President's Message

Our founders, meeting in Worcester, MA in 1918, may have been visionaries. But just as likely they were practical immigrant Armenians who gathered to take action to help the families of their countrymen who had been killed and disbursed throughout the Near East and the world in the first genocide of the bloodiest century in history. Their aim was to organize themselves to help the survivors rebuild their lives materially and spiritually in new lands.

To those ends our Armenian Missionary Association of America has been striving for the past ninety-four years as the missionary arm of our evangelical churches around the world.

Now, as then, our emphasis is on strengthening the spiritual lives of our people while supporting their physical needs. While our people and churches are all over the world, our emphasis until the tragic 1988 earthquake which devastated Armenia was the Near East because of large population of survivors. The 1988 earthquake required the collective effort of most Armenian groups to help. The major work of the AMAA since that time has been assisting our people in Armenia with their physical and spiritual needs.

Our primary focus in Armenia today is on building churches. Each Sunday in Armenia approximately 1600 persons worship in the 32 meeting places that have been established. Some meet in old movie houses, others have new church facilities. Our goal is to continue building churches and repairing existing facilities until we have the buildings to meet the needs of these our fellow Christians.

With so much activity in Armenia, it is important for our AMAA to continue to do all that we can for our Armenian evangelical churches and schools around the world. I am mindful that our people in Syria and the Near East are now enduring a time of stress and uncertainty. Growing numbers of Armenians have emigrated to Moscow and the Crimea and are in need of our assistance. Small communities in Istanbul, Bruxelles, Sao Paulo, Varna, Marseille, and Montevideo, among so many, work to spread the gospel and need our help and encouragement.

I ask for the support in prayer, effort, and substance of every person reading this. Your help will encourage a dedicated staff and the many volunteers who work daily for the success of the AMAA in all its manifestations all over the world. May God bless you and your family and may He guide the efforts of the AMAA.

Joseph Zeronian, Ed.D.