy most about living in the Middle East is friendship. Let me tell you about my Turkish sister:

Unlikely friends

“Would this bright, beautiful girl even be interested in spending time with a middle aged American housewife like me?” That was my question when I met Bahar about 7 years ago. She was a believing graduate student from a Muslim background, a social butterfly with a million friends. I was a stay at home mother, unsure about what kind of ministry I could possibly have outside my home since caring for my husband and two kids already overwhelmed me.

I sensed the Lord leading me to encourage younger women like Bahar in our church, but I felt unsure of myself. I began by simply praying for her and calling occasionally to ask how she was.  Even making a phone call to Bahar was intimidating for me.  What if I was bothering her?  What if she really didn’t want to talk to me?  In the beginning I would force myself to dial the numbers, but slowly our relationship grew as I realized how she appreciated someone asking questions about her life and listening to her.

Mentor and Disciple

I wasn’t sure how to disciple a younger woman, so I just tried what came naturally.  I spent time getting to know her and discovered we had several interests in common and shared a passion for God’s word.  We read scripture and prayed together, but I realized that Bahar did not need to be someone’s discipleship project; she needed an older sister to take an interest in her life and enjoy her. 

I also shared with her what God was doing in my own life, trying to be transparent about my struggles in an appropriate way. “You face these issues too?” she would ask. “It’s good to know that I’m not the only one.”

Over several years I watched Bahar grow in love and commitment to Christ. We led a small group and two different short term women’s discipleship groups together. Her gifts of leadership and service bloomed as she became a co-worker and leader.

Sisters

Bahar became the sister I never had, and my family has grown to love her. We have talked and laughed over many dinners and late night phone calls. We’ve played games and thrown parties together.  We’ve been through hard times and emergencies.  I helped edit her minor doctoral dissertation. She was there to support our family when my husband had a mini-stroke, both at the hospital and at home later. We’ve had cross-cultural conflicts and worked them out. I've grown to appreciate what a special gift our friendship is.

I've learned and received from my faithful Turkish sister much more than I've given, and along the way I’ve discovered some relationship principles. I’m still on the road to learning these, mind you, but I share them nonetheless:

• Mentoring is about relationship, not making people our projects.

• Listening to understand is more life giving than trying to fix people.

• Being transparent and sharing my weaknesses builds bridges.

• Accepting others instead of judging them is vital.

• Being willing to give and receive brings health to friendships.

Sometimes I laugh to think that it all started with a phone call I was almost too scared to make!

What about you?  Is there someone you can reach out to with a phone call today?  You never know where it might lead!

Any comments about friendship across cultures?

Turkish Delight: Life-Changing Lessons

Last weekend I had another Turkish moment.  I was squeezed in with 13 people at my neighbors’ table, savoring her delicious chicken noodle soup, awed by the spread in front of me:  stuffed grape leaves, okra in olive oil, carrots in garlic yogurt, and some ten other dishes. Everyone was talking at once, a soccer game was blaring on television, and the kids were running around the house.

“You haven’t eaten anything,” our hostess lamented.  “Have some of these spinach pastries. All of this food has got to be eaten!”

After dinner when the ladies retired to the kitchen for Turkish coffee, I smiled to myself, remembering again how much I love Turks.  I came here to share God’s love with them, but they have changed me in the process. The longer I’m here, the more I appreciate what I have learned from them.

If you came to have coffee with my neighbor, she would surely offer you some Turkish delight.  I have a different offering for you this week:  little tidbits of Turkish style wisdom. These are life-changing lessons Turks have taught me.

·         Make Relationships a Priority

Turks live in community. Friends and family talk to each other almost daily and see each other often. (We Westerners would probably call this co-dependency.) At my neighbor’s dinner gathering, two of the couples had also gone to breakfast together the same day.  The women visit each other every Thursday.  They are lifelong friends who live in community.

·         Be Available to your Friends and Open to Interruptions

Many Turks will drop almost anything if friends call and ask, “May I come over right now?” As a Westerner I program and schedule my life down to the last hour, and I have a hard time putting aside my plans for friends who call to ask, “Are you free now?”  I wonder how many serendipities I miss when I’m not open to interruptions?

