Day 2 - All Saints

November 1, 2009
It’s Sunday night and the end of the first big ministry day. End to end, as usual. I started the day at the Armenian church for liturgy, a two minute walk from where we’re staying. Odd to think how I could actually go to both the Catholic Mass and the Armenian Liturgy here in the same time it takes to do one service back home. No travel time makes a huge difference.
The local Armenian church is where my friend Fr Drtad is now the pastor. Unfortunately he has the flu so there was a guest priest this morning (I did call Fr D this evening with get well wishes). It was great to see his church packed. Far more people than any of my past visits here before he was assigned here earlier this year. Maybe a third to two 50% more. He’s obviously doing something right.
As I mentioned in my posting yesterday, we had our first program this afternoon. We were well received by the 50-60 folks who came. The highlight was a sharing Savi gave on how she prayed a prayer after church while sitting in her car on the feast of Assumption a few years back. She asked the virgin Mary to be a mother to her because her own mother was so far away. When Savi got home she received a phone call from Sri Lanka that her own mother, who had not been ill, just passed away. It was so moving that the translator broke down in tears and we had to pause for a while so she could recover.
I invited people to come up for prayer right after the sharing. I don’t think a person left the hall. It’s so good to have a team when it comes time to pray with a group like this. Way easier to pray with 60 when you have a team of 6 rather than being alone.
Tomorrow we have a home gathering in the afternoon and then we’ll go visit a good Armenian friend who lives nearby in the evening for desert and fellowship. The friend, Garo, and his brother own a silver shop near the Grand Bazaar. They both rededicated their lives to the Lord in the last couple of years and have become very active at church and in a prayer group. Garo has translated Neal Lozano’s book Unbound into Turkish and has now sent it back to Fr Drtad for comments before doing the final edit. He plans to be done by summer. The copy he used was my original with my notes and questions. He treats it so reverently. I’m so looking forward to it being published so that we can teach them with the text.