BY GLENN PALMER

Armenia
(Glenn and Charlotte Palmer are church planters in England.)

What a blessing to serve the Lord on the mission field! Besides planting a church here in Spalding, England, and teaching in the School of Evangelism in Corby, we have seen the Lord broaden our ministry in the last ten years. We have an Armenian family, Ivan and Sona Pambakian, attending our church. Our church is allowed to use their small farm for youth and camp ministries. It was through contact with them that we became aware of the plight of the people of Armenia in 1994. I have travelled to Armenia three times. My heart was touched as I observed the difficulties of the people and their bare existence.

Therefore as the Lord gives opportunity to help, Charlotte and I along with Ian, Andrew, Elizabeth, Christine, Malwyn and Mary go the farm to sort and pack clothes, label and weigh the boxes, and inventory the goods for shipping that come from all over Great Britain.

For the last ten years we have been averaging three to four forty-foot containers per year, each containing 1200 boxes of goods packed in 40 pound apples boxes. About 42,000 boxes of humanitarian and Christian material have been sent. “Little is much when God is in it.” All of this work has been donated in everyone’s spare time. It does not end here as the containers are received in Armenia by the Pambakians, who travel there to distribute every item to the needy. Thankfully a wealthy American Armenian pays all the transportation costs.

Packing boxes for Armenia

The Lord has Mrs. Sona Pambakian and several Armenian believers who are linguists translating the Bible into the Eastern Armenian language. The New Testament was complete in 2005, and the Trinitarian Bible Society of London has printed 20,000 which arrived in Armenia just before Christmas 2005. Ten thousand copies of the booklet “Firm Foundation” was translated by Mrs. Pambakian and printed in Ireland. These materials have been distributed to a good number of churches in Armenia for teaching aids. The translation of the Armenian Bible should be completed in this next year.

The Lord is great and greatly to be praised. Please pray for this work and especially the church planting ministry of the Palmers here in England.