News/prayer requests from Rahim and Zema
October 22, 2020
Dear Friends,
Greetings from afar!
We pray and trust you are doing very well. Would you please take a few minutes to read our update and pray for us? Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking some time to read our letter. We value your friendship very much!
Ongoing war
As we have communicated previously there is a war going on in the country and it doesn’t seem to stop any time soon. The death toll and destruction is increasing every day. Even though we live in the capital city that is away from the conflict zone, there are reports of missiles landing near the capital city as well. Zema’s parents’ city, Ganja, which is the second-largest city, (also not in the conflict zone, about 60 miles away) has been badly shelled several times and there are dozens of civilians including children dead and many more injured. We have offered Zema’s parents to come to Baku to stay with us for a while, but they have decided to stay there. We also have a small YWAM team in the city and the last and the worst shelling happened near their home that shook up their house pretty badly. Thankfully everyone is safe. However, the fighting is still going on in spite of several attempts for a cease-fire. The ministers of foreign affairs of both warring countries have been invited to Washington this coming Friday to possibly convince the parties to stop the fighting and resume diplomatic negotiations that failed after trying it for 27 years! Prayers would be appreciated for productive meetings in DC and for the safety of civilians, no more losses of lives.
Unfortunately, the news in the West seems to be slanted toward the “Christian Armenia,” but the conflict has nothing to do with religion, it is purely a territorial/geopolitical conflict with countries like Russia, Iran, and Egypt (!) siding with Armenia, whereas Israel and Turkey heavily side with Azerbaijan…
Here are a couple of articles that discribes the plight of internally displaced people as a result of this conflict and the importance of Azerbaijan for the West if you are interested in knowing more:
Ministry opportunities and guarding our hearts
On a different note, there are new women in need that are coming to our ministry home and due to the situation, there are also new opportunities to minister to people. We have also been meeting with a lot of our staff to pray and seek God’s heart in this situation. As Christians, it is automatically assumed that we would be on the side of the “Christian Armenia” in this conflict and now that emotions are running so high, we are all trying to be careful in our attitude. We obviously love our country, but also maintain a Godly prespective based on the Word of God in this whole situation. God has been working in our hearts and preparing to minister to others even in more effective ways. Please pray for wisdom and God’s clear guidance for us and protection for our hearts as the war has shaken the entire country.
Financial needs
In the midst of this craziness (first pandemic, now an all-out war) we’d like to share a couple of financial needs with you for your prayer and consideration.
We have been praying about raising some funds to put our kids in a better school. For now, we don’t send them to school since the public school option has not been a good one like we share before. Because of the pandemic, we have temporarily been given an option not to send them to school this fall and we are actively looking for a more permanent schooling option for our kids. We have done some research and sending all three kids to a better (private) school is what we are leaning toward at this point. In order to do that we will have to raise around $12000 a year.
Another need is that we need to buy a number of furniture to furnish our new place. We are temporarily living on one floor that was meant for ministry purposes and accommodating outreach teams and we’d like to move to the floor that has been designed for our family’s use. In order to furnish our new house, we need around $7000. Our hope is to move in by Christmas.
Would you please pray and consider if you would like to contribute toward our kids’ schooling or the furnishing of the house?
Please let us now how the Lord leads you regarding our request so that we can plan accordingly.
Thank you very much for standing with us in prayer and financial support! We are immensly grateful for your partnership!
Gratefully,
Rahim and Zema (Sofiya, Nuraya and Rafael)
If you would like to contribute toward the needs we described above, you may give online using this link:
https://www.ywamorganic.org/support using our special designation code 480.
OR
You can mail a check (made out to YWAM Organic for a tax-deductable receipt) to:
YWAM Organic
PO Box 15579
Colorado Springs, CO 80935
(Please don’t write on the memo line, instead include a seperate sticky note with our name on it)
All donations are tax-deductable.
