Our awesome friend, Stephanie Logerot, contacted World Magazine to tell them about our trip. And they’ve featured us on their online blog!
Check it out here!
It’s so unreal to think of complete strangers reading about our journey around the world…but it’s exactly what we’ve hoped for! We pray that God would use our experiences to touch people’s hearts and to mobilize them to take action and get involved with what’s happening around the world.
Thanks for reading,
Blanca and Liz
I sat in the middle seat on our flight from Delhi to Bangkok, that I’d expressly asked the guy at the counter NOT to give me, wishing desperately that the cabin pressure would drop and the oxygen masks would fall from the ceiling. All I could smell was feet and not just sweaty-boy-I’ve-been-playing-sports-feet but putrid-I-must-have-a-disease-feet. Quite the fitting end to five days filled with the sights, sounds and smells of India.
The day before this one Blanca and I stood at the train station in Agra, eyes inconceivably drawn to the scurrying activity of the large rats maneuvering among the railroad ties. Indian travelers jumped down into the pit of rats and trash carrying luggage from platform one to platform two where we stood having used the creature-less walkway to reach our destination. We watched in amazement, as all but one seemed completely unphased. He gingerly lifted his pants legs as a girl might her skirt. I told Blanca he must be an Indian cousin from the states or the UK. Blanca commented that he must be seeking to prove his manhood by traversing the brown sea of dirt and similarly colored rodents. We giggled and then shivered at the thought.
On our platform boys ran free, a small broom attached to a string leading a dog after them and laughing. A girl dressed in rags and covered in the filth that comes with living at a train station trailed after the procession smiling and pointing out the spectacle to us.
We noticed a boy walking on the tracks carrying a yellow sack on his back. How safe can that be? What could he possibly be doing down there in the dark with all those furry monsters and the Taj Express due any minute?
There was a commotion near us as an older boy bullied a younger. Both resembled turtles, button down shirts tucked in the back, open in the front, tied around slender waists, stuffed full of something. With the unmistakable sound of crushing plastic, the bully reached into the shirt of the feisty younger one extracting an empty plastic water bottle. Despite protests, he continued taking the treasure, leaving the boy’s tortoise-like shell deflated.
“He’s picking up bottles on the tracks,” Blanca said illuminated by the exchange. As I watched, a small light dawned within my heart clearly exposing the deep black devoid of true compassion.
Honestly much of my time in India was spent turning my nose up at the smell of human excrement, the constant noise, and the distressing visions of maimed beggars. I was uncomfortable. I was angry. Why must things be this way? If we have clean water in America and garbage collection and social services, why doesn’t India? For the first time on our trip, I didn’t want to see. I wanted to run – not because it hurt, but because it all disgusted me.
As we sat on the train the words of Mother Teresa came, my understanding broadened by the unpleasant illusions.
In the poor we meet Jesus in some of His most distressing disguises.
He had no beauty that we should be drawn to Him
Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for Me.
Earlier that day our taxi driver took us to a carpet shop to earn his government-approved commission off our tourist impulse buys. The men expressionlessly rolled out two carpets as they probably did every hour every day. The same pattern laid before us, one with pink accents the other in burgundy. The salesman asked us to choose our favorite. I picked the burgundy but walked along the pink as he instructed, only to turn around and find it now appeared in the deep burgundy that had initially appealed to my natural idea of beauty. The wool threads were skillfully cut in such a way by the master craftsman that a guided change of perspective made all the difference.
UPDATE: PLC has added more details about Ahmad on their website! Click here to read more details about his medical condition, as well as donate towards his surgeries.
*Note: This post will be kept at the top of our blog throughout the remainder of our trip. Please scroll down to see the most recent posts.*
Yesterday over a lunch of flavorful Indian food in Agra between seeing the Taj Mahal and visiting Agra Fort, Blanca and I were discussing whether or not it would be possible to raise the $15,000 for Ahmad’s surgery. We know the economic crisis is raging, the readership of our blog has slowed, and there are 1000’s of causes one could give toward, but we finally decided, “Hey, why not try?” We did some quick and easy math and realized that if 150 people gave just $100 each, the initial heart surgeries would be covered.
