Here it is, mid-January, and I'm finally having a chance to reflect on the past year! It's crazy to think of all the ups and downs the past year has brought!
This time last year, I was just digging into my second class of Turkish, just learning the accordion, just starting to feel comfortable with everyone on my team, and overall still in the "honeymoon" state of culture-shock. Over the last year, I've gone through phases of loving everything, to not understanding why they do things that way here, to loving all the perks of living in a big city, to being excited to tour just to get out of the country, to totally appreciating my expat community, to being homesick for family and friends, and probably all the way back around again. Every day is a different challenge. Every day is a different emotional response to the challenges. Every day is a learning experience!
Recently I've been leaning towards the homesick and bummed out side of the culture-shock rollercoaster. Probably because I had a friend from college visit right before Christmas and then my parents visited over New Years. It was such fun to show people from home what my home here looks like. It was fun .. and challenging.. to explain my host culture and what it's like to live here everyday. It was fun to share my ministry here and hard to explain why I feel like I belong here in this time, place, and ministry. And then my visitors left and reminded me that it's also really hard not to be able to share my days with family as well as all of my awesome expat friends.
And so January has arrived with it's blearly rainy days (we do get snow sometimes too) and I'm reminding myself that the roller-coaster will go back up again. I'm resting in the joy and peace of God's Word. I'm loving this quiet month to catch up on reflections for last year and set goals for the new year. And in the midst of the bummed-outedness, I'm turning to my favorite stress-reliever ~ music! This time last year, I shared a playlist for the new year with you guys, and so I thought it would be fun to share a new one for 2015! These songs are all songs that have meant something different to me over the past year, some are reminders of God's promises, cool turkish songs, good worship songs, fun dance songs, just makes-my-heart-happy songs, etc.
Since I couldn't put videos for all the songs on this blog post, I choose a video from of the first song on the playlist, "Wasteland" by NEEDTOBREATHE. I love this song so much, and not just because it has this awesome wait-for-it kind of build that yanks at your gut and makes the final part of the song that much more climactic. But also because I actually feel like I am living in a wasteland sometimes (woah, catch this metaphor!). Turkey can be so spiritually dark and I think Christians are bombarded with spiritual attack as we set out to follow the good works that God has set before us here. So sometimes it feels like a bleak forecast for what's ahead, but as the song says, 'oh if God is on our side, who can be against us'?! So yes, my life here definitely is not perfect, it's not all mountain-top experiences. There are a lot of days that feel more like a down-in-the-trenches kind of battle. 'But in this wasteland, where I'm living, there is a crack in the door filled with light. And it's all that I need to get by.' I know this to be true for all of us. No matter what the wasteland, no matter the mountain top or the battle, God gives us all we need to get by! I hope this song and playlist encourages you as it did me!
Here's the link to the playlist: http://8tracks.com/arielledenae/let-it-roll
Blessings 3