·         Make Room for Spontaneity in Your Life

Once my husband and I had plans to have dinner with a younger Christian couple. One hour before our dinner guests were set to arrive, my close friend Esra called.

“We haven’t had water in our apartment for 3 days. Can we come take showers at your house?”

I thought for a minute: Not only would our quality time with the couple be ruined, but I would need to then feed Esra’s family as well.  I asked her if she had any other options and explained that we were expecting guests, but I’ve wondered what lovely chaos would have resulted if I’d said, “Sure, come on over!”

·         Practice Hospitality

Turks can teach us the gracious art of hospitality, whether it’s offering a dish of nuts and dried fruits or a 5 course meal. The important thing is opening our hearts and our homes to friends.

·         Make Time for Slow Food and Slow Life

My favorite slow food is sarma.  It takes me 3 hours to make the filling and stuff the grape leaves. I tell myself, “I have three hours to enjoy cooking. I don’t have to hurry through life.” But I haven’t really learned this lesson because I only make sarma twice a year!

·         Respect Your Elders

When was the last time you kissed an older person’s hand?  Turks do it all the time.

So that was my box of Turkish delight for you. These are some things that make me love Turks.

If you have travelled or live overseas, what have you learned from your hosts?

One Woman Making a Difference

Nalan looks like an average Turkish housewife at first glance. When I went to visit her, she chatted about her children, recipes, and learning English. She left the room several times to bring more of her delicious carrot cake and tea from the kitchen. I didn’t realize that she was also walking down the hall to look in on her 17 year old son and make sure he was still breathing.

Nalan is not an average housewife. She is the mother of a boy with MPS and the founder of Turkey’s MPS Society. MPS is a rare disease, a genetic lysosomal storage disorder which leads to cellular damage, mental retardation, loss of organ functioning and ultimately death.

I started praying for Nalan when I learned that her son Emre could now die any day. I went with a friend to visit her so we could offer to pray with her as an expression of love and compassion. I wanted her to somehow know that God loves her.

Would it be all right if we go and see Emre in his room and pray together there?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. As we walked down the hall, I felt nervous. I didn’t know what to expect, and I hoped I would react appropriately. I felt undone when I saw Emre’s tiny form on the bed. He lay on his side under a blanket with a feeding tube attached to his nose. His ashen face lay expressionless on the pillow with closed eyes and a swollen tongue protruding out of his open mouth. His hair was shaved short, and when I saw a faint trace of moustache above his lips, I was moved to tears as I thought of my own robust 13 year old son who is also sprouting a moustache. Nalan smiled over Emre and bent down to kiss his head.

“This is my boy,” she said smiling with shining eyes. “I’m so grateful that he has lived 17 years, much longer than the doctors said he would. I want him with us as long as possible.”

It struck me then that although my plan was to share God’s love with Nalan, He could teach me a lot through her. I had never seen such a vivid example of a mother’s love.

Although caring for her son is a full-time job with a certain ending, Nalan is not bitter. She does not sit around feeling sorry for herself. First she started an internet network of MPS families, and in May of 2009 she founded Turkey’s MPS LH Society together with five other women.

Working from her living room with her computer and telephone, Nalan is making a difference. Her goal is to reach MPS families with information about the disease, to help them get access to treatment, and to give counseling and support. There are 35 families in the Aegean region alone who are members of the society, but Nalan talks to people from all over Turkey, counselling them as they struggle with the challenges of living with MPS and putting them in contact with doctors who can help them.

“What makes you do this,” I asked her. “Don’t you have enough to do just taking care of Emre around the clock?”

“I don’t want other families to have to go through what we did,” she answers. “When I learned Emre was sick, I said, ‘Where are others. Are we alone? There must be other families going through this.’ We couldn’t find them. We were alone.”

My son didn’t have access to early treatments that would have improved his quality of life. It is too late for my son, but I want to help others.”

I prayed for Nalan and Emre that day, but when I left her house I felt more inspired than sad. Nalan’s example touches me. One woman can reach many lives. One woman can make a difference.