My name is father Conrad Pecevich. I want to say, first of all that, this has been for me a very spiritual experience and cultural and many other things. I first of all want to say spiritual; because I have appreciated so much the faith of the Turkish people and people here in Turkey of various religious traditions especially the places of worship that we have visited during the week. This is a trip that I would never be able to have taken in my lifetime or afford it. Every day I made a point to get to a mosque or two, to thank God, thank Allah for the people who have made this trip possible, because it hasn’t been a simple trip. It is a very complex and wonderful and beautiful trip with every little detail has been taken care of.
I know that I speak on the behalf of everyone that we so much appreciate the generosity of the RumiForum and anyone else who in anyway made this possible because as a I said I would have never been able to have done this or done it to the extent that I have done it. I’ve thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it. I have grown again, a little more of my love for Islam especially when I have been in mosques and seen the shoulder-to-shoulder and man running into be next to each other and stand up before God and pray in humility. That really touched me, so many times whenever I hear the call for prayer if I was near a mosque I have run just to see that because I don’t see that at home. It challenged me to openness: to be more open than I have been in the past. I have seen a beautiful side of the people of Turkey. I really never knew any Turkish people that I have been aware of, but the openness and the generosity of all the people that we have met whether it be the homes that we visited, the schools, the hospitals, today the university, the school, just the openness, the kindness, the warmth of the people had. Another thing I wanna say as a priest, you know I don’t wear my vocation, my sleeve, however once people found out that I was a priest the respect the honor they gave me was just utterly humbling. You could feel it you know. So I wanna thank you and thank for this beautiful opportunity. The culture of Turkey is so wonderful. I have seen; we all have seen so many precious things that I was never aware of. I became so interested now in learning more about Turkey and especially Ataturk. I can’t wait to pick up a book about the life of Ataturk. But and what a wonderful group we have! So I thank you! And if ever I can do anything in my humble way for RumiForum or any of the others I would like to express my generosity that way. Thank you!