Please see the previous blogs (here and here) for more details.
- Blanca (#1) & Liz (#2)
Click here to become #3.
I pressed my palm to my heart and said, “Basha?”
Meaning “good”, it was one of only three Kurdish words I had remembered from our short time in Kurdistan (northern Iraq).
Her beautiful smile stayed on her face as she nodded, “Basha.”
This wasn’t supposed to happen… Her family had first learned about her heart problem when she was about 5 years old. And now, at 16, her condition had grown pretty severe, and because of the years she had gone untreated, many feared it was too late to operate…
The first three doctors did in fact refuse to operate, convinced that the surgery would just be too much for her failing heart, and she wouldn’t be able to make it through… But a doctor based in Istanbul had an innovative procedure that he felt could work for Kadeeja.
So she was sent to Istanbul for surgery, and just a week later, when Liz and I visited, she was already out of ICU, smiling and talking and anxious to get back home to her brother and sisters. (There are 13 children total in her family!)
Even though we only visited Kadeeja for a short time, it was amazing to see this miracle sitting right in front of us. And to think of the team of people who have joined together to help and to heal…and God’s amazing power to make the impossible, possible…
Seriously…it’s midnight, and i’m not tired AT ALL!!! We’re about 4 hours ahead of Istanbul time, so I think my body’s still thinking it’s only 8:00….
I’m about to force myself to go to sleep though…
One quick thought, though… you know how every family has it’s own little inside jokes/stories? Well, growing up, anytime we were riding in the car, and my dad was driving really close to a concrete median/barricade, my mom would use the phrase, “You’re scratching my ribs!” So I thought about that today as we rode around Delhi in an Auto again, and I literally felt like we were about to touch the cars next to us…they were so close! They were DEFINITELY scratching my ribs… I still don’t know how we managed to not hit ANYONE… I thought of my mom again, and how she’d absolutely HATE riding around Delhi in an Auto… Thankfully, I was only a bit nervous…
Craziness.
-B
Ahh…Istanbul…
Last night, as I took one last look at Istanbul through the shuttle window on our way to the airport, I couldn’t help but smile at the hope that this wasn’t the last I’d seen of the beautiful city…
And now, as I sit in the guest house we’re staying at in India, I can’t help but smile again at the huge difference between Delhi and Istanbul… There’s non-stop honking happening outside our window. Literally…it’s nonstop…hahahah… I love what Liz said to me this morning – “Welcome to Asia…it’s honking from here on out…”
We’ve been spending most of the day just relaxing in our room…we had an overnight flight, and due to a four-hour time change and three very loud kids in front of us on the plane, we didn’t get much sleep last night and are suffering a bit from jet lag… But we DID venture out with Mica this afternoon and had our first experience riding in an “Auto” (a covered bench on the back of a motorbike). Let me just say, these are some fearless drivers… good thing Liz and I don’t mind a little adventure. 
If only we had audio or video to share with you…
His eyes of seemingly all pupil as deep as the thoughts he shared stared back at me as he stated with intensity, “But this is so easy and small. What about keeping qualified doctors in Iraq? And this might be a distraction that would prevent you from what you set out to do. You must finish. You must let people know.” I knew what he meant. There are more far reaching problems than just the broken heart of one young boy. They lack the screening we have in America that detects these types of heart defects in the womb or at birth. I wholeheartedly agreed that there’s a need for better surgical equipment, better education, and doctors willing to stay in or come to Iraq along with other issues to be sure. Ali’s (one of the Turkish guys of Kurdish heritage we met the first time we were in Istanbul) sentiment reminded me of this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.
We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside… but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
But, with the added thick emphasis and pause of our friend Tsungai in Zimbabwe, does fighting for overarching change mean we shouldn’t try to help to the hurting person right in front of us on the road? I asked him if he would pay fair prices to the sellers of gems from India when he had his own shop. “Yes”, he answered definitively. He would buy directly and charge fair prices in his shop distributing the profit margin more justly and willingly sacrificing his own extra padded profit. The bigger injustices cannot stop you from trying one shop, a couple suppliers, and a few customers at a time.
I’m pretty sure I won the argument.
