Merry Christmas

This year my Christmas is looking a little different than usual. Myself and three others from the track left on Wednesday night for Istanbul by bus. Twelve hours in an upright seat is not always suiting your sleeping needs so we were all pretty tired when we arrived in Istanbul. Our first morning consisted of finding a great bakery, me chilling at Starbucks for a couple hours and the rest sleeping away the afternoon. I eventually made it back to the hostel and fell asleep myself waking up at 4:30 just in time to get ready for supper. The rest of the day mostly consisted of resting.

On Friday we visited the famous Agiya Sofia. What an incredible building with so much history and significance. At one time Istanbul was named Constantinople and the Agiya Sofia was built in honor of Constantine in about 300ad. The Agiya Sofia was burnt down twice and the third building was constructed about 400ad, complete with domes, whereas the other building was more of a rectangular shape. This church was one of the largest churches in all the world and had great importance, being the capital of the Roman Empire

In the 1400’s Istanbul was conquered by an Islamic group and the Agiya Sofia was tuned into a Mosque until the 1800’s. During the mid 1900’s the plaster in the Mosque was stripped away to reveal the beautifully handcrafted mosaics from the previous church. The Agiya Sofia is now a museum in itself. It is quite incredible to stand under eight story domes, decorated with mosaics, paintings and ornaments and to think that ten thousand human hands once crafted this building.

Anyways enough about this building just thought you might be interested. Three days we spent in Istanbul and then took off to visit some people in Bulgaria for Christmas. I was quite shocked at how I pictured Bulgaria to be and how similar it was when we arrived. A fog filled land and quite cold, the snow just disappearing. Looks like I won’t be having a white Christmas for the fifth year. The town we are staying in called, Pazerdjik, has many apartment buildings remaining from the Communist era but lying just outside the city is beautiful snowy mountains. We hope to go skiing later this week!

I also wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and New Year wherever that may be this year! I hope that Jesus is close to your hearts and becomes real in this time. Thank you also for your support through this incredible journey God has been taking me on this year. It has been a wild year with many unexpected situations. For example, deciding to go to Costa Rica with my leaders Paul and Susi Childers one week before we left.
To sum up this year; I have been to seven new countries (one of those being painted in a tribe), staffed a Discipleship Training School, lead a team to Columbia, finished a Living Waters program, visited home, worked at a café for one month, had a photography exhibition; currently helping lead a team around the world studying photography, the Bible and World Views and I am now celebrating Christmas in Eastern Europe. So thank so much for being a part of it! Love you all very much and please don’t be shy to email anytime (kiwana5@gmail.com or Facebook).

Please pray that this Christmas would be very real for me as it is hard being away from my family at this time of the year. Also pray for opportunities to minister to people when we visit some of the gypsy villages here in Bulgaria. One last thing, just for this year in general, that I would grow deeper with God and he would continue to use me in leadership, photography and being Jesus to people as well as I can!

Blessings and Merry Christmas,

Aaron Harcourt
photogenX team
Around the World Track
http://www.aaronharcourt.com/
PLEASE DO NOT COPY/PASTE/SAVE PHOTOGRAPHS! THEY ARE FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT BUT NOT TO KEEP. THANKS, AARON

Agiya Sofia
























Blue Mosque






































Istanbul