A first-hand account from one of our team members who served in Turkey!
For two weeks in April I went to Adiyaman, Turkey to participate in building temporary housing for victims of the catastrophic earthquake that occurred in February of 2023. I had heard of the climbing death toll and saw pictures of the destruction. I was still unprepared for what I saw. For the most part all buildings seven stories and over were not inhabited, and all of them showed signs of damage.
We arrived in one of Adiyaman’s outlying villages and the outgoing team demonstrated how to construct a shelter. We also would be cutting the necessary materials to size. We built 20 structures in those two weeks. Several were memorable, in that we could see how needed they were.
One site we arrived at was in an older section of town where the houses that were leveled by the quake had already been cleared away by the government, leaving a muddy field strewn with rebar, cement chunks, and the detritus of destroyed households. A woman of about 70 met us and we agreed on a place for the structure to be built. We set to work and in about an hour and a half we were done. She then invited us into what was left of her damaged home for tea. The ceiling of her home’s entryway was on the verge of collapsing but she directed our team of seven into a small room of about 12’ by 15’ we sat where we could and tea was served. Her three surviving grandkids stood or propped themselves against the walls and she explained that their father was currently in Poland and was trying to get residence in Germany. She had lost four of her grandchildren in the earthquake. I felt that the shelter we built was so little compared to what she had lost. She, however was gracious and thankful.
Another day we visited a city park that was being used as a tent city and being administered by a local church. One of my teammates saw a man setting up a shelter with what can best be described as tree branches. We discovered that he, his wife, and two young children were refugees from Syria. Syria has also been hit hard by the earthquake and these folks had fled seeking help. We were able to build a shelter for this family immediately. The family had a boy, a child of about 7, who looked inside the shelter when finished and grinned ear to ear. The woman was sweeping it out before we had even packed up our tools. It was great being able to fill an obvious need so quickly.
On my return people have asked me how the trip was, and I reply “Worthwhile”, some are puzzled by that response. Was it fun? No. Was it interesting? How is peoples suffering interesting? Nearly everyone we talked to had lost at least one family member. People have lost homes and jobs as well. But the trip was worthwhile. Turkey is a 98% Muslim country and for Christians to be able to reach out and help expands the Gospel. One man summed it up when he told us over tea, “The Muslims say bad things about the Christians. But who comes to help us in our time of need?”
