Catching Up

After a couple of quiet days, it's finally time to update our mission trip blog. Our photo album is pretty much up to date (though we still want to post videos at some point) and you can have a look at it here: Mission: Armenia 2014.

On Thursday, we decided to slow things down a little and didn't do much more than get together with a couple of our local friends (two separate meetings) with whom we partner in sharing the gospel in Armenia. It was great to catch up with them and get a better feel for where things are at with the church at large here.

Friday ended up being a day off for Pastor Joseph and me, mainly because I had to call in sick with a head/chest cold and knew I'd be pretty useless. We did run a couple of errands and respond to emails but, otherwise, did our best to rest up and prepare ourselves for the busy weekend coming up.

This morning I woke up feeling somewhat better and my health improved as the day went on, despite the intense heat today (the high was 36C!) We spent part of the day visiting three elderly ladies in different parts of the city and we pray that we were able to offer them some encouragement. Our new friend Samuel (whom we met last year when we were here) really touched our hearts when he gave his phone number to one of the widows (they had never met before) and said that she should feel free to call him whenever she needed something done around the house or had an emergency; he didn't live far and would be glad to help her out. What a great example of selflessness and of obedience to the Scriptural teaching of taking care of widows and orphans.

After a brief rest upon returning to the hotel, Pastor Joseph and I split up again. I've spent the afternoon with Lilit Mantashyan (our Joseph Hovsepian Ministries team member and translator) and her mother Anna, and I'll be sleeping over tonight because tomorrow we'll go together to a Bible study where Pastor Joseph will meet us and be the guest speaker. Afterward, we will be going to another church service where Pastor Joseph will speak.

We only have tentative plans after that but we hope to do several more visitations and we are in the process of organizing one more baptismal service.