In the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life“, the main character George Bailey gets toasted at the end by his brother as “the Richest Man in Town”.
I had a Richest Man in Town moment back in September. Months after I decided to say “yes” to a leadership trip my church planned for Turkey, my fundraising for the trip had not even begun. I was in a financial hole! Our church group met and others were reporting good progress on their fundraising. Meanwhile, I had resigned myself to the fact that I had procrastinated too long, it was too late and I was going to have to pay for it – ALL of it. The sad truth is that I was fearful. I was ready to quit. Then, one day in a weak moment I shared this struggle with my friend Dave Ward. Dave wisely gave me one piece of advice: “Don’t assume that people will not be interested”. We talked about why I going on this trip. And, then he prayed for me – out loud – right there. That began my “moment”.
Don’t Give Up
I learned that church trips are easy to talk about when someone else is doing the going. In our house we say “My availability is my worship and the results are up to God”. Easy to say… Thankfully Dave was too diplomatic to say that my refusal to take a risk and invite others into this journey was really selfishness and pride. I wanted to blame my fundraising procrastination on the busyness of life. The reality is that it felt like I was going to be begging for money and that hit an ugly “pride” nerve I wanted to avoid. I just could not do it and the clock was running down. I had not spent nearly enough time in prayer and for a “man of faith” that brought on guilt and doubt and all kinds of head noise. Thankfully, God’s plans do not rest on our feeble prayer lives. The spiritual battle was on though. And I was blown away at what happened!
I dug through my contacts and made a list of friends and family. I prejudged who I thought would and would not be interested. I then ignored my feelings and assumptions. I wrote down my thoughts in a letter asking for prayer and financial support. I edited, and edited, and edited that letter. I bought envelopes and stamps. I made labels and included self-addressed return envelopes so it would be easy to help me. I simply gave God a chance to show up. And BOOM He did. Envelopes started pouring in and fast! After a few days, the mailbox had a couple of envelopes every day for two weeks. People were offering to contribute even after I got back from the trip. Each envelope whispered a heavenly “I love you”. God seemed to say “Son, this is what life is supposed to be like!” I never sensed that he was saying “Son, looks like I pulled your fat out of the fire yet again” (although He did just that).
Overwhelmed!
I was so overwhelmed with blessings and like It’s a Wonderful Life, the blessings were not things. (I am still overwhelmed) The blessings were people and their support, generosity and interest. In fact, my greatest blessing happened before I even stepped foot on the plane to leave. God blessed me with enough support for my part of the trip plus some extra for others who still needed some help. The whole group got to see first hand that God is real and that He does answer prayer quickly sometimes.
Even with all of the obvious answers to prayer and confirmation that this was the right thing to be doing, I heard from a number of friends “Hey, Istanbul is on my Bucket List”. My thoughts kept coming back to “I am asking my friends to help fund something that sounds like a vacation!” Yet, so many things were tugging at my heart for the Turkish people. OF COURSE there are closer and less expensive opportunities for me for me to serve others than going to Istanbul, Turkey. So why me, why Istanbul and why now?
Why Istanbul?
My company, Keller Williams Realty, is expanding internationally and I found out back in February that one of the expansion countries is Turkey. Some of my best clients here in Atlanta are from Istanbul so when I heard the announcement I thought “Hey, I would love to go to Turkey one day”. Each year my church organizes a mission trip and this year it happened to be to…Turkey. Turkey is a very significant region Biblically and even though they are purposefully secular, statistics say that it is currently 98% Muslim. When the Apostle Paul was walking the marble roads in Ephesus, there were very few followers of Jesus Christ in this region. There were very few Christians period. So, in some ways Turkey is not that much different from 2000 years ago except for some bad memories about the crusades. It was like traveling back in time. There is a good bit of Christian “baggage” to wade through when developing relationships with Turkish people today. You have to remember their cultural context and that some words understandably set off emotional reactions. But, the Turkish people are soooo hospitable! You just can’t help but love them 🙂
Our children have said yes multiple times already to other mission trips. They have bucked up and raised financial support. They have bravely hopped in the car, on the plane or in some bus to remote parts of Timbuktu (not literally). My kids have endured close quarters, weird food, tough weather and even danger. It was time for me to set aside work for a few days and answer the call as well. But when the trip was less than a month away, reality set in and I was really feeling the weight of this decision. “Aren’t you concerned?” “Is it safe?” “What about all of the protests going on in Istanbul?” What about all the stuff going on in Syria?” “Isn’t Turkey next to Iran and Iraq?” Details, details…
What would we be doing in Turkey?
This trip began as an initiative through my home church in Atlanta, GA – ChristChurch Presbyterian. ChristChurch Presbyterian has been supporting a church called All Saints Moda in the Asia side of Istanbul, Turkey for over 10 years. This happened to be the year ChristChurch decided to send a delegation over to Turkey to meet with Turgay Üçal, the Pastor at All Saints Moda as a part of a Leadership Development Initiative. This initiative involves culture, business, lifestyle, local neighborhood dynamics, worldviews and faith. We explored the city, met with various Turkish religious leaders, learned about their places of worship and discussed their traditions and missions (oops, I just used the “M” word). What does the word “mission” mean anyway? As a Christian in America, I am very familiar with the term “mission trip”. For me that phrase brings up images of rustic accommodations and deep discussions about faith. In business, we are advised to never talk about “religion or politics”. In Turkey, you had better not use the term “mission” or “missionary” because it brings up all kinds of deeply rooted concerns. Here’s an article from 2006 outlining some of the concerns and violence. Oh, the meaning of words… Frankly, I do not really use the term “Christian” much anymore because so many people I talk to have different definitions of that word. In Istanbul it was fascinating to discover that on a personal level, we have so much more in common than we have differences. We all have dreams, jobs, families, needs, passions, meals to eat, places to go and lives to lead. We may speak a different language and use the same term for different meanings but underneath it all there is respect and understanding if we will just start off with a relationship. Relationship first – deep discussions later.
What is the connection to It’s a Wonderful Life?
For me, It’s a Wonderful Life is so poignant because the entire story is a series of collisions between dreams and duty. All George Bailey wants to do is get out of his one horse town and “see the world”. Yet, life events keep affecting people George cares about and he cannot resist stepping in to help. It my case, I actually got to do both! Travel to a distant part of the world AND serve people I care about. If you have seen “It’s a Wonderful Life“, here is the last 5 minutes. If you haven’t seen the movie, I encourage you to see the whole thing – this final 5 minutes will mean so much more if you do.
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