As far as free amenities go, Turkish Airlines wins. My travel experience from New York to Istanbul included two delicious meals, a fantastic movie selection, and a neat little pouch filled with all kinds of necessities like a toothbrush (especially convenient once we realized our bags would be delayed indefinitely), toothpaste, earplugs, an eye mask, lip balm, and pretty green socks. My seat buddies were two highly considerate Turkish men who weren’t bothered at all by having to get up at least four times to let me go to the bathroom over the course of the flight. And given the amount of water, tea, and coffee I had consumed over those nine hours, I was highly grateful.
On pretty much every flight I have ever taken, I would rather say almost no words to the people sitting next to me, unless they are attractive males my age-ish. That was my plan on this one as well, until my seatmates decided they wanted to be my friends. Our topics of conversation included, but were not limited to…
…observing differences between Americans and Turks:
“Your people are unhappy. And they all have pets. And they put all their happiness in their pets. In Turkey, we have neighbors, and we talk to them and eat with them. Your people don’t talk to their neighbors. It’s very bad.”
…explaining the World Race and reasons I actually trust these people:
“You just met these people, and you trust them? If you were my daughter, I would not let you go.”
…discussing differences (and similarities) between Islam and Christianity:
“We remember God a lot because we pray to Him 5 times a day. Not everyone is like you. They don’t believe in God, or they only remember Him 1 day a week.”
It was the first time I had talked about my faith extensively with someone who didn’t believe me. It was great and hard and stretching and enjoyable... and essentially inconclusive.
Throughout the course of our discussion, they told me I ought to read Rumi’s Mathnawi. I had been reading through my paperback copy of Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What for the second time, and I felt like God was telling me to give it to them. It’s one of my very favorite books, bearing marks of love and evidence of time spent with various underlines and comments scribbled in the margins. I didn’t want to lose it, so I told God that if they asked about the book while I was reading it, I would give it up. After about twenty minutes, of course, one of them asked.
It led to a very involved discussion about Jesus. How my new friend sees Him as a great man, a wonderful messenger from Allah, as a prophet—but not as God. I talked about how Christians see Him as so much more than a messenger: the Son of God, the sacrifice for our sins… the only way to get to heaven. How God knew that just doing enough good things wouldn’t cut it, so He made another way for us to be with Him. How He took our punishment for us. The meaning of the Cross. The necessity of it. The reason it saves us.
And that was hard, because who really enjoys telling people that what they believe isn’t true? That, according to my religion, your religion isn’t enough?
So we made a deal. I would read his book about Sufism and inner purity, and he would read my book about how Jesus is all that matters. We promised to exchange thoughts via contact info we had swapped in the beginning of it all. He said he would be open. And I said ‘yes’ to that.
The other invited me over to his family’s house in Turkey once I finished the Race in December.
“No, I can’t. I have to go home in December.”
“What? Why can’t you come in December?”
“Because it will be a year since I’ve seen my family! I have to go see my family first.”
“Okay. Well, next year, then.”
“We’ll see.”
And I sincerely hope we do.
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