Tag Archives: Turkey

Apr 24 2016

Trip to Turkey 9. Derinkuyu underground city

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Some caves had absolutely vast numbers of people dwelling in them.  The Derinkuyu underground city is a place you can visit a short bus ride away from Goereme where a Christian community lived underground.   This place had 30,000 people living there!!!   The entrance just has a place to buy your ticket, a mosque with miniret and a souvenir and snack shop.  Our guide, a friendly local Turk gave a “Salam Al Akoum” (similar to Hebrew Shalom Alechem) greeting to the staff on the gate, an Arabic greeting (peace with you) that’s probably common among all other non Arabic speaking Muslim countries.

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This place had a ventilation shaft/well with winch system to bring water and other supplies.

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Inside one part of a corridor was a short passageway with a shorter cross section, yes a church, carved out room in a cross!   Other parts of the complex were where people were trained in the gospels.  These would of been Greek speaking believers.

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This door works with a sliding rounded stone, similar to the one thought to be the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, and like some other tombs of similar design.   This can only slid from the inside providing a very secure means of the people in the underground city protecting from hostile attackers.

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This is where part of the teaching would of been preached.   I’d love to know what the shelf bit with the steps would be for.

You can read more about the underground city of Derinkuyu here http://www.goreme.com/derinkuyu-underground-city.php

This was a really fascinating place to see, and makes me thankful that I can worship in my church without risk of imprisonment or worse.  I don’t remember anything about the age of this place or how long it was used as an a dwelling.   We only spent an hour in there, and only fraction of it can be actually seen.

Previous 8. On this rock I will build my church
Next 10. Varying uses of caves and the camel man

 

Apr 22 2016

Trip to Turkey 8. On this rock I will build my church

In many different news sources and blogs, we are told that the church is in decline, numbers are falling.

This may be true of some churches but not all.   If we only get our information from the newspapers we might think that Christianity is coming obsolete.

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Not all churches are church-like buildings.   Not all churches in the UK are part of the Church of England or the Vatican some other more familiar religious authority.   Some churches are traditional or contemporary and are purpose built, some churches borrow someone else’s building like a school, hotel or community centre, as it maybe more cost effective or flexible for their needs this way.

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Some of churches back in the day were caves!

I saw this place on the outsides of the official museum of Goereme’s open air museum which is full of cave churches.  This one you can see for free a few hundred metres away.

Its not functioning.

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And it was shut.   Funny as its not winter.   I visited here during April.

My ticket I got for the Balloon ride shows 5th Nisan 2016.   Hold on Nisan is the Jewish word for April!   This month and a few others are also the same in Turkish, despite Turkish isn’t a Semitic language, I guess this is more from Islam which borrows a few elements of Judaism.

Ok, these churches aren’t functioning places of worship, and Turkey is a 99% Islamic country.   There are believers here, the gospel is being spread, but it is underground.  There is talk about persecution that could be happening at the moment, so I’d imagine these meetings are more likely to be in people’s homes.

No, I didn’t see this there, and yeah I’d wait till I’m back in the UK before writing this blog 🙂  Turkey isn’t known for freedom of speech and religion.   My point is churches represent a group of people meeting together rather than the fabric of the building itself.

Matthew 16 : 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will bed bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will bee loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

In this case, church was built in the rock!

Previous 7.”Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam” or Turkish Star Wars
Next 9. Derinkuyu underground city

Apr 21 2016

Trip to Turkey 7.”Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam” or Turkish Star Wars

I went to book a tour around Cappadocia and saw this on a street;

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Star Wars in Turkey?  Really?  I thought New Hope was filmed in Tunisia?

I sat on roof top with a beer with my laptop chatting on Facebook to a friend in Malta who is an avid Star Wars fan and film buff, he had never heard of it.   In fact I went on the ‘green tour’ and our guide said nothing about it.

Apparently a Turkish film company attempted to make their own sci fi flick using some abysmal acting, hilariously daft costumes and incoherent script (even to the local Turks) but using lots of unauthorised bits of real Star Wars and using the theme music to Indiana Jones (!) made this film considered one of the worst movies ever.

Shame as the unique landscape of Cappadocia must be attractive proposition to film makers I would of thought, and George Lucas must of put Petra on the tourist map when Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed in Jordan in 1989.

