MA26 – August 17
What. A. DAY! But it “happens”. . .
We started as usual with breakfast and devotions. Especially for those of us who usually attend the daily 8:30 a.m. Zoom call in Montreal, we have really appreciated these moments of Scripture reading, discussion, and prayer.
Shortly afterwards, Emmi and Arayik came to the hotel and we headed out for our first visit. It was a heartbreaking experience.
Upon our arrival, Armen, a boy of about 11, led us through a small crumbling tunnel we later learned had once been a mule barn. We took the first left into a dimly lit apartment where we were met by an elderly woman who had two other children with her: a year-and-a-half-old girl named Victoria and an angelic six-year-old boy named Sarkis. He was the main reason for our visit, and this was the heartbreaking part. Sarkis has a condition which currently prevents him from walking, due to damage to his spine caused by a brain hemorrhage. His condition is treatable, but improbable due to the costs involved. In spite of his limitations, he has the sweetest disposition and had many smiles for all of us. He was especially delighted to receive a children’s Bible story book and said that he loves to read.
The grandmother did not ask for anything except to be connected with a good church, and as the Lord would have it, she “happens” to live fairly close to Pastor Stepan’s church. He has already agreed to follow up with her and help however possible.
Our next stop was to visit the shepherd family who was baptized last year. Unfortunately, the father and son, who had planned to be home today for our visit, were delayed and so we did not get to see them. However, we had a nice visit with the mother and two daughters. Before we left, a niece “happened” to drop in to share the good news of her acceptance into the police academy, and it turns out that she is also a believer, attending an evangelical church about 200 kilometres away. Her church is also working with the Iranian community so she agreed to take some of our Does Your Life Have Meaning? devotionals with her, both Armenian and Persian. So, due to no credit of our own, the Good News is going to be shared further afield than we could have planned or even thought of.
We next dropped in on Takhoui, a friend of the Hovsepians who has become like family over many decades. As we stood in her doorway, she shielded her eyes from the sun and looked around at the members of our group. When she spotted Jonathan, she called him out by name, telling him that she prays for him a lot. We thought this was impressive since they only met once before.
For the rest of the late afternoon, we walked quite a bit in the city centre and spent some time at the “vernissage” (the open-air artisanal flea market), then went to a “western armenian” restaurant for supper.
On our way to the restaurant, there “happened” to be an old woman sitting outside of the hotel begging. We have seen her before and a couple of times gave her a little money. Jonathan met her once on his own and, with his broken Armenian, offered her the “What Are You Searching For?” tract with a few dollars. This evening, we introduced Pastor Joseph as the author of that tract and had a more fluent conversation with her. She said she had read the tract and affirmed that she is a believer. She is on the street begging because her daughter has a medical condition and they need to find money to treat her.
Walking a bit further, Shubroto “happened” to spot two young men from Bangladesh, giving us the opportunity to chat with them briefly and offer the same tract, this time in English.
After dinner, when we returned to the hotel and were beginning to prepare this report, a family of five we thought had checked out of the hotel two days earlier “happened” to return. We had seen them several times in the breakfast room over the last week, speculated that they might be Russian, and perhaps Christians, and assumed they didn’t speak English. We were wrong about the English part.
When they saw us sitting at the outdoor cafe tonight, the oldest child, a boy, came to say “hello again” to us. Then he asked: “Do you also believe in Jesus?” When we said yes, he said “We thought we heard you praying before eating breakfast.”
When his sisters and parents caught up with him, we learned that the father is a volunteer evangelical pastor. We had a nice visit for about half an hour, during which Pastor Joseph, who was not with us, “happened” to call Ann-Margret over Messenger from his room. These two volunteer pastors were connected over video and are looking forward to meeting in person tomorrow. We can’t help but regret that we did not speak to this family earlier.
We have been saying all along regarding this trip, as we said last year and as Pastor Joseph has said about his previous visits, that we really want to be led by the Holy Spirit to the people that we are supposed to meet. So even though certain things “happened to happen,” we do not believe that any of them happened by chance. It is a blessing to see how these situations come to be, and we ask you to join us in praying that God will turn these “happenings” into greater things than we could ever hope or imagine, for His glory.
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