For Armenia With Love

I’ve made multiple trips to Armenia over the last couple of decades, where I’ve served Christ alongside the Armenian Relief Mission – mostly in the cities of Yerevan and Vanadzor. (ARM was born after the devastating Spitak earthquake of 1988.) On a couple of those trips, Eileen has been able to join me. We fell in love with the gracious Armenian people. When delivering food to people living in abandoned shipping crates, we learned just how far a family can stretch a bag of potatoes to prepare for brutal winter conditions. ARM has built a number of playgrounds over the years. This photo was captured in 2006, and you can see why Eileen and I left part of our heart in Armenia.

Armenia’s history includes a number of exceedingly tragic chapters. Perhaps the harshest example is the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916, when the Ottoman Empire annihilated as many as 1.2 million Armenians. In fact, in the vocabulary of international law, the origin of the term “genocide” dates back to that horrrific event on the world stage. Turkish authorities, supported by auxiliary troops and sometimes civilians, perpetrated the vast majority of the murders.

But there has always been a gospel light in Armenia! You can sense this when you’re there among the people. Many historians trace Christianity in Armenia back to the apostles, and there is evidence of a Christian community in Armenia prior to the fourth century. In fact, Christianity was declared Armenia’s official religion in the year 301. I have found it thrilling to preach the gospel, train pastors, minister to refugees, and deliver medical supplies on my various mission trips to the land where Mount Ararat – the resting place of Noah’s Ark after the flood – remains the national symbol. So I wish I could report to you that all is well in Armenia, but that is not the case. It is, yet again, a country threatened by hostile forces and plagued by relentless turmoil.

Here’s a synopsis of the present crisis in that part of God’s world. Azerbaijan is forcibly blockading the small statelet of Nagorno-Karabakh. This is the Armenian region of Artsakh, and it’s a mountainous territory in the South Caucasus. (Think of where Eastern Europe meets West Asia.) The blockade is threatening more and more lives, as the Armenians are being prevented from receiving necessary food, medical, and fuel supplies. Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, seems drunk with power. Aliyev is capitalizing on this humanitarian crisis to stoke the flames of longstanding racial prejudice and to push Azeri (Azerbaijani) forces further and further into Armenia. This is nothing short of the same demonic sort of ethnic cleansing that the people have faced before. Remember, Armenia is a Christian nation completely surrounded by Islamic nations. On top of that, Armenia is totally landlocked.

For Armenia, all of this means more and more refugees living in desperate conditions. Right now, by way of example, there are displaced families crowded into the orphanage that sits adjacent to one of the medical clinics operated by the Armenian Relief Mission. The conditions are heartbreaking.

I’m inviting you to partner with me in bringing hope and joy to some Armenian children this Christmas. Similar to last year’s project, we will make holiday boxes available to you and your kids, which you can supply with personal expressions of love and care. We will give you a packing list with your empty box, and you will return the box filled and labeled by age and gender. For the children who receive these boxes – each box hand delivered by evangelical followers of Jesus – you will have made a colossal impact for good in what is otherwise a very difficult season.

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
1 Timothy 6:17-19

Despite the sobering nature of this blog posting, we can be certain that “God seeks what has been driven away” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). The Armenians have endured bitter treatment and harsh conditions for much of human history, but we trust that our sovereign God – who is not bound by time or space as we are – is writing a larger story of deliverance and grace.

Within the next couple of weeks, we’ll start packing our Christmas boxes at Green Hills Community Church. I hope you’ll join us.

Pastor Charles