[Armagan]

Paşa-

— I was born in Kayseri in 1983 and lost my father when I was only two years old. My mother then moved to Diyarbakir to be with her brother and our lives became very difficult. Because my uncle refused to take care of us my mother got into a very difficult situation. My uncle told her to give her children to an orphanage. My mother struggled for some time but was able to find a job and we children were able to go to school. Later on I started university and got involved in some incidents which resulted in my arrest. I suffered from this but later decided that I wanted to get away from this kind of life.
One day I went to a Pir Sultan Abdal association, which had been started by some of the local Alevis. There was a young man named Gökhan there who played the saz (a stringed instrument like a guitar) beautifully. He always told of how his uncle was a minister. Because I grew up as an Alevi I had no understanding of what religion was. I went once to a church in Mardin (another city farther south) and wondered what my friend’s uncle might be like. So, one day I told my friend I wanted to meet his uncle. He took me to the Diyar bakır Church and introduced me to his uncle Ahmet Güvener. He presented me with a New Testament, which I read carefully for a while. Then they invited me to an Easter Sunday celebration. This was very different from anything I had experienced before and I was quite surprised by it. A girl called Suzan was giving her testimony and I was surprised at how excited she was about the Gospel and the New Testament. I had trouble believing that the New Testament would cause such excitement. However, I began to read the New Testament more and began to understand why that girl found this book so exciting. I also began to wonder more about the Bible and began to take lessons from Ahmet.
And then I found the words that caused me to believe: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 —NIV)
When I read this verse I saw that true salvation and life was only found in Christ Himself and so I believed in Christ.
What I liked most was this: One day I saw a policeman who had always arrested my friends and me in the past and he said, “I don’t see you in any of these incidents any more.” I told him I was going to church and he replied, “I wish all of these people who get involved in this stuff would go to church!” I was very pleased by these words, as they showed me what Christ had been doing in my life.
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32 —NIV)
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