Church and Christian Community

The Christian community in southeastern Turkey is really a single community to which we provide a full-time pastor and other resources as requested and deemed appropriate. Our challenge with this fledgling community is to help them stand on their own. Funds are needed for conferences, training, and family emergency relief.
Your gifts support pastoral salaries, printing of Christ-centered literature, and the costs of “The Journey” a series of walking evangelistic tours through Kurdish villages.

Peacemaking, Reconciliation

Corresponding with the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade, we sponsored the “Reconciliation Walk”. In much of the Middle East, the most lasting impression of Christianity is of the crusader with a drawn sword. This impression is a great obstacle to peace and to the Gospel. Over a period of four years we retraced the crusaders’ steps, but instead of swords we read an apology with a simple explanation of Jesus’ true nature taken directly from the Gospel of Matthew. Our apology was read in mosques, printed in newspapers and celebrated far and wide.

Out of this effort networks seeking mutual understanding and cooperation have developed. Immediately following 9/11 we were invited to present conferences in Beirut and Damascus that were attended by over 30 religious and ethnic groups, helping defuse the escalating hostility caused by the terrorist attack. Conferences encouraging dialogue and relationships among Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders continue based on strategic political and social conditions.

 

(More Photos and Stories of Reconciliation)