Escape Through the Bazaar
Story★★★★We were in Turkey on a tourist vacation when we realized none of us had passports. At the border, militia men searched our luggage thoroughly but barely looked inside ours.
In Turkey, informants watched us closely. One man was arrested right before our eyes.
We feared being separated from the group and discovered that only my clothes, camera, and Deutschmarks could be taken for defecting. My mom devised a plan to separate ourselves at the bazaar and head to the Austrian embassy for political asylum. However, when we arrived, they couldn’t help us.
Desperate and lost, we met a man in uniform who led us to a police station where we explained our situation. They put us in a van with no windows, but my mom kept telling me to focus on the light.
After what seemed like an eternity, we were let out of the van onto American soil.
Ayer, Jim; Nelson, Janice, “Hope in Present Danger, Part 2” (AudioVerse teaching 30978).
The point
A family's harrowing escape from Turkey to seek asylum in America through a bazaar and police intervention.