June 15, 2014

We are safely in Bere having arrived here Friday the 13th. We had 2 surgeries today; one was a typhoid perforation of intestine and the other was a ruptured ectopic pregnancy with a lot of blood in the abdomen. Nice Father’s Day, I think there is a photo on Facebook of Danae and I in surgery today.

After leaving Oklahoma June 1 we arrived in Istanbul the next day afternoon. We had an overnight flight from DC to Istanbul. We had 6 bags instead of the permitted 4 and one of the extra was 70 lbs instead of 50. They suggested at the airport that we pay the minimal amount of $380 ($150 per bag plus $80 for the extra weight) but perhaps we may need to pay more at DC or Istanbul. But all of our bags checked through to Istanbul. We did not leave Istanbul til June 12, but Turkish Airlines let them go through on to NDJ without extra charge when we showed them the receipt from OKC). Kermit and Ronnalee Netteburg (Olen’s parents) were with us from DC onward. We spent one night in Istanbul then we drove a rental car to Izmir (Smyrna). It was a beautiful drive through some fertile valleys with lots and lots of fruit trees and farmland. The cherries and peaches and melons were delicious. They seem to be able to raise almost anything. There are miles and miles of olive trees in Turkey.

We went through Iznik (Nicea) on the way and saw where the Council of Nicea occurred although the church has had to be rebuilt since an earthquake many years ago. Now it is a mosque. We toured the seven churches area of Turkey during the next several days. Our Turkish guide was very good with lots of information that I cannot remember all of. Also Jon Paulien was very good with extra bits about each place and how it related to the 7 churches of Revelation. We also went one day out on a boat to the isle of Patmos which was quite interesting. It is larger than I had imagined it to be, 10 square miles. One story is that John may have gone there as a missionary rather than being banished there as a prisoner. Either way he received his visions and wrote books there. We were in a different hotel each night and had a good bus to take us to the different sites. We crossed the Dardanelles in a ferry then bussed to Istanbul. We toured some mosques and palaces there. Also had a 2-hr afternoon boat ride on the Bosporus, and the last evening in a restaurant that had beautiful evening views of lights on mosques and the bridge that crosses the Bosporus (similar to the Golden Gate Bridge). Turkey is a very modern country with good roads yet has many things that are thousands of years old. The ancient Hittite empire has been proved with archaeological findings which proves that the Bible was correct when it talked about the Hittites.

We left Istanbul for N’Djamena the evening of the 12th. It was over 90 degrees at night and high humidity especially as we got back to Bere but today we had a small shower and wind so tonight is cooler.

We have a lot more in my daily notes or diary also of our trip out west in the US to visit various relatives and see some of the national parks. We have taken many pictures on our vacation but now we have to get back to work. We enjoy all your emails. Some of you we missed visiting but you are in our thoughts. Continue to pray for us.

Our blog is: www.weareamissionarybland.blogspot.com

Our emails are: drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com