You can watch this whole film on youtube here, as some has added English subtitles now 🙂  I plan to watch it soon, skipping through bits of it, it looks like early version of Flash Gordon, especially the bad guy who looks a Ming type character.

Previous 6. Hot Air Ballooning
Next 8. On this rock I will build my church

Apr 18 2016

Trip to Turkey 5. Spirit filled believers from Cappadocia

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My phone isn’t readable in bright sunlight, I’m glad I brought a real bible 🙂

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Acts 2 : 2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Me myself, I’m still trying to learn about tongues and spiritual gifts, its great to know there were so many believers of such different backgrounds in the middle east and beyond, which might sound completely unthinkable today.   I believe we will see true peace when Jesus returns soon.

I put the different ethnic groups of people into Google Maps to see how the body of Christ were all over the Levant.

Previous 4. The cave town in Goereme
Next 6. Hot Air Ballooning

Jan 30 2016

5th century Church discovered in Turkey has paintings of Jesus


Couldn’t find any good Google Streetmap of Nevşehir. The national park sections aren’t mapped, and the nearby city looks cloudy and a bit dull.

I’ve just booked to go to Keysuri in central Turkey.   I’ve been meaning to go to Cappadocia national park for the last year or so.

Today after I’ve bought my tickets, I was amazed to see this!

Historic church discovered in Turkey’s Nevşehir ‘could change history of Orthodoxy’

(source is a secular Turkish news site)

 

Dec 11 2010

Turkish massacare of Armenian people remembered

Back earlier this year there was the convoy of protestors from Turkey.

At the same time, around the Christian Armenian community in Jerusalem’s old city put up lots of posters around the city warning what happened just under 100 years ago.  Click to zoom.

This was a reminder of the men and women killed in a genocide against the Armenian people.   With so called peace ships that fooled the media supposedly trying to help Gaza but had terrorists with weapons, its a warning that extremist Islam affects everyone.

Jun 4 2010

June Gaza Flotilla incident and being a volunteer in a unpopular place

I know Christians working in numerous troubled parts of the world all over.  Pakistan, South Africa, Chile, Ukraine and many more.  Western nations as well.   For me, being in Israel has to be one of the most difficult, not so much just in the context of my actual role and living there, but more in case of being an ambassador and explaining to people in my home country both Christians and non-Christians alike why I am volunteering there.

“Christians supporting Israel? Oh so you are Zionist are you?”  is sometimes reactions I get.   This week has been particularly difficult as I try and explain to some people what I believe why the IDF had to board the ships by ‘freedom fighters’ trying to enter Gaza.

In a usual predictable fashion, there is worldwide condemnation of Israel being an aggressor on civilians yet again.   But hold on are these people really people providing humanitarian aid and support to the Palestinians?  Look on Youtube and you can see videos released by the IDF about these people came armed, ok mostly with relatively crude weapons, kitchen knives, iron bars and such, but still able to kill.   Fine if you wish to make a legitimate statement they could of just held up banners and could arrange a third party from the UN to arbitrate sending goods and assistance from their boat to the people in Gaza, instead they were there motives are not so well intentioned.  Even more so, one of the pro-Palestinian activists (I think from the UK or Europe) brought an 18 month old child, why?  Sounds familiar like Hamas terrorists deliberately attack Israel from amongst buildings knowingly containing women and children.  To the folks from Europe, just like some anarchic animal rights protest group, it probably seems jolly exciting to join a band of mercenaries against what they have read as an oppressive authority, and join a cause.  Its now been found that the supposed Turkish freedom fighters have links to Al Queda.

As I said earlier, I am not really a political sort of person.  In the UK I have voted on all three parties at different years, sometimes though when injustice and lies come from our familiar media channels you need to speak out, and when you are a Christian supporting Israel, your views are not always very popular.  All boycotts are a stupid and pointless thing and don’t achieve anything productive.  Instead we need pray and show love to people in all places of conflict.   Israel may get financial support from the US, but for me as a volunteer, the kind donations I have been given by people this year can be counted on one hand.   I am in great need of sponsorship and through asking through various channels, finding a regular sponsor has turned up very little so far.

My role as an IT administrator in the charity in Jerusalem means I have a relatively hidden backroom job but very necessary role of keeping a charity infrastructure running.  As usual with my blog I don’t like talking about politics and arguing, so I will get back to just more biblical places I have visited and seeing people in need lifted up and encouraged by the different Christian organisations I know of here.