Armenia

A landlocked, mountainous country located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. The Kingdom of Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion.
A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is an emerging democracy and as of 2011 was negotiating with the European Union to become an associate member.

Seeing Mt Ararat from my hotel window in the capital city of Yerevan reminded me of God’s commission to the second generation of humanity to “multiply and replenish the earth” (Genesis 9:1) It’s a sobering thought that God’s people have the responsibility of procreation and raising our children in the “nurture and admonitions of God”. (Ephesians 6:4)

On December 7, 1988 a massive earthquake with a Magnitude of 6.9 struck the city of Spitak, claiming the lives of at least 25,000 Armenians. For 40 eternal seconds the earth heaved and rumbled, destroying buildings, homes and lives. It was a sobering experience as we viewed the cemetery just outside of Gyumri that holds many of the 25,000 bodies that were buried as a result of that quake.

The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:46 that the natural comes first, then the spiritual. With this principle in mind, I shared the following: I believe that there were 25,000 “seeds” placed in or swallowed up in the earth in 1988. A 100-fold return on such a seed would be 2.5 million.