As I walked down a back alley, a burly police officer shouted my name, “Barnabas!” I stopped and wheeled around. The policeman’s eyes sparkled with friendship. I went over to him and, clasping his hand, gave him a kiss on both cheeks, the traditional greeting here. His name is Meytin, and we first met at our friend Ekrem’s nut shop. We talked in Turkish for a few moments. (Praise the Lord, by His help, I can now speak full sentences in Turkish!) As I said goodbye to Maytin, he put his hand over his chest and patted it, a sign here of deep appreciation. As I went on my way, my heart skipped as I thought of how blessed I am. As a missionary in a city where it is illegal to be a missionary, it feels good to have a policeman call me by name with his hand on his heart!

I pause to ponder the small miracle. In six short months, in a vast city of millions, I have a clutch of friends at all levels of society who await my visits. I ask myself, “How is it that when I walk down the street, people wave from their shops, ask about my wife and child, and hold their hands over their hearts as we part? How is that store clerks come around from behind their counters to greet me? How is that I have found such grace in the eyes of so many?”

Since we arrived, we have felt surrounded by a rainbow of Providence. As a rainbow is comprised of many colors, so the aspects of our joy here are many. Let me share one band of color.

Last night, we were invited for our third meal at the home of Ekrem, my nut-shop-owner friend. We had a beautiful meal together with one of his English-speaking friends. (In Turkish custom, my wife and the other ladies ate separately from the other two men and me.) After the meal, Ekrem revealed a few secrets of our friendship that I did not know. He told me I had appeared in two dreams he’d had. (I may share those in a later article.) Then he said, “You know, it is because of Allah that you are here.” He continued, “Though I wanted to have you to my home, I was really struggling with whether I should invite you because I thought having a Christian around my family would compromise my Muslim faith.

“One day during Ramadan, I was praying in the mosque. With thoughts of your family on my mind, I felt impressed to read a portion of the Koran.” Ekrem’s face showed he was emotionally moved as he reflected on the spiritual impression. “I went to the Koran, and I was shocked at what I saw. My eyes were directed precisely to a passage which told me it is good to invite Christians to my home.”

This whisper of God was the confirmation Ekrem needed to invite me not only into his home but into his life. And he has done so in a big way. Despite his affinity for western pop culture, I have discovered him to belong to a conservative group of Muslims, and those he introduces me to generally have strong Islamic roots.

I generally spend two to four hours with Ekrem four days a week. He is helping me learn Turkish, and I am teaching him English. Ekrem is a true sanguine. He will walk into a restaurant and begin a happy banter with the entire restaurant at once. Full of self-confidence, he will swing wide a restaurant door and say, “We need some good vegetarian food! What have you got today?” On a typical daily round, we will stop and visit his friend at the cell phone shop, his friend at the TV repair shop, the three old tailors, an accountant, and perhaps a president of a bank or the telecommunications office. Ekrem is totally connected!

His network is vast, and it was a puzzle to me until I discovered to my surprise that this owner of a little nut shop serves in an elected civic position representing nearly ten thousand businesses! He has hopes to be the mayor of our city someday. One customer asked him about being president of Turkey! Ekrem blushed as he revealed that the thought had crossed his mind.

To all these people, he gives a short sales pitch on Barnabas Hope. He tells them where I was born, what I’m doing here (from a business not mission perspective), and what I believe.

He then preaches them a short sermon. He tells them I am a “different sort of Christian.” I don’t bow to idols, I believe in one God, I believe in the prophets, I am a child of Abraham, and I look forward to Jesus’ soon return. He tells them I don’t smoke, drink, eat pork, or sleep with women who aren’t my wife! Yes, Ekrem is thorough in his message, and he preaches it with conviction. After he is done with his homily, I say a few words in Turkish, and the people’s expressions are usually pure delight. It was in this manner that I received a kiss on both cheeks from a district court judge and the head of the SWAT team!

Another part of this friendship that assures me of God’s direction is that Ekrem’s wife, Hanci, and my wife, Esther, get along great. Last night, close to the end of our visit, as Hanci went to the kitchen, my wife followed her. Thankful for the private moment, Hanci turned and embraced Esther. With tears in her eyes, she put her hand over her heart and expressed deep appreciation for my wife.

But Ekrem’s conversion isn’t going to come easy. One day, Ekrem and I went to pick up large boxes of hazel nuts and sunflower seeds at a warehouse. As we wound our way through the old brick streets, we stopped at a 700-year-old mosque. Ekrem washed his mouth, eyes, nose, ears, and feet in ritual form to symbolize the cleansing of sins, then we went into the mosque for prayer. I prayed in a kneeling posture while he did his full kinesthetic prayer. After this, he led me through a back alley and up a long stairwell. There, I found myself in the publishing headquarters for an Islamic fundamentalist group who would like to turn Turkey into an Islamic state! They gave me several magazines which contained articles not too much different from our Signs of the Times with titles like “Healthful Care of the Teeth,” “Appropriate Messages in Child Training,” “Neighborliness—A neglected value in the 21st century,” “Collective Intelligence in Ant Colonies,” and “Discovering the Essence of the Abrahamic Messages.”

This little visit and introduction clued me in that there is another layer to Ekrem’s belief and allegiances. Beyond this, I know Ekrem’s wife is a dedicated student of Islam, reading dozens of encyclopedias of Islamic history. The Koran is revered in their house, and the Bible has never been touched.

My assessment of all of this? Spiritual rebirth is totally the Holy Spirit’s job. I am entirely incapable of converting Ekrem. It boggles me how a man who believes the Koran as earnestly as I believe the Bible and who disbelieves the Bible as earnestly as I disbelieve the Koran could ever come to faith in Christ. But then again, I’m Barnabas, and perhaps God will soon intervene to win His Paul.

However as the future plays out, this one thing I know: I and my family are surrounded by a brilliant rainbow of Providence. And I believe Ekrem and Hanci are one beautiful part of the whole colorful masterpiece. So I sit with Ekrem at a café rehearsing Turkish verbs. We laugh as he tries to sing lyrics to familiar tunes. He sings, “Raindrops keep falling in my head.”

I smile and encourage, “‘On my head.’ Say, ‘On my head.’ Ekrem.” Again he tries, but the raindrops keep falling in his head instead of on. Oh, well.

We walk back to the nut shop. With joy, Ekrem links his arm inside mine, the custom here for men who are friends. And that’s what I’ve got. May God win His man.

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