My apologies for those of you reading this for a second time. We felt this news was important and urgent enough that it should be emailed out to our entire body but we also wanted to include it in our Global Outreach blog for future reference. If you are receiving this for the second time in your inbox, it is because you have subscribed to our GO blog. Thanks for doing so!

If you have not yet heard through your news source of choice, tensions are escalating between Armenia and their neighboring country, Azerbaijan. Fighting broke out this past Sunday, following the deadly clashes that took place in July. There is a long history to this hostility, one you can read about in any number of articles that are being published as news sources report on the recent clashes. 

My reason for writing to you today is to ask you to pray for our Global Outreach partners in this region. As many of you know, Grace Church has a long standing relationship with Christians in Armenia. It was in 2000 that our former Global Outreach Pastor Ray Glinski first traveled to the area, flying into Armenia with former College Pastor Chris McGarvey to explore opportunities for Grace Church to join the mission work taking place in what used to be the USSR. It was on this trip that they were introduced to Asatur Nahapetyan. Asatur is the Executive Director of the Armenian Baptist Union as well as its Seminary. Though we do not financially support Asatur, he has since been our primary contact in Armenia. He is, in Pastor Ray’s words, a gifted man whom God raised up in Armenia “for such a time as this.” 

While in Armenia on that first trip in 2000, Pastors Ray and Chris asked if there was a way for Grace Church to be connected to the most promising local church planter at the seminary. In response, Asatur connected us with Vova Sofiyan. We began supporting Vova, an Armenian who was born in Azerbaijan, that same year. Vova now pastors a church about an hour from the seminary, while also teaching several seminary classes and preaching the Russian language service at Central Baptist Church in Yerevan. We have continued to support his work for the last twenty years. 

In the years to follow, Ray, along with other members of Grace Church, would make regular trips to Armenia to teach classes at the Armenian Baptist Seminary. It was during a trip in 2013 that Asatur asked if we would consider supporting a second Armenian pastor, Sasoon Margaryan. Sasoon also graduated from the seminary before returning to his native country of Georgia. He now pastors a church in Georgia where they serve a largely Armenian congregation but in a region also populated by Georgians and Jews. 

 All of that to say, we have many ties to the kingdom work being done in this region, and recent events will undoubtably have an impact on that work moving forward. We need to pray for these brothers in Christ, and for their families, as we entrust them and their churches to the Lord even as we wait to see what will come of recent events.

Towards that end, now Elder Emeritus Ray Glinski reached out to Asatur on our behalf to ask how we might pray for them. Asatur’s primary request is that we pray for the peace of the region. He has let us know that his son, Lion, is now a Sergeant in the Armenian army and stationed near the fighting. It also appears that Armenia, like Azerbaijan, is calling up all of its able bodied men to report to the army for what may follow. Asatur let us know that a number of the Baptist pastors in Armenia have either been called up or volunteered to join the fight to defend Armenia. In each of his communications with us, Asatur has concluded his emails with Romans 8:31 - “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”  

Praise God that he is for us! Let’s pray that His presence would be felt by our Armenian brothers and sisters, and while we’re at it, let’s pray the same for our Azeri brothers and sisters. May the Lord bring peace to the region and extend His kingdom.

Sincerely, 
Nick Conner