Greetings our dear brothers and sisters!
We praise our Lord Jesus Christ for His grace and participation in the spread of the Gospel.
We are grateful to all who support us and our ministry in Armenia.
Everything is developing in our churches by God’s mercy.
The Tuesday Bible study was renewed in Kahtsrashan.
Brother Suren is working in Ararat. We pray to start a children’s ministry there. Suren is also helping brother Erem in Armavir. We want to renew regular worship in Armavir. To do this, we have to repair the first floor of Erem’s house and make a separate entrance to the worship space. Please pray about this need. We want to do all work till the end of the summer and start worship in September.
The ministry with special blessing and strengths is developing in Erevan’s new church. We think about naming this church. We have a small competition regarding it. We have three options: “Masis” (this is part of Ararat – one of the mountains is named Masis), “Life”, and “Agape”.
Worship in new Erevan church
I previously mentioned that on 3rd of March we had our first Sunday worship meeting . Before that, we met on Saturdays. Until April 7th, we had our worship meetings in the building of the church “Ararat”. However, God has blessed us with the new place in the city center. We are able to rent a 70-80 people meeting hall for free!!! It is just a miracle, no one believes us… We don’t understand why this happened! We are just quietly, peacefully, and gratefully enjoying the grace which God has given us! Let Him be praised for that!
Almost every Sunday, the Lord brings new people to the church. Every Thursday, we have small groups. In August, we will have the first baptism in the church by God’s mercy.
Currently, we are praying for the Lord’s blessing with funds for camping in Nagornij Karabah in September.
In May, Fedja Gulinjan and I were invited in Samara to the pastors’ conference. The main speaker was Alex Montoja. The topic of the conference was “Run to receive.” Pastor Alex is Mexican and is pasturing a Mexican community inCalifornia. He was bringing God’s truths in a very practical way. God has touched my heart with the question. We are running and ministering to our Lord, but “Where are we running?”
Alex Montoja and Artur Maradjan
In May, the college “Ararat” had an academic session (it was the second one this semester). Students were studying Hermeneutics. We have decided to invite our good friend Vadim Jakim to teach. In 2005, Vadim was an intern through the program “Missionary internship” in Armenia for 2 months. He revisited in 2006 and left a good impression. Later he became teacher in Odessa seminary. He gladly agreed to teach a Hermeneutics course. He made this complicated class easy to understand. During free time, he was preaching in our churches.
As a part of the program “Help to the preacher”, a three-day conference for the pastors and ministers on the topic “Faithful church of Christ” took place in Armenia. It was a very useful and encouraging time not only for our team but also for all participants. Many pastors were testifying after the conference that the biggest issue in Christianity is FAITHFULLNESS.
During the early church times, the horrifying persecutions were determining the faithfulness; money and earthly standards of life do it today.
This year, the children’s’ ministry “Sis” is celebrating 5 years of its existence.
This is what Artak Marandjan, the, person who is responsible for this ministry, is writing: 
“We are grateful to God for the ministry of “Sis” in Armenia. It is hard to regularly meet, organize camps, and do after-camp work in these hard times. It is also hard to find other ministers. During these 5 years, over 1000 children participated in our club and camps. Part of the children joined our church teen ministry. We also consider it very important to contact parents and share the Good News with them. We plan to spread “Sis” ministry all over Armenia. Please, pray about this ministry.
One more news bite: Natasha and I are expecting a fifth child. It was unexpected for us because we are in our early forties. However, we accept everything as from the Lord and rejoice regardless of any troubles. We believe that the Lord will provide and everything is under His control!
With love and prayers from Armenia, Artur Marandjan