His brown booted feet hung limply from the chair. Most children wouldn’t be able to resist swinging their suspended legs back and forth in the quiet room surrounded by the seven dwarfs’ familiar faces, the Kurdish curls presumably spelling the names of Dopey and Sneezy and the rest, scattered among painted forest animals on all four walls of Dr. Aso’s combined office, waiting room and examination room. When the doctor was ready, the practiced hands of his mother removed his jacket from his tiny body, his boots from little clubbed blue feet which matched his hands, tormented eyes watching her above his oxygen deprived lips the shade of blueberries.
The doctor’s eyes widened and his brow furrowed as he looked at the Echo, turned to Ruth and said, “This is a very serious case.” Ruth, from the PLC staff, asked if he was inoperable and the doctor shook his head and simply said again, “It is a very serious case…. I don’t know.” Whether she understood English or not, I’m sure Ahmad’s mother read all our expressions easily. She tipped her head to the heavens, possibly to pray, and more practically to give her eyes the opportunity to swallow the tears threatening to escape.
I searched my purse for the third time looking desperately for something to give this poor child. I hoped a matchbox car or at least some stickers had magically appeared since I’d last checked, but my hands came up empty again. My mind slowly absorbed the fact that even if a toy might have brought a temporary smile to his sad eyes, it would do nothing for his frail body. I prayed the Harvard trained Turkish doctor who donates his skill would read Ahmad’s results and proclaim him operable.
Khadija sat up in her hospital bed in the Johns Hopkins affiliated Anadolu Medical Center on the Asian side of Istanbul watching a television program that seemed to train Turkish women in the application of make-up to their already stunning eyes. She showed Blanca her scar as her father motioned down to his belly button indicating the length of the incision made less than a week prior by Dr. Oz. He is not simply a powerless man behind a curtain, but has been gifted with the mind and hands to innovate new procedures for closing holes in hearts other doctors deem irreparable. God willing, Khadija will live with that scar as a reminder of her own personal miracle given by God through the hard work of the PLC staff, the skill of a surgeon, and the generosity of many.
May Ahmad sit in a similar hospital bed soon with pink lips drawn up in a smile, repaired heart pumping life and health through previously weakened lungs and limbs. One day after that one, may his strengthened body enable him to walk to school laughing with friends along the way instead of having to take a taxi alone.
We’d like to ask you to be a part of Ahmad’s transformation. I do agree with Ali. In one way it really is quite easy and small. We almost didn’t make it into Iraq for those two short days due to visa issues, flight changes, and expensive plane tickets. I’m convinced now that we needed to be there for such a time as this, for one little boy providentially placed on the road in front of us… now on the road in front of you. Please consider sacrificing that this boy might live.
We are still waiting to hear whether or not Dr. Oz believes Ahmad will survive an operation. This eight-year-old will most likely need multiple staged surgeries. While Dr. Oz performs the surgery at a highly discounted price, there are also other costs involved from heart valves to hospital stays. Jessica at PLC anticipates the first round of surgeries totaling around $15,000. I know we are just a few people reading a blog, but …
Please pray. Please click here to donate. Just choose “a share of surgical expenses” and write “Eyes to See – for Ahmad” in the how did you hear of PLC blank. We’ll try to have a direct paypal link up soon. Please tell others about Ahmad and the brokenhearted children of Iraq.
We sat drinking our pulp filled fresh squeezed orange juice planning our “full” day in Istanbul before leaving for Sulaymaniyah, Iraq at 9:00 pm the evening of the 21st. We had plans to visit the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and to walk down to the sea and take a ferry. Only one of these actually happened in our ten remaining hours due to Tuesday closures, watching the inauguration, eating Turkish quesadillas, and of course more time spent chatting over cups of tea. Our first cup followed our juice and filled our bladders while we talked with “the juice guy”.
