New News Flash Istanbul to Izmir

Well as I alluded to in the last blog, things are changing.  Hopefully this is all great news.  From our perspective it is all good, but we are now faced with some new trepidations.  As Adam tells me every change in a mission can be a chance for a new start and I hope he is right.

President Wilstead, our mission president who resides in Bulgaria called on Tuesday to inform us that our mission assignment has been changed and approved by SLC.  He and his wife visited here in Istanbul with us Friday evening and we went to dinner with them to discuss our new assignment.  

We will become a dual assignment couple with both Humanitarian and MLS (Member Leader Support) responsibility.  We will be relocated to Izmir, the 3rd largest city in Turkey.  According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, as of 2011 the city of Izmir had a population of 2,783,866 and its metropolitan municipality 3,366,947.  This is a small city by comparison to Istanbul's metropolitan number of 20,000,000.


I will be the Branch President and our apartment will be the location for the branch.  We are not to proselyte, but we are to begin discussions with interested people.  Our main goal is to prepare for missionaries to be assigned to Izmir.

Mutual at our apartment

Future leaders of the Church
Joseph Çakir, Mia Reynolds, Tys Reynolds,
Leah Çakir, Kiah Çakir 

We gave notice that we are leaving our apartment and we have 60 days to close out our assignments and activities.  

We are traveling to Izmir on Tuesday the 5th of March to visit with the folks in the area.  Right now there is no active attendance in the branch.  There are members in the city, but not active.  
The original plan was to abandon Izmir for a season and wait for the right time to return to that area.  Apparently that season passed in about a 5 month period.  


The last couple called to Izmir was cancelled in Nov. of last year and we were told as recently as January that no one would be assigned to Izmir.  Oh well.

We will remain the country directors for Humanitarian services, I will still be responsible for the Association of the Church to make sure we maintain compliance with the law.  Mom and I will also become the auditors for the country of Turkey.  Apparently we complained that we were not busy enough so now we have no excuse.  

I am very happy about this assignment and consider it a terrific opportunity to serve in so many different ways.  From what we hear, Izmir is a more western orientated city and is a principle tourist destination.  It is about an hour from Ephesus and many of the sites that Paul taught the early gospel.

Somehow it does not seem as exotic sounding as Istanbul, but I love the idea of experiencing another view point of Turkey.  We will be directly responsible to President Wilstead and indirectly responsible to the Humanitarian group in Moscow.

Of course we will be able to visit Istanbul when you all come to visit and we will be versed in the whole country much better.  We should be able to see the Mediterranean Sea from an apartment.

Unfortunately we will miss our assignment with the youth in the Istanbul Branch.  They are amazing young people.

I took this picture of the Ayasofya or for
you westerners, Hagia Sophia.
It looks almost fake in the afternoon sun set.