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Dear friends,

Summer and summer camps are finally over! My last memory of camp is the tearful, dusty face of one of the poorest children that come to our camps. Her home back in her village has broken floorboards, nothing cheerful whatsoever in it and a pile of pots and some potatoes in one corner. There is not much furniture at all, no toys or books. Poverty and malnutrition has left a definite mark on her life – her growth is stunted and her intellect dulled. Her mother had rung before camp to say that she would not be able to attend as she didn’t have any clothing to wear for the camp. The camp team invited the child and brought a big bag of clothing from the humanitarian aid for her to keep. Throughout the camp she participated in everything and learnt the lessons and memory verses. On the last day as the camp bus arrived to take the children home, she walked out with her new bag of clothes and an armful of colourful teddies and prizes (also all from the humanitarian aid) that she had won during the camp. In her bag were all the crafts that she had made during her week at camp, colouring pencils and books. In her heart was the memory of all the songs, the gospel message and the love shared in many hugs. Tears poured down her face! She wasn’t the only one; many of the little children were just like her. It is your monetary donations, prayers and aid donations of toys, craft materials and clothes that have made so much of this possible. Thank you.

We are so grateful to God for all His blessings during this strenuous but full-of-fun season. This newsletter contains an update of our children’s summer camps as well as the up-to-date news on literature translation, humanitarian aid and the schoolbag appeal.

The work of the church continues to grow. The Sunday services, the Friday seminars and the ladies’ meeting (pictured left) are very well attended. Ivan is the main speaker in the church. He is also translating new hymns and the church has already produced its own hymnal.

This year was the first time that I have been in Armenia during the month of August. The heat is absolutely amazing, especially in the capital. I was, therefore, humbled and blessed to see the church members arriving faithfully for church during the really hot season. One old lady has to travel on the bus (a very old and rickety affair) for about one hour to get to church. I was convinced we wouldn’t see her one particularly hot Sunday but she arrived on time, red as a beetroot and gasping for water! It is truly humbling to see how hungry they are for God’s Word. In June eight people were baptised. It was a lovely service, conducted in our new swimming pool at the campsite!

Summer camps this year started in June and stretched to the end of August. We had nine weeks of camps; each camp being five days long. The first weeks of the camps were dedicated to children from the villages within which AM has established Bible clubs. The latter half of the camps were for the children from Yerevan who come to the Bible clubs in our charity building. For the first time in our work (and for the first time in the lives of most of the children) the village children were invited to camp. We had two weeks of camps for the children of Arteni. Although the Bible club has only recently been established in that village we had such large numbers of children in attendance that two weeks of clubs had to be run for that village. Baghramian and the border village Ervandashad also came to camp. The theme of the camp was “Out of every tribe and nation” and Ruth told the story of the mission exploits of Jim Elliot and his team to the Auca Indians. Although Jim Elliot died in his efforts to reach the Aucas; it was because of his sacrifice, along with that of the other four brave men, that opened the door for the gospel to finally reach the Aucas. The children were told the story in 4 parts and on some of the evenings we almost had a riot when Ruth stopped the story at a very exciting juncture and they had to wait to hear the next part!

Camps... a Springboard

The camps play a vitally important role in winning the children’s hearts. Very often when the children go home and tell the other children in their village or street what a time they had other children also start attending the Bible clubs. The restart of the Bible clubs in Arteni was a particularly good example of this. Ruth reported in the first week of October that for the first time the attendance at the Bible club had exceeded one hundred children, which led to an extra class starting.

Ruth had hoped to delay the restart of the Bible clubs in Baghramian for one week to give her some extra time to prepare lessons but Gevork told us that since the end of their camp the children of the village had regularly rung him every Saturday to find out if the team were on their way to hold a Bible club. When the children were told that there was no club that day they all turned up and waited outside the empty venue just in case! When Ruth heard that she decided she had to go whether she was ready or not! Praise God for such keen hearts. We were there when the team returned for the first Bible club of the year to Baghramian. The children excitedly surrounded the van and literally screamed with delight.

School in Armenia officially starts on September 1st. The week preceding this is one of hectic bustle in the AM offices in Yerevan. On a normal Saturday the charity offices are shut. The Saturday before school started I was just making my morning coffee when the doorbell rang. It was a family requesting a schoolbag for their child. Very soon the queue outside the door necessitated the calling in of the office personnel that deal with humanitarian aid. Some very smart looking children with schoolbags were soon filing out of the office and proudly going down the road. Aside from within Yerevan, schoolbags were also distributed in Arteni and Ervandashad (the border villages where we have children’s Bible clubs). Michael Harrison also accompanied Gevorg (our local director) to Nagorno Karabakh this year. There they distributed about a hundred schoolbags in two different schools.

Each schoolbag also contains a children’s Bible storybook and Gospel tracts. Please pray for the recipients of these schoolbags that they will be touched by the Gospel in their lives. The schoolbag appeal is ongoing throughout the year. We will be packing and sending schoolbags from England ready for next September but also for children who will come for help during 2009.

Recently, a number of people have asked for up-to-date information on how to put together a schoolbag. The best type of schoolbag is the rucksack type. Please do not put anything second-hand into a schoolbag as these items must last the child the whole school year. Each schoolbag is opened and checked and a children’s Bible and tracts are added. So if there are some items that you cannot find, do not be concerned about donating a partially packed schoolbag. Similarly we would very gratefully receive a donation of a quantity of one of the single items or the contents of a bag without the bag itself, for example.

We regret that Armenian Ministries cannot collect individual schoolbags from you so if you wish to donate to the “Time for School” appeal but find that you cannot get bags to us, you can donate the money for a schoolbag and assign it for this appeal. AM will then buy the different items and put a bag together on your behalf. Several hundred schoolbags were sent in this manner for 2008 and were very gratefully received.

September 2008 saw the answer to many prayers when 50,000 copies of the newly printed Armenian New Testament and Psalms safely arrived in Yerevan from the UK. These Bibles were generously donated by the Trinitarian Bible Society in London. We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to the TBS for this donation and also for all their hard work in printing and arranging the shipment of the Bibles to Armenia. Of course, we praise God for their safe arrival and for how they were cleared through customs without any problems.

Already many Christians have received their copies and some organisations have also visited and requested a larger number of copies for their congregations. Please pray for Sona as she continues to work on the Old Testament; although the work is progressing very well, it is a very slow and laborious task. The translation of other literature continues; Isobel Kuhn’s biographies, “The Calvary Road” by Roy Hession, and Gospel tracts.

I have spent most of my summer with around three hundred boisterous, active and dusty (!) children and have been forced to confront the truth of my own words in several of our previous newsletters where I have focused on the lack of toys, colour and occupation in these children’s lives. The theme of the camps, “Out of every tribe and nation”, was backed by a jungle theme. The children were invited every night to the jungle shop (brought to us by missionary airplanes!) and to be able to buy toys and goodies from the shop, they had to collect jungle money – bananas, pineapples and parrots. I was very surprised at the things the children bought. Almost no one bought sweets; they were much more interested in teddy bears and knitted bears (even teenagers).

They bought colouring books and pencils and most surprisingly, they bought the beautifully illustrated English books which have been sent in the containers from the UK. I witnessed many of the children sitting and “reading” an English book and looking at the pictures. It is with this is mind that I wish to introduce to you my sister Ruth’s new project – “Read for Joy” - She desperately wishes to address the need for books in Armenian; not just good quality, colourful books but books with the message of the Gospel.

Yours by Grace alone,
Perouz Harrison

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