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Greetings from all at Armenian Ministries.
We hope that you have all had a good summer and enjoyed the sun!
Ivan and Sona have had a productive summer in England. They have
enjoyed visiting many churches and giving reports of the work
in Armenia and meeting friends again. They returned to Armenia
on the 9th of September and will be there until mid-November.
Ivan will once again be available in the UK to report on the work
from mid-November until the end of February 2007. Ruth came home
for a 3-week holiday in July and is now back in Armenia. She will
be in England from the end of December until the end of February
and she would love to speak to groups about her work. Please do
not hesitate to telephone Perouz to book Ivan or Ruth for slideshows
and reports.
This newsletter largely focuses on the children’s
work in Armenia. The summer was full of children’s camps
and Holiday Bible clubs and we have tried to give you an extensive
report of what happened.
Christian Literature
The work of Bible translation is continuing. Please be
in prayer for Sona’s health. Extensive time and concentration
on the computer screen has had its toll on her eyes and for a
while this summer she suffered from migraine and eye pain. However
the opticians have fitted her with a new prescription for glasses
and the situation seems to be improving. The New Testaments that
were printed have been distributed. The Trinitarian Bible Society
has promised to print the New Testament and Psalms for us, as
soon as the Psalms are ready for publication. The Psalms are fully
translated and are now in the final stages of proof-reading.
In the last newsletter we reported that we have
a translator who is working for Armenian Ministries in Armenia.
Along with the translation team we already have, this has enabled
us to be able to translate a few extra works this last year. “Out
of the Ark”, a biographical book by Rhoda Carswell about
her family’s situation during the Armenian massacres, has
been translated and we have recently got permission to translate
three of the autobiographical works of Isobel Kuhn. Ivan continues
to translate hymns as well as children’s songs. Whenever
Ruth has time she has been writing her own curriculum for the
children’s Holiday Bible clubs and camps, and she is hoping
to print these and make them available for other churches and
Sunday schools to use.
Training meetings and Seminars
In the Spring newsletter we mentioned that we were planning to
start a women’s evangelistic meeting. This ladies’
meeting was started in the early summer. Helen Haleblian (Ivan’s
cousin from the USA) has been speaking at these meetings.
 The
first meeting was held after Ruth and Helen visited the parents
of the children who were attending the Good News clubs held in
the building of the charity in Yerevan. They visited the ladies,
evangelised and invited them to the ladies’ meetings. At
the very first meeting some brought relatives and some brought
their children. Helen asked some basic introductory questions,
such as “Who is God?”, “What is sin?”
and immediately many of the children, attending the Good News
clubs, who had come with their mothers put their hands up and
answered the questions! Sona gave her testimony in the first meeting.
Since that meeting several of the ladies have got saved and the
numbers are now in excess of 45. Helen recently left for the USA
and the ladies are missing her a lot. At the moment Ruth is doing
a series on women in the New Testament for them. Ruth telephoned
us in August to say that some men were trying to sneak in to the
meetings to hear the message too. We thank the Lord so much for
adding to the numbers and their desire to hear His Word. They
were waiting for Ivan to go to Armenia in early September to start
general outreach meetings, in addition to the other meetings already
being held in the building. We ask you to pray diligently with
us for souls to be saved.
 Good
News clubs are weekly meetings held throughout the year. Holiday
Bible clubs are daily children’s meetings that run for about
5 days during the summer holidays. Camps also run for about 5
days during the holidays. The children stay at the campsite and
are fully catered for during the holiday.
At the beginning of the summer the Good News club program for
the children finished, and Ruth and the team of workers in Armenia
prepared for the busy summer program of Holiday Bible clubs and
camps. We are very excited about what the Lord enabled them to
do this summer and would like to give you a report of the work.
We hope you will be excited too and inspired to pray for the continuing
work among these children. Throughout the report I have tried
to emphasise the conditions under which this work was done and
would like to remind you that we do not have a huge team of workers,
just some faithful people who work very hard under difficult conditions.
Let me take a moment to introduce them to you.
Ruth Pambakian oversees the work among the children.
For many of the meetings she actually wrote the material that
was taught. Appropriate choruses were translated by Ivan or Ruth
and Ruth had great pleasure in teaching the children active songs
like “If I were a butterfly”.
