From a Go-C Student Participant
Merhaba (Hello).
Nasilsin? (How are you?)
Senin adin ne? (What is your name?)
Memnun oldum. (Nice to meet you.)
After a three-hour Turkish lesson and four full days in Türkiye, that’s about as far as I can get in a conversation with a Turkish person. Naturally, that left me wondering, How can I possibly make a meaningful difference with such little ability to communicate?
After six flights, two full days of traveling, and layovers that felt longer than some vacations, I arrived convinced that I needed to do something significant. I came here wanting to leave my mark on Türkiye.
Two days before boarding our flight, our team gathered in Louisville, Kentucky for pre-training. Each morning, we were sent out alone into the wilderness with nothing but a Bible, a journal, and an hour to spend with God. At the time, I viewed it as preparation for the trip ahead. I thought we were filling ourselves up before pouring ourselves out. Looking back now, I think God was already beginning to redefine what ministry actually is. Before He ever sent us across the world, He wanted to quiet our hearts enough to hear Him.
Before we left, I had imagined this trip looking very different. I pictured myself standing on the side of a road preaching the gospel and handing out pocket-sized Bibles. When I learned that ministry in Türkiye had to be much more discreet, my expectations shifted.
I imagined days filled with physically demanding service, shoveling dirt, mixing concrete, or helping rebuild homes. I wanted to display the love of Christ through sacrifice, believing that visible service would somehow validate the purpose of the trip. No matter what form it took, I expected to come home with stories that proved I had made the most of the opportunity.
During one of our first nightly debriefs, one of the girls in the group shared something that I think many of us had quietly been carrying. She said that before we left Türkiye, she hoped she would have the opportunity to tell at least one person about Jesus.
I remember immediately thinking, Me too.
Looking back, I realize how much of my own definition of a successful mission trip depended on something measurable. I wanted one gospel conversation, one unforgettable encounter, one story that I could tell when I got home. I wanted to know that I had made a difference. There is nothing inherently wrong with that desire, but I am beginning to realize how subtly it can become centered on ourselves. Without even noticing, I had begun measuring God’s faithfulness by my ability to see the results with my own eyes.
The reality of this trip has looked nothing like the picture I had created. Instead of sleeping on the floor of a church, I have been welcomed into a beautiful apartment. Instead of surviving on simple meals, I have been blessed with incredible hospitality and three meals a day. Instead of spending every waking hour on service projects, I have found myself sipping on traditional Turkish tea in tulip-shaped glasses, laughing with people who I can call my best friends.
More than once I have caught myself wondering why this “mission trip” felt so enjoyable. It did not match the mission I had imagined for myself. Yet perhaps that disconnect was exactly what God intended. Somewhere along the way I had convinced myself that ministry was only happening when I could point to something tangible that my own hands had accomplished. God, in His kindness, has been slowly dismantling that idea.
Ironically, one of the most difficult experiences of the trip involved doing what appeared to be the least productive. One afternoon we spent an entire hour prayer-walking through the city of Izmir.
Prayer Walking
Being paired off, wandering the streets, and committing ourselves to taking turns praying continuously for whatever God places in front of us.
At first it was surprisingly difficult. Within minutes I thought I had exhausted everything I could pray about. The need to just keep talking tired my mouth.
The panic of what more I could say when it was my turn to pray was exhausting. The moments of silence in between became uncomfortable, and I began wondering how anyone could sustain an entire hour of uninterrupted prayer.
As the walk continued, my prayer-partner and I found ourselves praying for what initially seemed like the most ridiculous things. We prayed for the cats wandering through the streets, the clouds drifting overhead, the shop owners opening their stores, families sitting together on park benches, and people passing us who would never know someone had just prayed for them. At first, those prayers felt almost random. But upon reflection, I realize that they were not random at all. They were simply unnoticed.
Those people, those places, and those moments had always been there. Prayer had simply slowed me down enough to finally see them.
That hour quietly challenged everything I thought I knew about ministry. I had always viewed prayer as preparation for the real work. We pray before we serve. We pray before we share the gospel. We pray before ministry begins. But what if prayer is not simply preparation?
