Donna’s Miracle in Istanbul

a miracle for them. First, the path to the church (previously unseen) suddenly appeared on the GPS of their phone. Then when a woman walked by, they were impressed to ask “Adventist?”

The woman did not speak English, but she apparently understood and pointed the three friends around a corner which led them to the doorway of the church. “It was such a joy to meet our Adventist brothers and sisters in Istanbul and spend the afternoon with them,” said Donna.

The day after Thanksgiving, Donna Maehre and two friends left on a 10-day journey that took them to Istanbul, Turkey.

While they appreciated the beautiful architecture of several mosques and rubbed shoulders with many nationalities in the open-air markets, one focus of the trip was to find and worship at Taksim SDA church, which represents the only Adventist presence in a city of 15 million people.

Finding the church was not easy. Turkey is a 92% Muslim country. Christians there, with living memory of persecution against them, generally keep a low profile. Still, Donna and her friends were determined to find their fellow Sabbath keepers and negotiated the services of a taxi driver on the Sabbath that they were there to help them find the church.

The taxi dropped them in a busy shopping area in the general vi- cinity of where they thought they should be, but the friends could see nothing that looked like a church. They questioned many shopkeepers, but no one seemed to know of a nearby house of worship. It seems the address they had was incomplete.

Not knowing where else to turn and with masses of people swirling around them, the three friends prayed, and God worked