Thoughts on missions and Turkey update

Yeah so while it is still fresh in my head i wanted to tell you all about this thing going on in my head. it started about a week or so ago when one of my roommate's friends sent him a link for a product being offered on this website: http://www.kingidentity.com/ check it out, especially the doctrinal statement, which scares me a bit. But for those who dont want to read into the website ill tell you a bit about it. Kingdom Identity Ministries is a non-profit Christian outreach ministry, and after reading their mission statement they seem like a great organization seeking to bring God's Kingdom to earth also they claim that 100% of all tithes, offerings and such received by the ministry is used to advance the Kingdom of God. So it does sound great but then upon further examination of the website you will see at the bottom of the home page a link which says, "White Christian Ladies Only" it is a job posting, but what caught my attention the most was the part that says she must be "racially pure." so then i went on to look at their doctrinal statement, and it looks all good, saying they believe Christ is the only Son of God and that salvation is through faith not of works. But then things get weird when they say, "We believe the White, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and kindred people to be God's true, ;literal Children of Israel. Only this race fulfills every detail of Biblical prophecy...this chosen seed line stand far superior to all other peoples in their call as God's servant race." Also "race mixing is an abomination in the eyes of God." This is related to what they said about the women being "racial pure" so they cannot have a husband outside of the "chosen race." They also have a sticker in the "special items" section that says "don't be a race mixing slut." So what am i getting at with this, well as said in the title i got to thinking about missions work. We do all these mission around the world to introduce people to Christ for the first time which is all good and great we are of course called to do just that. But do we forget about whats in our own backyards? are we not called to show Christ to everyone? i feel that often in the case of extremist Christianity like this we go on saying, "let them believe what they want", or we say sorry for it, "i am sorry for what has been done in the name of God." ok while i think that saying sorry for what has been done in the name of God but actually been outside his will is good i do not think we should dismiss these people as being outside our mission field. should we not try and show them the real love of Christ instead of letting them go on discriminating against other races and spreading that distorted view of God? we feel so often feel convicted to bring Christ to the people around the world who have never known or heard of him, but what about that people who have a grossly altered idea of Him than what we know to be true. I dont want to sound like i am down playing missions around the world, they are amazing and we should always do them, but what keeps us from going to places like this were people hold these views and then attach God to it to justify their racism. my mind is kind of a jumble with these thoughts and i dont think im really getting my point across well so i think ill stop there. but as a conclusion, just think about this, when we are called to spread the word to the corners of the earth doesnt that included Harrison, Arkansas where this ministry is located? Dont all people deserve to hear the Good news, even the ones who have heard it and since then twisted it? also should we fear that people are out there still using God's name to justify something as simple as not hiring a women for that secretary job i mentioned earlier? so think about those things and so will I and hopefully i can come back with a clearer view on this issue.


Turkey update: So Martine was here this past week and it was awesome! So great to have a familiar face here and it is just fun to have a friend here to share this experience with. We just had an awesome time, we went and saw a lot of stuff I have already been to but we did some new stuff like go to these islands off the coast of Istanbul called the Pricess Islands. There are no cars allowed there so we rented bikes and rode around the island for a few hours. We went up these massive hills because at the top were monasteries and great views. I think the best way to hear about what we did is actually to look at the picks on facebook. I mean a picture is worth a thousand words and if its an album of 60 pictures thats a really long blog post, and i dont type that fast. So check them out, it was a lot of fun. A few other highlights are that when Martine and I were on our way back from the airport there was a piece of the road on fire, not too big but traffic was still diverted. We saw these really cool carnie people who were a traveling band in which one of the instruments was a tuba. We climbed Ataturk mountain, not really its just a hill. and we saw some of the coolest sunsets ever! alright other than that school is just like it has been the first 6 weeks, slow, uneducating, and no class half of the time. but the sight seeing and stuff is great! I miss you all!