HERE IN ARMENIA

Well, I survived yet another 16 hour train ride. We are getting good at the traveling, let me tell you. For some reason though, the trains have been getting less and less comfortable as we go along. This last one, I was crammed into a miniature, stifling hot room with four others while the smells of sewage and fish wafted under our noses the entire ride...I was happy to inhale the Yerevan city air after we arrived.
Yerevan has a very small city feel to it (I think there are only 1 million who live here). It is not as pretty as Tbilisi due to the lack of the mountains, but our contacts are very kind and humorous people.
Today they (our contacts=YWAM workers for the Armenian base) took us to visit one of the first churches in Armenia (which was the first Christian nation). We were supposed to see Mount Ararat (I hope I am spelling that correctly) from the area, but it was so densely foggy that we could not probably see further than about 500 feet in front of us...we have some nice postcards of what our view should have been though.
And guess what. The snow followed us yet again! What is up?!
I left Georgia wearing a sweater and entered Armenia only to need to bundle up into my coat and long johns again! If there is snow in Israel, I am going to cry.

We are staying in a house that we have to ourselves. It is a nice place, but less comfortable than what we have been spoiled with thus far. We have COLD running water at certain hours of the day, no shower (sponge baths!), no beds (thanks again for the sleeping bag, Dad!), and basically no pots or pans to cook for 16 people. We are coping though and I am happy to be stretched, actually. It builds character, right?
On Friday morning, I will leave with 5 other team members to go to a village. We will be doing various ministry there including: preaching, giving testimonies, skits, and children's programs. We will be there for four days.

Oh, and travel dates have changed for us. We will leave Yerevan on the 22nd and travel to Turkey via Georgia (due to polictial strife between Armenia and Turkey). We will take a train to Georgia (hip, hip, hooray!) and then take a plane to Turkey and arrive on the 27th.
God worked a miracle for us to get plane tickets from Turkey to Israel. First of all, you have to apply to get the tickets on Turkish Air to Israel when you are traveling in a group. Armenia does not provide any communication with Turkish Air which meant we had to get our tickets the DAY we left Georgia (we did not find out that we couldn't get Turkish Air tickets in Armenia until 2 days before we left Tbilisi). Inge (one of our staff) "happened" to see a travel agency that deals with Turkish Air while walking down a street in Tbilisi (very few agencies in Georgia deal with them), so she went in and had the agent communicate a request to the airline for our tickets.
It took some time, but the agent got a positive response (we even got a group discount) and he started to print out the tickets...that is when their computer system crashed. All was wails and woe until it got back up and running (just in time, of course--they were closing soon) and we now safely have our tickets to Israel!
Oohh, I forgot to mention that since it was such short notice to buy the tickets, the staff didnt have enough money on them. The ATM's only let you take out up to a certain amount, so they had to scurry about collecting bank cards from us team members to scrounge up enough cash to buy them. Once again, we had just enough money when the limit was withdrawn from the cards.
Hmm...seems like Someone is really looking out for us. I am not surprised--not after all I have experienced on this outreach. What a God I serve!

So the general consensus is that all is well here with the team. We are persevering (which is not hard for me since I am really loving this trip), but also anticipating our return to Amsterdam (which will be the 11th of March).
Please pray for us! And pray for Armenia that God will be known as a personal God and that His Holy Spirit will come to rest upon them strongly.

more from me later...probably from Israel, but who knows?
~Michelle/moosh/hannah