MA26 – August 18
Today was one of our non-stop days.
At breakfast, we met the Russian pastor and his family that we mentioned in yesterday’s report and we learned more about their situation and the challenges and scares they face because of the Ukraine-Russia war. But they were quick to share a lot of their blessings, too. We will be praying for them and would ask you to do so also. (Because of their circumstances, we are not sharing names or specific details)
After our morning devotions, we met with a woman whose mother-in-law we have been supporting for several years. She travelled for over an hour to our hotel because she really wanted to see Pastor Joseph again (it had been several years since their last meeting). We had a short but pleasant visit with her.
We headed out immediately afterward to visit a family our team connects with most years we are in Armenia (the mother was baptized last year). Interestingly, it was the daughter who initiated the meeting at her parents’ home. It was amazing to see how much she has changed and grown spiritually over the past few years. One of the outcomes of our discussion today was the decision to start a new Bible study in their home. This will be the third new study group started in the last year. God is good!
Our next stop was to Pastor Stepan’s church for their Tuesday Bible Study, which we had attended last week. This afternoon, there were a few more people present and a lot more discussion, some of it quite animated. It was encouraging to see believers of different spiritual maturity levels discover and discuss the Word together.
We then returned to the hotel, tired but blessed, and decided to head to a nearby restaurant for dinner. While waiting for each other in the lobby, we talked for a while with another family we had seen and chatted with a few times. They are Armenians from Toronto, so it was nice to connect with other Canadians! We discovered that the mother was born in Iran, so we offered her a Persian copy of Does Your Life Have Meaning? and gave an English copy of God’s Workshop to the family as well. Both books were accepted gladly. They will be here for a few more days, so we hope to have more opportunities to talk to them.
As we are just over halfway through our trip, we realize how tiring visitation can be. It would be easy to imagine that going to someone’s house, eating watermelon, and drinking a coffee is a relatively easy exercise. But there is an invisible expenditure of emotional and spiritual energy which can be quite draining, and we all seem to be feeling it at the moment. So please pray for our ongoing energy and strength, specifically that we will be able to offer the hope and encouragement that we came here to share.
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