In 2018, my husband and I attended a leadership conference in Turkey with our six-month-old son Yohan. By the time we got there, God had already planted hopeful thoughts and plans for the church in Armenia in our hearts. The bus dropped us off, and we ran into a fantastic couple from Georgia, Mikael and Egha. We later learned that they were the ones providing the help for the Yerevan church all these years when it was going through dark times. They told us they had been praying for 10 years for God to send Armenian leaders to come to Yerevan and revive the church there. It was an emotional moment when we realized God had been working behind the scenes and preparing our hearts to serve his kingdom in Armenia. It explained why we recently experienced the extreme passion and desire to return to our Armenian roots. During the conference, we also met a couple of other leaders from the Moscow Church of Christ. We sat with Yuri and his beautiful wife and shared with them our dream of moving to Armenia and serving the church there. Together, we discussed future plans, and they promised us their loyal support.
Finally, last September (2021), we moved to Armenia to settle for good. We met Nicolay and his family who stayed faithful all this time, and together we had a vision and a dream to revive the church again! We studied the Bible with three Lebanese Armenian repats and Nikolay’s daughter, and God crowned our efforts with four baptisms within a few months. We also ran several Bible talks for singles on Saturdays for a few months and exposed the church to more people.
Then God carried us from one glory to another. We rented a place to meet as our number grew, and we no longer could fit in a house, and more visitors began to show up at our Sunday service. Now we have a kids kingdom ministry of around six kids. We sing praise songs in Armenian, Russian, and English. And we are on our way to making our presence on media more compelling as a church. We are looking for passionate compatriots who love God and want to get back to their Armenian roots. If you are an Armenian, or you have Armenian disciples in your community who might be interested in being part of the revival of the Yerevan Church of Christ, do not hesitate to write us an email or call us on the phone. Whatever help would be more than appreciated, be it physical or financial, or a short visit.
Manuel Vartanian: [email protected] +961 3 839 426 (WhatsApp), +374 41 839 426 (Armenia)
Lilit Hakimian: [email protected] +374 93 59 82 74 (Armenia/ WhatsApp)
