Peace & War

Gentle shepherd come and lead us
For we need You to help us find our way
In the day when our ears are bombarded by beckoning voices
And our world is polluted with sound
Lord, let us hear you

- Gentle Shepherd 

Former President Safe After What F.B.I. Describes as an Assassination Attempt

Ten years ago this month, the army of the Islamic State (or ISIS) swept through Sinjar and the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq. These two regions were the ancestral homelands of two of Iraq’s oldest religious communities – Yazidis and Assyrian Christians, respectively.

The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.

- The King of love my Shepherd is

Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast. So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread—simple, genuine, unpretentious. - 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. - Psalm 62:5

In August 2017, after an arduous summer studying the Armenian language in Yerevan, I made a visit to the nearby Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, home to a population of 100,000 Armenians, members of the first nation to convert to Christianity. Even though I was only there for a few days, I was enchanted by this ancient Christian land – its green mountains, the stone medieval churches dotting the landscape, and the exceptional kindness of the people who lived there. 

At the time, I had no idea that I was visiting a country that would soon disappear forever.