Sorry, wrong country

I am very sorry to inform all of you that we seem to have made some kind of colossal error and blundered into the wrong country. We thought we were going to Belgium, but it turns out that we are actually in Turkey.

Or at least it feels like Turkey. We moved into a new house in a new neighborhood a little farther north in the city of Brussels, in a neighborhood called Schaarbeek. Some of the businesses on the street where we live include travel agents specializing in tickets to and from Turkey, restaurants selling kebabs and Turkish pizza (I am curious about this!), and communications shops where one can make a phone call to Turkey costing only 20c a minute. There is also a mosque and an office of the Muslim Federation. Our landlords, Piere and Marie-Ange, say that they have become very familiar with the contents of the Turkish hit parade, as each business plays Turkish radio stations quite loudly.

This morning Carlton and Parker and I went to the small grocery store on the corner to buy some breakfast food—perhaps some milk and cereal, or maybe some croissants and pastries, or just plain bread. However, it seems that none of these foods are staples in the Turkish diet—at least judging by the food available. There was a lot of delicious-looking produce, many bags of rice and chickpeas, multitudes of different hot sauces (Carlton will certainly be back), cans with various vegetables that I was unable to identify in my soporific state, and red, black and brown henna for dying hair. But there was nothing that we would usually identify as breakfast food. Finally, we spotted the eggs and decided that scrambled eggs might be better than tahine for our hungry morning tummies. Just as we were paying, we did notice three boxes of chocolate cereal on a top shelf—but it was doubtful how long it had been there. They looked somewhat dust-encrusted. We stuck with the eggs.

We have often spoken of how quickly Islam is growing in Europe, but it is interesting to actually be in a Muslim neighborhood. Of course, it is obvious that there are varying levels of strictness as evidenced by the clothing of the women, some of whom dress like Europeans and others who wear full robes and headscarves. It is also interesting to speculate how God might use us—or others we reach, or others who work alongside us—to reach these people. It certainly invites each walk to the tram to be a prayer walk!

Shannon