The night before he’d asked us to come into his juice bar/restaurant a couple times as we’d passed by the miniature place tightly packed with stuffed benches and at least 75 brightly colored hanging lamps. We promised to come back for breakfast at 8, which turned into juice at 10:30. He leaned against the table less than a foot from my chair telling us how he felt trapped in the service industry and hoped to go to Ireland next year in search of a better paying job. He spoke softly with little of the passion and vibrancy of the Turks we’d had tea with the previous night. Suddenly I felt a strong prompting to give him the Bible wedged between my laptop and passport in the bag at my side. I asked a couple questions about his Muslim beliefs, hesitated, and left the book that has given me such hope sitting heavily in my handmade bag from Laos.
The idea weighed on my heart throughout the day as we visited the mosque and met other Turks. While sitting on a carpeted restaurant floor leaning against plush pillows listening to live traditional music, I decided to pull my Bible out. I asked the Lord if that was indeed Him speaking to me or if it was just the silly idea of an overly eager Christian girl with little knowledge of Islam and the Turkish culture? I then read this:
Psalm 50:1 God, the LORD God speaks
Still feeling unsure, I talked to Blanca about it and we decided we might just stop by later and see…
We went about the rest of our day ending the evening watching Obama speak on Blanca’s baby laptop splitting my ear buds eating yet another Turkish quesadilla and drinking our fill of apple tea. We exited the restaurant and were crossing the street to our hotel when the juice guy spotted us and waved us over. We had an hour before our shuttle was scheduled to arrive so we walked inside the 10×10 space yet again. A friend and fellow waiter from his previous job happened to be there this evening. We explained the purpose of our travels to his friend as he shared warm hazelnuts from his pocket a bit reminiscent of Blanca’s fish in South Africa. The juice guy offered more tea which we politely refused as we were dangerously close to becoming apple tea after all we’d consumed the previous day and a half.
The clock ticked closer to 9 the Bible still securely in place in my bag and the desire still pressing on my heart. Finally, I decided I would regret not giving it him so I made a lame attempt at transitioning the conversation by asking, “Do you like to read?” Surprisingly, that did not naturally lead into him asking if I had a Bible I wanted to give him, so I just blurted out, “I don’t know why, but I really want to give this to you.” I then blabbered on a bit about how the Qur’an encourages Muslims to read the Injil (the Gospels) as I bookmarked the gospel of John and awkwardly handed it over. When I gathered the courage to look up, I noticed that rather than looking at me with confusion or anger, they were both smiling and eager to accept the gift.
Juice guy’s friend then said, “Just two days ago we were sitting here talking about how we want to read this.” Unbelievable! Finding his hands empty, he then boldly requested one of his own to which Blanca generously surrendered her little pink Bible. After the exchange, we said our good-byes and walked the short distance to our hotel to collect our luggage and meet the shuttle. Upon our arrival, the guys working the reception desk began planning our next trip for us, this time into Gaza to help rebuild, for which they decided to join us. After that was settled, they told us the shuttle would be a few minutes late, so I grabbed my notebook hurrying back to the juice bar.
I secretly hoped to find them reading the Bible, but prepared myself to see the Bible tossed aside for a cigarette. I was only half right. I walked in to find the juice guy sitting at the table, prayer beads in one hand and a cigarette in the other with the Bible open in front of him. We quickly exchanged e-mail addresses and the name I didn’t quite catch the first time we met appeared in my journal… Veysi.
After a quick nap in our hotel room this morning after only a few hours of uncomfortable airplane sleep due to our red eye flight from Iraq, Blanca and I decided to head back to the center of town to visit the Hagia Sofia Museum. Jessica from PLC used to live in Istanbul and suggested we visit the restored church in the heart of Muslim Turkey. She said one mosaic was worth the entire entry fee. It was. As you exit you find people snapping pictures in your direction. They are not taking your photo but that of artwork once plastered over but now revealed depicting Constantine handing over the city then known as Constantinople to Christ. May modern day Istanbul be given over once again, one juice guy at a time.
After our time in the museum, we decided to stop by and see Veysi and his friend Raheem before navigating the tram system back to our airport hotel. We weren’t able to talk much as Veysi’s cousin was in the shop dominating the conversation, but it was encouraging to hear that he had told his cousin about the Bible. Before we left, the 17-year-old boy who works there part-time also asked for a copy. We had no more to give and certainly not the Turkish version he requested. I guess we’ll have to find one and bring it back to the juice bar 2 doors down from the Kafkas hotel next time we visit this city we are beginning to love.
