Testimonies of Members of Diyarbakır Fellowship

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)

Some of the Young People Who Attend our Discipleship Course

Rojda — I was born in 1985 and spent my life moving between Diyarbakır and İzmir. When my parents divorced our lives became a mess. My mother,all my siblings and I moved to Izmir . But we moved back to Diyarbakir a few times after that, not finding happiness either in Izmir or in our home town. However, we eventually got used to living in Izmir . When I turned 18 I began to question my life. I began to read books on psychology to understand my family's situation. At the time I had a mentor who also read such books and gave me advice. She had a wonderful home and her children and husband were a very sweet family. At the same time I was writing to my oldest brother who was in jail. He went to prison when he was quite young. We would write back and forth about all we would do when he was released and I believed that we would have a wonderful life together. His letters gave me hope. The only thing I thought of was how to iron out our life. After two years my older brother was released from prison, but unfortunately my next youngest brother was arrested and jailed. Still, I had hope and I believed my big brother had changed and that it was time to act. Now my big brother and I would go work and we would have a clean and modest life.

We labored for a year, but nothing turned out as I had hoped. I saw that I had labored in vain. I began to lose hope in my brother. My mentor was unhappy despite her “perfect” life. I realized that even if I reached her standard of living I would not be happy. She was just as lost and hopeless as I was. I even began to hate the books I had been reading. All of those books on psychology had tons of questions but no answers . Nothing could save me from this situation. I began to think, “This is life, I might as well suffer though it,” and so began to let myself go. I began to go to places I knew were wrong, even though I disliked them. I entered into sins that I had formerly judged. After all, I wasn't perfect before, but now I was simply doing things for the sake of being stubborn. I thought, “If there's no answer, what's the point of trying?”

Then in April 2005, when I was on a bus travelling to Izmir , I had a vision. I was looking out the window when I saw a road that reached to the heavens. And I heard a voice say, “This is the way to God!” And then I came to again, but couldn't understand what the meaning of the vision was.

Then in 2006 I met a Christian woman who told me about Jesus Christ. At the time I was doing the ritual prayers of Islam and was hopelessly praying for my family. This woman prayed with me and for each member of my family. Even her prayers for the most hopeless circumstances were full of love. She was certain that her prayers would be answered by God through Christ.

After that I went to church and saw that on one wall was written, “God is love.” “This is a mockery of God!” I thought, because I did not know what love was. Love was not an important concept to me and this was not only my opinion. Love had been emptied of meaning and twisted. We had no idea what love really was.

Şahin — I was born in Diyarbakır and grew up there in an Muslim family and environment. For the first eighteen years of my life I followed all the requirements of Islam, be it praying five times a day, fasting during the month of Ramadan. I was very careful not to leave anything out.

I didn't know much about Christianity. All I knew was that there was a prophet called Jesus and that he received the Injil (Gospel) from God and that the Injil had been changed. Also, Jesus was taken into heaven before he was crucified. This was pretty much all I knew.

But one day I went to a church service. It was Easter Sunday, the day that they celebrated the resurrection of Jesus. I heard a very different message there. It said that Jesus had been crucified for the sake of a humans. I realized that these facts were very different from what I had known. So I began to research and began to have many questions.

There was a very different message in the Bible. It said that after Adam sinned all people were under the sway of sin and death. This sin and death kept us from going to God's heaven. So God, who calls all people his “beloved”, sent the one closest to His heart, Christ Jesus, into the world. And he died on the cross for us.

This message alone was enough for me. I also received answers to my many questions. After a difficult time I believed that the Bible is the revelation of God and I accepted Christ as my savior.