Greetings, dear brothers and sisters!
You know, logically, everything had to stop and to end, as there is neither means nor resources to continue the service. But God in His mercy gives us grace and everything continues.
Lord miraculously sends money, makes hearts of local believers to be really immolate. Thanks to God’s intervention our service not only exists, but also develops! All glory to the Lord for it, because it is His grace, which is illogical and not predictable.
By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ on 8 September 12 more people from our new church were baptized. This is an evidence that God is working in Armenia, the Lord continues to add saved people to church. This is a great encouragement to the church.
In the end of September, our church celebrated the Feast of the harvest. It was a special time of thanksgiving the Lord, and not only, but it was also the time of repentance for forgetting sometimes all the work the Lord does in our lives.
I preached on Psalm 102, which from cover to cover impregnated by the Great God and His works in our lives. There were many unbelievers who observed the service with great interest and surprise.
On 31 October we had a pastoral ordination. Our brother Edik Mirzoyan was ordained as pastor of a new church in Yerevan. Edik is a brother, who has become a faithful member of our staff and co-worker on the field of God from the first days of our ministry, and now he’s been doing this for 12 years. There were guests at the ordination – pastors from different churches in Armenia and other countries.
The last session of the program for pastors “To help the preacher” took place in the end of October. Three years ago, we invited brothers from Samara, to help us to open in Armenia “School of preachers.” Brothers agreed, came to Armenia, took a closer look and prayed with us. After several conferences in 2012, the first session of the program “To help the preacher” took place on our church base “Ararat” in Yerevan. Pastors and their assistants came to study from all over Armenia. Lord was richly blessing us during this time, and the level of preaching increased a lot. At the end we staged a prom and all graduates were awarded with diplomas. Glory and thanks to the Lord for it. Together with brothers from we decided to continue our partnership. In 2015 we are going to organise mini-workshops 4 times a year for all segments of the church. We also pray that from 2016 we could start a new set of “School of preachers.”
In early September, I received a call from the Ukrainian Embassy in Armenia, they invited our family to represent Ukraine at the International Exhibition of different countries, that was hold in Yerevan. 27 countries took part in the exhibition and each country presented its “chips”. Our family decided to represent Ukraine with its national cuisine. We cooked various Ukrainian dishes – Dumplings, Bubble and squeak, Borshch, Galushki, Kiev cutlets, etc. In addition, the Embassy of Ukraine provided us with souvenirs, different books and CDs for the exhibition.
Friends, you have no idea how Lord has blessed us with this! Almost all visitors came up to us and asked how situation in Ukraine is going. Especially foreigners, they came and said that they are solidary with us and they are worried about the events in Ukraine.
Our pavilion was considered to be the best. In addition, the Lord has opened for us new doors. It turns out that there are many refugees from Ukraine in Yerevan, and we haven’t even known about it. Now the situation is so serious that we are thinking to start a new church for foreigners. Moreover, really close relations were adjusted with the Ukrainian Embassy. This is a great opportunity to proclaim the Gospel, and we are praying that God will continue to bless us in this direction. We do not know what will happen, but we believe and see that the Lord is preparing something through it in future.
Dear brothers and sisters, please continue to pray for our, or at least Natasha’s with child trip to Ukraine in December. If we do not catch to register the child until 2015, we will not be able to receive child allowance. However we have problems with this too. So far as we do not live permanently in Ukraine, the allowance isn’t in some way supposed to us, especially in such a difficult time for the country. Artak has traveled to Ukraine on this issue already 3 times. He spent a lot of money, time and nerves but so far we didn’t receive anything.
Therefore, we do not know whether it is necessary to go in winter. But on the other hand, if we could still get this allowance, it would be a huge support in our difficult financial situation. We pray about it and ask that you pray the Lord to give us wisdom, how to do the right thing.
Dear brothers and sisters, we thank you for your prayers and support in our ministry. Let our Lord richly fill your needs!
Prayer needs:
- For our churches, especially for a new church in Yerevan;
- For the ministry in Ukrainian diaspora and refugees from Ukraine;
- For coming to Ukraine and paperwork.
With love and prayers from Armenia,
your brother Arthur Marandyan