As I heard Dr. Aso rattle off the numerous surgeries 8-year-old Ahmad would need, I looked over at the sweet little boy… the color of his lips looked as if he had eaten about 4 blue raspberry snow cones, but instead his dark blue lips, along with blue hands and feet, indicated that his particular heart condition was very severe… His echocardiogram will be sent to a doctor in Turkey, who will then determine if Ahmad can have surgery, or if it’s just too risky…
The PLC staff should hear back from Turkey by next week, and will then know if Ahmad will have a chance at surgery (actually, MULTIPLE surgeries…). Of the 7 kids we saw today, his condition was the worst… He was so quiet and emotionless the entire time the doctor checked him. And after I took a quick picture of him standing in front of the wall painted with Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, he hid his little face in his mother’s leg and wiped tears from his eyes…
Please join us in praying for Ahmad, and the thousands of other kids in Northern Iraq who are suffering from various severe heart problems… It’s amazing to see the hearts of people like the PLC staff, who work so hard to fight for these sweet kids and help them be able to have the surgeries they need.
As we walked outside our hotel in search of supper last night we found ourselves the test subjects for more Turkish marketing. We heard everything from stories of sick parents to “Smell me” to reassurances that we wouldn’t be touched with an attempted kiss anyway from one self proclaimed gentleman. Then of course there was the usual sprinkling of “Are you from India?” and “Please come in for some tea.” On our way back to the hotel we finally gave in and headed inside a carpet store for a little Turkish hospitality having been invited repeatedly even after stating quite directly that we would NOT be buying anything.
We were led to the chairs near the jewelry counter while the shopkeeper prepared our hot apple tea with two sugar cubes on the side that were completely unnecessary as it was perfection without them. While the water heated, he closed the front door. Blanca nervously glanced over at me but I reasoned that he was only ensuring the warmth of the heater stayed inside the store. Besides, the small shop was basically a glass box on a busy street and we’re pretty feisty, right? With a look that I hoped communicated these thoughts, the fear in Blanca’s eyes melted away and we both settled in for some tea and good conversation.
The co-owner of the shop came in and we discussed the forbidden topics of politics, religion and war passionately yet peacefully. Military service is mandatory for Turkish men and both these guys drew the short straw and ended up in Iraq fighting against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), which is treated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU, and the US. Here are a couple blurbs I found online written about the conflict, the first by a Swedish journalist and peace activist in 2001, the year one of these men was in Iraq, and the other from a BBC news article published more recently.
In 1984 the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) started an armed struggle against the Turkish oppression, with about 300 guerrilla troops. In 1994 the number had grown to 15,000. Hundreds of thousands among Kurdish poor peasants were sympathizers. In 15 years of fighting between PKK and the Turkish Army, nearly 40.000 lives have been lost—more than in the conflicts on the West Bank and in Northern Ireland combined. But the Kurdish uprising is seldom mentioned in western media.
The PKK, numbering 4,000 in Iraq and 2,000 in Turkey, is a vicious bunch. Since 1984, when it began pushing for an independent homeland in southeastern Turkey, over 30,000 have been killed in insurgent, terrorist and Turkish force operations.
The intensity of the conversation ebbed and flowed, Yavuz poured himself a cup of coffee and we continued talking with Ali. He came back over exhorting us quite sincerely to “be careful” to “just be careful” when we go into Iraq. He told stories of friends losing limbs and lives while Ali showed us a scar he carries as a permanent reminder of his time spent in Iraq. Yuvuz then enthusiastically grabbed his coffee and said, “You don’t understand… I’m just so happy to be here simply drinking Nescafe and selling this ceramic.” He grabbed a yellow and blue vase and kissed it for added emphasis. “Do you understand? It is life just to be walking down the streets of Istanbul.” Ali then emptied his pockets coming up with a few Turkish Lira and saying, “We are glad to just be alive even if we have no money.”
This string of conversation lingers in my mind today along with this word — Figurines . Describing his life as a soldier, Yuvuz sighed, “We were just figurines played with for the profit of others.”
