Dear Friends,

Our blog posts are a little behind, so you might be surprised to know that we just left Turkey yesterday. Tragically today there was a bombing in Istanbul, that killed at least 6 people and wounded 80+ more. The attack occurred on a busy shopping street that we were on exactly one week ago. Thankfully for us, we weren’t there today.

I’m writing this post to let everyone know that we are ok. Many of you worry about us, and we greatly appreciate your care and concern. Please know that we do our best to stay as safe as possible. For example, last week when we were on that very same street, we noticed a large police presence and as a result, we quickly left the area.

While we can’t eliminate every possible risk, we do our best to stay as safe as possible. Unfortunately, tragedy can occur anytime and any place, whether it is a car accident, a school shooting, a bombing and all too often, silent killers from within, like cancer. I’m not trying to minimize the tragedy of this terrorist bombing, rather point out that we all have risks in our daily lives. The risk of an act of terrorism, while it strikes fear in all of us, is far less than the risk of many things we do daily, such as driving to work or having a few glasses of wine with dinner.

One of the main reasons we are on this trip is to educate our children and remind ourselves that the world is full of people like us. They have families that they love, they go shopping, they have jobs and they enjoy strolling through their town. We saw these people just last week and now 6 of them are dead and scores more are in the hospital. While tragedies like this often seem distant from our everyday lives, they still affect people just like ourselves, even though they occur half a world away and to people who may look different than us. We want our children to understand that events like these aren’t just a fleeting story on the news, they are a real tragedy to be felt deeply and make us pause. Only by understanding that the world is mostly full of good people just like us, do we feel compelled to strive to make the world a better place for all humanity.

Tonight, I ask you to say a prayer and reflect on those lives that were taken or destroyed today due to such a senseless act.

With love and hope for a better tomorrow,

Pete