Latest Prayer Letter
Here you can find our latest Prayer Letter, or explore the archive below for past Prayer Letters
November was a month in which we received very clear answers to our prayers! You have been praying with us for months and your prayers have been a great encouragement and blessing to us. Thank you very much for this.
First, we have been praying with you for months about the “English Speaking Club” and the Lord sent Hannah and Jake to us. Hannah and Jake came to us for 3 weeks and we held our conversation club. It wasn't as crowded as we expected, but we still established relationships with 3 people and it looks like relationships that will last. We ask for prayers for these people: Nadiye, Tahsin and Ertuğrul. May the Lord guide them. At the same time, people are slowly starting to learn about this club and if the Lord wishes, we want to continue in January. May the Lord send others to help this club!
In addition, we started a community called "Genç Akım" and through this community, we want to plan free events, workshops and organizations that are beneficial to the society, especially for students. For this reason, Eylül from our church has set up a social media account and is generating ideas. May the Lord give her vision on this matter.
Another very pleasing thing happened this month: Caner and Fatih became believers! Caner and Fatih reached us through BCC and we have been praying for them for a long time. They both believed, and we are very happy for that. Let's continue to pray for them.
One of the clearest answers we received to our prayers this month was this: Gökçe worships at our church, but she always wanted someone with the gift of worship to come to the church. While we were praying about this again on the second Sunday of November, a person started coming to our church that Sunday (he found us on social media) and he had the gift of worship! He has been a believer for a long time and continues to come to church regularly, may the Lord prepare him for this ministry.
This month the Lord turned our disappointment into something beautiful. There were some contacts in Nizip, a district of Gaziantep, and we set out to meet with them, but they all canceled the meetings on the way! We were very sad because we were really ready to meet them. Then we decided to go to the bazaar and met 3 people in a shop. We shared the gospel with these three people and 2 of them, Gürkan and Onurcan, were very interested! Onurcan even had a cross tattoo on his hand and said that he got this tattoo because he loved Jesus Christ. These people said that they would come to the church later. It was a very encouraging event for us.
Finally, one of the things that pleased us the most was that Sandy and Martin stayed with us for a week in Gaziantep and we had a wonderful time with them. Sandy in particular held special prayer times for many people in our church, and those in our church received much encouragement from this. We are thankful for them.
In December, we want to do the following:
-We are in talks with Gaziantep city hall, if possible, we would like to rent a hall from the city hall and organize a big Christmas event.
-If not, we will plan two Christmas events at our church, one for students and the other a public celebration.
-We will meet with contacts in Kahramanmaraş and Kilis in December.
-We will help with a Christmas event for young people in Malatya on December 13th.
May the Lord reign and guide us in all these activities. Everyone who will come to these events and meetings should have an open heart. We would also like to share our other prayer topics with you.
-In November, we met with 10 people through BCC, Musa, Davut, Ali and Hasan are people who are open to the gospel and may the Lord lead them.
-We ask for prayers for Eylül, Deniz and Mustafa, who will start serving in our church. May the Lord show them their gifts and give them determination.
-May the people in our church realize their gifts and visions and be led by God. May the Lord show us what we can do about this.
-May our church grow and develop in faith. Let it be under the control of the Holy Spirit.
-May the Lord provide a suitable job for Mehmet, Mustafa and Eylül, who have job problems.
-We pray for Deniz, Can, Crystal, Burak and Caner who are preparing for baptism.
-May the Lord provide for the financial needs of our church, we are a small church and tithes are not enough. The Christmas season will be the most costly season, may the Lord provide a miracle for that.
-We want to improve the social media service of our church, and we are training a person for this. We pray that our social media service will improve.
-We feel very tired these days and we don't want to get carried away by this fatigue, at the same time we feel very stressed due to the busyness lately. We ask for prayers to be strong and peace.
-We moved to a new house in November, we loved our house very much, but there are many problems in our house, which makes us lose our peace. We want to stay in peace in this house.
-We ask for prayers for Gökçe's mother. Her mother lives in Malatya with Gökçe's siblings. She lost her house after the earthquake and had to rent a new house. She has a hard time finding a job and at the same time her health is not very good, she gets sick all the time. We try to support her, but we pray that the Lord will provide her with a suitable job. Her name is Birgül and she is also a believer.
God bless you so much! We are praying for you too! Maria Gökçe&Ata BAYSAL