What if prayer itself is ministry? How could I ever consider prayer less impactful than hands-on service when prayer is what brought me here in the first place? Long before I packed my suitcase, boarded a plane, or learned how to say “Merhaba,” so many of you were faithfully praying for this experience that I’m living right now.
I am sitting here in Türkiye today, writing this newsletter, because God answered prayers that I never heard. My presence here is evidence that prayer changes things, even when we cannot immediately see how.
Basketball
A few days later, our team spent an afternoon at a local basketball court. We played pickup games with a group of boys, laughing together despite the inability to communicate. Basketball became our universal language. Before leaving, we gave them the basketball we had purchased earlier that day. It was a simple gift. We had bought it at a mall but couldn’t take it back with us on the trip back. Yet, judging by their reaction, you would have thought we had handed them a million bucks. Their faces lit up with excitement.
They asked for our Instagram accounts, tried to continue conversations through broken English and hand gestures, and were so excited that we were there. They did not seem to care that we came from different countries or spoke different languages. They were simply excited that someone had shown up and spent time with them.
If I am honest, there was still a part of me that loved that moment for the wrong reasons. It fit the picture I had unknowingly created of being the “cool American Christian.” I had traveled halfway across the world, played basketball, given away a gift, and left everyone smiling. It made for a great story. But the more I reflect on that evening, the more I realize that this was never the point. What those boys seemed to value most was not what we gave them but that we had been willing to know them.
For an hour we laughed together, competed together, encouraged one another, and prayed together. None of that required fluent Turkish. It simply required presence. Once again, ministry looked far less dramatic than I had imagined. It looked like faithfully showing up and trusting that God could work through something as ordinary as an evening on a basketball court.
During debrief that evening, my prayer-walking partner said something that has stuck with me. He said, “Tonight I realized that God didn’t just bring us here for this trip to be a mission, I think he brought us here to show us that our whole life is a mission.”
I have not been able to stop thinking about those words.
Perhaps the purpose of this trip was never to compress a lifetime of ministry into ten days overseas. Perhaps God brought us here to reshape the way we understand faithfulness altogether. Ministry is not confined to dramatic moments or international mission trips.
It is just as present in whispered prayers as it is in public sermons. It is just as alive in conversations over tea as it is in organized service projects. It can be found on a neighborhood basketball court just as surely as inside a church building. The location changes, but the mission never does.
Processing the Future
I still want to make a difference. I still hope that somewhere during this trip God uses me in a way that is obvious enough for me to recognize. But I am beginning to think that faithfulness has never required me to know exactly how He is using me. I came to Türkiye with carefully constructed ideas of what ministry should look like. Instead, God has met me in quiet prayers, slow conversations, shared laughter, and moments that seem almost ordinary. Perhaps that is because the Kingdom of God has always grown in ways that are easy to overlook. Seeds disappear beneath the soil long before they become trees and prayers are whispered long before they are answered.
Maybe that is what God began teaching me back in the woods of Kentucky. Before He ever sent me to another country, He wanted me to understand that he didn’t require me to leave with an impact. Most importantly, he simply wants me to remain close to Him.
I do not know whose life will be different because of these days in Türkiye. Maybe I never will. But I am learning to be okay with that. Following Jesus has never been about changing the world the way I want to. It has always been about faithfully saying yes each day, remaining available to Him, and trusting that He delights in using ordinary acts of obedience in ways I could never imagine. Sometimes He chooses to work through a sermon.
Sometimes He works through a prayer whispered quietly. Sometimes He works through a cup of tea or a basketball given to a group of boys. His work has never depended on my ability to plan the perfect opportunity. It has always depended on His ability to accomplish extraordinary things through ordinary people who are simply willing to be vessels.
I take it back. I know at least one person’s life who has been changed: mine.
And I know that can portray a mission trip as selfish, in a way, but I think we forget that service to others is service to ourselves. I think we forget that when God calls us to love others, He doesn’t just command that for the benefit of others, but also for the benefit of ourselves.
I came to Türkiye wondering how I could leave my mark here. I think I was asking the wrong question. The better question is not, “How can I make the biggest impact?” but, “Am I willing to trust God with the impact that only He can make?” Because at the end of the day, the Christian life is not about leaving my mark wherever I go. It is about faithfully following Christ, confident that as I walk with Him, He is already accomplishing far more than I will ever be able to see.
