God gave you style, he gave you grace.

Lots of things to write about, but they're all jumbled. So here they come.

We had another installment of our Global Cafe last Friday night. It was a smashing success, I thought. We had some fun games planned, but I was a little nervous. They were kind of simple games, but at the same time, I was worried that they may be too advanced for some people. Plus, I was afraid that they may be too childish. But, they turned out to be great. I will admit, I love a good group game. I made another friend in the English teaching department at the university. Hopefully that will develop into something that I can call a friendship and open doors to a new niche for me out there.

That day was one to really remember too. Zach and I had lunch with one of the most interesting people I have ever met in my life. He's a guy that we met through our weekly basketball game. He actually used to play pro ball here in Turkey, but was forced out because he was translating socialist books into Turkish. After that, he went off to Canada for a while. After being fed up with the big city, he made friends with some local native americans and moved in with them. They gave him the name, "Wild Wind from the East" and he loves them dearly. Somewhere in all this, he made some good friends in Cuba too. I'm sure his socialist and atheist beliefs was the common denominator there. Back here in Turkey, he is a lawyer now. He has worked on cases for a local Islamic group as well as for the local Catholic church. He gives a lot of free legal advice, bootleg DVDs, blues remixes, and, as I found out last Friday, free Cuban cigars. He fed us a nice kebap lunch, though he just ate leftover breakfast food. After our kebap, we made our way to his office where he offered us cigarillos from his last trip down to the island. He packed a pipe and we all lit up. He had a lot of business to attend to, so it was mostly Jared and I having nice conversations, but it was a great afternoon.

While we're talking about smoking, let me say that I had the chance to smoke a nargile again this week and it was just as good as I remembered. Such a sweet, mild taste. I love it.

Since Zach and his wife are leaving soon, and going on vacation even sooner, we had a small gift exchange the other night. It was such a fun time to spend with the people who have really become my family over the last few months. It's going to be hard to see them go. But I will always have a part of them here with me.

Especially Zach, since he left me enough clothes for me to postpone washing for a whole week. I doubled the number of t-shirts I own in a week.

I know this is mostly just stuff that I've done, and not what I'm thinking. But I don't know that I'm exactly sure what I'm thinking right now anyways. I need to take a little time and sort through it all. I have a lot of joy in my heart right now. I love this country and this city. I love the people I know here. I am really looking forward to seeing Italy soon (more to come on that). I am ready to meet God all over again.

And I'm late.