Hugs from God

By Wendi Kitsteiner

In 2010 our air force family found itself stationed at Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey—about forty-five minutes from the Syrian border. A few months after arriving with our two toddler boys, we found out we were expecting another baby.

For some reason (and I’m still not sure what we were thinking) we thought it was a good idea to celebrate our first Christmas overseas in Istanbul. We joined two other families and flew across this new country we called home for a long Christmas weekend.

Our rationale included the fact that Turkey did not celebrate Christmas at all. It’s approximately 98 percent Muslim, so what did it matter where we were? We might as well make the best of it and do some traveling while we had the chance. But staying on our American base, where we at least could celebrate Christ’s birth with other Americans, might have been a better choice. As we toured Istanbul, the absence of anything resembling Christmas or Christianity started to work its way into all our hearts.

To read the rest of this post (and see a video of our God hug in Turkey!), please jump over to THE GLORIOUS TABLE.