Gevorg and Anna, and Hovsep and Gayane, are two local couples
who are devoted to the Lord’s work, along with their families,
and work very faithfully for Armenian Ministries. They were completely
involved in the children’s work throughout the summer. Frank
and Edel Reyburn (who went from Ireland to Armenia) were also
involved throughout the summer. Frank is a fantastic artist and
was able to produce props and background material for the various
dramas, puppet shows and crafts. He also made the children colouring
books based on the theme of the club to take home with them. Edel
was the resident nurse for the camp. She was needed on a few occasions
but thankfully not for any snake bites! The Haleblian family and
other local workers worked very faithfully together during the
summer too and we are very grateful to everyone.
For some of the camps we also had helping us
a group of young people from Pasadena, California. Their team
leader was Aren. They were absolutely invaluable help, running
the puppet shows and helping in all aspects of the camps. They
had to put up with quite rough conditions. We are very grateful
to them for their perseverance and help.
Holiday Bible Clubs
Village Outreach: One of the first ventures during
the summer was a Holiday Bible club which was held in the village
of Ervandashad (Ruth writes more about this in her Prayer
Update). This village is right on the border of Turkey and
official permission has to be obtained for entry to the village.
The journey to Ervandashad is very tedious as some parts of the
road are in very bad condition and there is a military check-point
that has to be crossed that can be very time-consuming. Ruth writes
“I think the most exciting venture for us all was a
Holiday Bible club in Ervandashad. As far as we have been
able to establish, this is the first time any evangelistic work
has been done there at all. We have been visiting the village
with aid for over two years now, and have made many good friends
there. Most importantly, we have won the trust of the Head of
the village council, who promised us the use of the school hall
to hold the Holiday Bible club in. Unfortunately, when we arrived
he was away. On the first day we held the Holiday Bible
club in the school-yard (nobody came to open the school) and on
the second day the school director threw us out of the yard, because,
I quote, “We live on the Turkish border and our safety is
important to the safety of the country. We can’t allow people
to come and teach our children to love our enemies...”
Never heard that one before! So we all prayed, and were
about to continue the program in the middle of the street, when
a white haired gentleman came and opened the gates and told us
the director had changed his mind. To this day I have never
found out who that gentleman was. We had over 80 very excited
children attending.
We taught them songs and memory verses. The
lessons were from CEF’s “Knowing Christ” series
(the I AM’s of Christ). We had very good games and
crafts leaders among the team from America. It was really
rewarding work, particularly as I recognised many of the children
from the last year’s personal evangelism visits. That
was exciting. During the two days we were there, every day
at least 50 parents gathered to listen to what was going on and
to hear the message.
I must tell you about our accommodation,
or lack of it. One granny in the village kindly shared her bedroom
with the girls in the team, and went promptly to sleep snoring
loudly throughout the night. Needless to say we were a bit bleary
eyed by the end. The boys had to sleep in our nine-seater
minibus. The temperatures were 35°C and above! The toilet
was about 100 yards away and consisted of a hole in the ground
covered by two planks. One of the team, Aren, met a snake coming
out of the toilet just as he was going in. Unfortunately we do
not have a picture of this snake as for some reason Aren forgot
to take his camera with him to the bathroom!!
We had a thrilling time and felt the power of God working
through us the entire time as we took His message of salvation
to a village where it has probably not been heard before.”
 Of
course, holding the Holiday Bible club in the school-yard meant
that the group of 80 children simply had to sit on the floor.
There were no chairs or tables (the photo shows them doing their
crafts on the floor), there were no toilets or electricity, and
most importantly there was no shade from the sun!
Frank and Edel’s: Another
Holiday Bible club, for about 20 children, was held in the yard
of Frank and Edel’s house, with the same theme as in Ervandashad.
There is already a Good News club that takes place on a weekly
basis at their house. Please continue in prayer for the children
that attend.
 Whilst
in Ervandashad, in between morning and evening Bible clubs the
charity workers as well as the American team split into three
groups and visited 30 homes, giving a bag of essential food items
to each home (this was a gift from the American
team). This enabled the group to show Christian
charity and demonstrate the message of love that they were preaching
in the Bible club.
 Please
pray for the work in this village. Ruth is hoping and praying
to start a weekly Good News club there but there are the following
problems involved.
• We need the help of the village council to obtain weekly
passes (something like a visa) to enter the village.
• We need a venue to hold the Good News club.
• As there are no local Christians there to teach, we need
workers to travel there every week.
Continued on page 2
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