We’ve decided to stay off social media for raising these funds for a number of reasons. The biggest being the safety of our team and attendees. We have posted here what we shared at our Turkish Breakfast (or tried to share), about Kamp and what we are hoping for.
We actually need your help to do this camp. We need your prayers and we need your help.
While we are living in Canada we still have ties with Turkey and wish to continue to serve. Two years ago we ran a camp for Turkish believing youth. Turkish youth is defined differently in Turkey than it would be here. If you are single, 18 and older, or even married with no children, you are a youth. Generally teenagers have less autonomy/independence in Turkey than they do here (probably heavily tied to driving and work age). Teens usually start living their own lives around 18 (the odd 16 or 17 year old may go and do things but generally 18 is the age when people start acting independently from their families). This being the case, the demographics and purpose of our camp is to connect, encourage and enrich the lives of young adults who are away from home for the first time, working for the first time, going out on their own a little bit. Many camps in Turkey that are for believers are more conference style. Lots of sessions and worship. Our camp is designed to be more like the western camp with more games and time for relationship building while keeping the worship and teaching. We do a morning session and an evening session and then use the rest of the time for the ‘youth’ to learn together through different team building games and just have the space to be together as believers. Many students, even if they live in the same city, will not have opportunity to see each other often because of the sizes of their cities or being one of the few believers in their hometowns. Time that is carved out to cultivate relationship, especially with believers, is an essential survival skill for all Turks. To be a be a believer in Turkey is not that easy. Priority is never given to believers to do things on their schedule. It is harder to meet together, harder to prioritize being together. Because of the current economy and family obligations, everyone is just trying to survive. Social time with believers is hard to come by.
Our main desire of this camp is to have relationships built that will help these youth continue when times are hard. To be the body to each other.
The economy in Turkey is tanking, between inflation and the severe drop of the lira in the last two years (and now in addition to the earthquake) the money to go to a camp will probably not exist in the average household. Two years ago when we held this camp last, we worked on an honour bursary system- offering full compensation for those who couldn’t afford it and asking others to pay whatever they could. We would like to do this again to allow for more youth to come. For 110 USD you could sponsor someone to camp, that is the cost that it takes for the camp to run, thats 2000TL for one person to come. The average turk makes 8000TL a month with an average monthly rent of at least 5500TL for a lower end home. Many at this time do not have the financial luxury to do anything with their money other than survive. When I moved to Turkey in 2016, the TL was worth 40 cents CAD, today it is worth 7. When we left Turkey in Feb 2022, a pack of Diapers was 30TL when we went back in August 2022 a pack of was 230TL and the prices continue to climb. So many markets don’t even bother to price on the shelf but use stickers instead because prices change so often. Last time we ran this camp we had 80 people come. In order to run this camp again we need ten thousand CAD. Additional money raised will help pay for tickets to get us there and future camps in coming years. We have booked the camp in faith and believe that God will provide for the camp not only to run it but also to get us there.
We are also asking you to pray! This summer there is an election for the term of the president. The climate of the country emotionally is angry and broken. They feel deserted, unheard, and suspicious of everything. The Gospel is needed so badly. While our camp does not work with evangelism, as that would put a target on our backs to dismantle us, the desire is to encourage the youth to be lights where they are, to share the gospel where they are planted, to be ambassadors (because they are) to do that well, in faith and dependently on Him. This needs prayer.
-Pray for unity for our serving team, for us not to see this as any one person or groups project, but as the body of believers to be the body to one another.
-Pray for a heart of unity among everyone, for the heart of God
-For our personal agendas to be taken away and for all to walk in His agenda
-That officials would leave us alone so that we can run the camp (in past years this has/can be a problem
-For youth to come and have the availability/desire to prioritize community
Please pass this around to people that you think may be interested in supporting us. I’ve attached the Go Fund Me link below. Thank you for reading’ praying and all your support.
Koparan Family Blog 