This blog post is part of a series whereby we get a glimpse into the life of different Christian families during the COVID-19 lockdown. During this series we’ve heard from parents who are unexpectedly homeschooling their children, from parents who are keyworkers, and from parents who are working remotely from home (and providing childcare/ schooling). While these families may be facing different circumstances – each of them have the same source of hope through this global pandemic. The hope of the gospel.
Today we are really excited to hear about the experience of lockdown from a family who are living in central Turkey. For the family’s safety, their names and photograph have been omitted from this blog post.
A family living in Turkey
1) Describe your family and what your average day looks like under lockdown.
We’re a British family living in a city in the middle of Turkey. We have 3 boys aged nearly 5, nearly 3 and 10 months. My husband works from home as a computer programmer and we also work with and serve the local Turkish church in the city. Under lockdown, in one way, the building blocks of our days remain the same – my husband is still working from home for a large part of the week and I’m still looking after the children and home educating our eldest son. But everything is also completely different as we obviously can’t meet up with people, we’re spending all of our days at home and our work with the church is either being done virtually or put on hold.
2) What challenges have you encountered?
As part of the lockdown measures, under 20 and over 65 year olds are banned from going outside of their homes here. We live in a flat, so not being able to take the children outside at all is pretty challenging! Thankfully our flat is fairly large and has a balcony, which makes it a little easier for them to get some fresh air and get their energy out. But honestly, living here can be hard and lonely at the best of times and not being able to see people or take the children outside makes things even harder.
A big challenge for us is uncertainty and fear about the future. Right now we’re meant to be applying for a visa for my husband that would allow us to stay long term here and also planning for a home assignment back in the UK this summer. Currently we can’t get the visa application done and all international flights to and from Turkey have been stopped. Until now, we’ve been quite privileged in our life here in that we’ve always known that if a family member in the UK was seriously ill, we could get on the next plane and come straight back, or that if one of us was seriously ill, not only would it be relatively straightforward for someone in the UK to come and help us, but there was always the possibility of medical evacuation if required. Now those options are not available to us. We were really looking forward to being back in the UK this summer and seeing friends and family, so if we have to postpone or cancel our home assignment, that will be a big disappointment.
3) What encouragements have you seen?
A few of the Turkish believers in our church have told us that in recent days some of their non-Christian friends and family have wanted to start reading the Bible or have been asking them about the hope in Jesus that they have. Jesus is going to build his church here and he’ll use even COVID-19 for his glory, and that is a huge encouragement!
Also, like other parents, we’ve had hard conversations with our children recently – why everyone’s talking about a virus, why they can’t see friends, go to church or go outside. But difficult circumstances give us an opportunity to point our kids to Jesus. We’ve been listening to the song ‘Jesus Strong and Kind’ as a family a lot recently and consequently have heard our children repeating to each other and singing (enthusiastically but not always very tunefully!) that “the Lord is good and faithful, he will keep us day and night, we can always run to Jesus, Jesus strong and kind”. It’s encouraging to remember that God will use these times to plant truth deep into little hearts and minds.
4) Why is the gospel good news for your family at this time?
The Gospel is good news for our family at this time because it reminds us that despite all of the fear and uncertainty, the fundamental things have not changed. The worst day in history has already happened when the Son of God died, he’s now alive in heaven interceding for us, and we are alive in him. I don’t know what will happen in the coming days and weeks – but that’s been true all along, Coronavirus has just exposed the illusion that I had some control over events. I do know that in Christ we are eternally secure and loved and safe and that God is trustworthy and faithful in every situation.
And it’s also good news because it’s the liberating truth that by myself, I am weak, sinful and insufficient but because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, I am alive in Christ, approved of and loved by God and have the Holy Spirit living in me. So when I’m tempted to think that with enough Pinterest-inspired activities and crafts and enough determination, I can do a great job of occupying and educating my children, supporting my husband, keeping up with video calls, keeping a clean and tidy home etc., I can remember that I’m not strong enough or good enough to do all of this. And when I fail and my plans are in pieces and I get impatient with the children and it’s not even 10am, I can ask my children for forgiveness and know that the Holy Spirit will give me the grace and patience I need for the day.
A huge thank you to this family for taking part in this series!
Why don’t you take a few moments now to pray for this family that are serving Jesus and living in Turkey? Pray that they would know the closeness of Jesus at this time when family, friends and their Turkish church community are at a distance. Pray that God would make a way for them to have their visa application approved when the office reopens; that God may enable them to come back to the UK for home assignment during the summer; and that God would use this time to bring their children to faith in him. Pray that Christ would build his church in Turkey and for the local believers to share Christ boldly and virtually over the coming months.
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