Armenia
Rudik and Julietta’s story
“Rudik and Julietta gladly welcomed me into their tiny rented room in a hostel,” recalled, Inna, a member of Mission Eurasia’s Field Ministries Team. “Although I saw them for the very first time, I felt part of the family right away. They quickly set up a table with all the fruit and sweets they had in their home and we started talking. “I learned that the couple had been married for over 40 years and they had happy lives in Hadrut, Nagorno-Karabakh,” she said. “Rudik was the head of a large bakery and Julietta worked in a store. They had three children and now have eight grandchildren. They lived their comfortable lives in a nice beautiful house and drove a nice car. “But when war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan last fall,” she said, “the couple boarded a bus, like many other people. They were told they would be back in…
From fearful Yazidi to child of God
“We are all going to hell!” Boris remembers his Yazidi grandmother in Armenia telling him this when he was a young man. These words frightened Boris, who turned to a Yazidi spiritual leader for hope. But he told Boris that only a select few would make it to paradise and that even spiritual leaders like himself couldn’t escape hell. Hopelessness and poverty surrounded Boris and led him to become an alcoholic. Despair among the Yazidi people is not surprising, says Don Parsons, Mission Eurasia’s ministry director for unreached people groups. “The Yazidis are a religious subgroup of the Kurdish people,” he says. “Most of them are animistic pagans who worship the sun and pay homage to Satan.” But someone shared the Light of the gospel with Boris. At first, when he heard about Jesus, Boris thought that Jesus was just the Armenian god. But he cried out to God and…
Mission in Profession: A Young Doctor’s Testimony
“I know that God had a plan for me before I was even born,” shares Naira, a School Without Walls student from Armenia. “My family was very poor when my mother found out she was pregnant with me, so they advised her to terminate her pregnancy. But God had a different plan, and my mother decided to keep me. I know that my birth was God’s will, and I have seen Him work in every stage of my life. I could see His hand in my admission to medical school and my decision to become a doctor. “Difficult life circumstances often make us feel distant from God. Unfortunately, I experienced this in my own life, and I turned away from my faith for a few years. When I wasn’t walking with the Lord, Aram, the local School Without Walls coordinator, invited my sister and I to a youth camp, which…
Sona’s Testimony: From Emptiness to Hope and Meaning
Sona is a vibrant young Next Generation leader from Armenia who is being trained through our School Without Walls program. She shared her incredible testimony with us of how God filled the emptiness of her life with love, meaning, and lasting hope in Him: “I am 20 years old, and I became a believer when I was 15. My parents got divorced when I was 10, and after my father left, I was very angry and I felt so empty without him. I closed myself off emotionally and tried to pretend like I was tough. When I was 14, I asked myself, Why am I here. Why I was born? I believed that God existed, but I imagined that He was far away and that I was alone on earth. “I tried to fill the void in my heart with science, school, and music, and eventually, I started listening to heavy metal….