This post is very bittersweet for me to write. We finished ministry in Turkey a couple of days ago, and we have entered into 10 days of ATL. Apart from finishing ministry, we also had to say goodbye to our small town of Ayvacik. This meant saying goodbye to all the sweet people and our connections with them.
As I wrote in my blog, Dreaming Big, I shared of a special connection I made with a family here in Ayvacik. Since the second day of being in Ayvacik, I have felt loved and cared for by this family. I shared that I spend a lot of my time sitting at the bakery or sharing the Gospel with one of their sons. I have been able to share meals with the family, lots of laughter, and experience a lot of new things with them. Along with the family, I met and made some sweet friendships with other locals in Ayvacik. An important piece of being a missionary is living life on missions. Missions is life and life is missions. So, creating relationships is so sweet when we go grocery shopping and make friends with the cashiers or eat at a local restuarant and become friends with the waitress. My favorite part about Turkey was being able to do every day life, but still cultivate relationships with people around the town.
These people become friends quickly and you get used to seeing them every day. They become family and you grow in intimacy together. So, when you know that you only have a week left with people that you love, your heart aches.
I remember walking into the bakery one day and Rose saying to me, “You are almost leaving.” I told her that we are going to just ignore the fact that our time is almost over and just soak in every second we can. But unfortunately, the day came.
Something that I have come to appreciate is spending time before leaving a location to say my goodbyes. I have done this in all of the countries, whether it is walking around town to say goodbye or setting up times to meet with friends. I have always been fairly good at saying goodbye, especially on the Race. You are constantly saying goodbye to people, places, or things. You learn to deattach and learn to be okay with goodbyes. But my time in Turkey was bittersweet, a second home, and goodbyes were not so easy this time around. I remember some days where I would just be so amazed that this was the life I was living. That I was in Turkey, making a traditional Turkish dish in someones home that I met only four weeks ago. I was so amazed at the way that the Lord created sweet friendships for me. I began to love Turkey and the people, and often times would call it my second home. It was also very funny because several people would think that I was Turkish so I joked that apart of me was Turkish on the inside. I knew that saying goodbye to the people and place was going to be hard.
I remained pretty emotionally constipated until a couple days before leaving. Every little thing would make me sad. Whether it was thinking “This is my last time doing such and such.” Or hearing people get sad that our time was almost over. The day before leaving my friend Amy and I went into town to say goodbye to our people. It was special and both saddening. We got to close out our time well and share a moment with the people we have spent the last four weeks with. That night I was cooking some tacos for my Turkish family so they could experience a Mexican meal, and I was pretty emotional. With tears in my eyes, I kept thinking about leaving Ayvacik and the people and at that moment, I hated goodbyes.
My teammate walked in and asked me why I thought goodbyes were starting to get harder. She asked if it was specifically the people, the location, or the ministry? I told her a little bit of all of them, but the reason why I thought goodbyes were getting harder was because these people that I have grown to love are also people in need of the Gospel. The thought of saying goodbye here on earth, hurts my heart about not being able to say a heavenly hello. I want the people that I have spent precious time with, to know that there is a Heavenly Father that is seeking after them and offers them eternal life. With the hope of one day seeing my brothers and sisters in Heaven, I pray that God touches their hearts so that goodbye would just be a “see you in Heaven.”
Blessings,
JOANA QUINTANA
