November 27, 2000
Turkish woman hopes to light the way
for others to follow her journey of faith
___ISTANBUL, Turkey--She used to grope in the darkness for something to hold onto. Now Hale Gencel lights candles to illumine the way for others.
___A 29-year-old Turkish Christian, she started a small candle-making studio in Istanbul in 1999. She intends to sell her colorful, creatively designed products at home and abroad. Even more, she intends to hold up a light--to be a light--in the lonely spiritual shadows where she once dwelled.
___Many of her friends--young, urban, well-educated, Muslim in name but not practice--still dwell there. They aren't quite sure what to make of Gencel nowadays.
HALE GENCEL
___"They're looking for truth and can't find it, but they see the peace in here," she said, tapping her heart. "They keep asking me what it is, and I keep saying, 'I told you: It's Jesus.' They don't want to hear that, but they keep calling, asking for prayer."
___She smiles wryly at the apparent contradiction, throwing up her hands in mock exasperation.
___Smiles come often to Gencel's face these days. She grew up in a nominally Muslim family, like millions of others in cosmopolitan Istanbul.
___"You ask them, and they say they believe," she explained. "But they're pretty secular."
___So was Gencel, who adopted the modernist skepticism fashionable among university students in the city. Her father's death in 1993 devastated her, however, and she began to search for a "belief I could hold onto." Buddhism intrigued her but supplied no answers to the basic questions: What is truth? Where is God?
___"The Buddhist priests are wise; they can show you what the problem is," she acknowledged. "But without the solution, it doesn't matter how well you know the problem. You have two options--to get really lost or to find the truth."
___In Gencel's case, the truth found her in a dream.
___She lived in New York for several years, met some Christians and considered their beliefs--from a suitable mental distance, of course.
___But one night she dreamed vividly of meeting Jesus Christ--and giving him a wedding garment.
___Shocked and in awe, she went to a Christian friend and said: "I have seen your Lord. Tell me about him." The friend directed her to the Bible, which Gencel devoured daily while riding the New York subway. She eventually embraced Jesus as Lord.
___As Gencel grew in faith, she began praying about returning to Turkey to tell others her discovery.
___Her commitment to Christ angered Gencel's mother, who warned her she would have to choose between Jesus and her family--a wrenching choice many Turkish believers must make.
___"I can live without my family," the new convert declared. "I can't live without him."
___Mother and daughter eventually reached an uneasy truce; they don't discuss the issue.
___Meanwhile, Gencel has begun making candles--and lighting the darkness with the peace that radiates from her.
___"I used to pretend to be a powerful woman, but inside I wanted to hold onto something," she said. "Now I am a powerful woman--because of him."
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