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| Pastor Armen |
There are hundreds of thousands of Armenians living in Siberia with no gospel witness. Armen Vazgenovich is a pastor reaching this people group in the city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Here is Armen’s testimony is his own words. “My name is Armen Vazgenovich Matosyan. I was born September 26, 1967 in a non-Christian family. During my life however I’ve been seeing God through my dreams and visions. When I was 12, I experienced clinical death and I saw God at His thrown, and God sent me back. I finished a high school in Armenia and 1985-1987 I was in the army. I got to know God as my personal Savior in 1989; the same year I received water baptism and baptism of the Holy Spirit simultaneously.
After that I was thrown out of my house and rejected by my family because of my faith. I started my ministry as a youth pastor in the town of Vanadzor, Armenia. Some time later I received a vision from God and clearly understood that He wanted me to go to Siberia and minister there. I didn’t understand why Siberia, but I was taught to be obedient to God in everything. In several months, my family and I left Armenia for the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Having come to Krasnoyarsk I met a lot of Armenians who lived and worked in this city. Making acquaintance with them, talking to them, getting knowing their needs I understood why Siberia.
We started working with Armenian people, and in May 2001 the church was opened. Today we have 120 regular attendees in our church. Our church is considered to be an “Armenian” church but I would say that we are international church, because 30% of people in the church is Russian, Ukrainian, Finn, Estonian, Latvian. Our church continues growing. We have 22 new converts, this is the number of people who repented not only at Sunday meetings, but also in the middle weak services. We have 70 mature believers, 50 growing believers and 17 leaders.
We want the word of God to be spread through Krasnoyarsk and the Krasnoyarsk region therefore we use all possible ways to tell people about Jesus.
Not long ago we began to publish newspapers in Russian and Armenian. We go to large and small towns and villages to share Gospel. We want to visit every place and witness to as many people as possible. This is why we have opened a Bible school. My dream is to minister in as many places as possible because I see how desperately people need God in this region. We have a wonderful worship team, they can sing in many languages and they use their talents to serve God and people going with us to different places of Krasnoyarsk region. Thank you for your support and prayers.”
