An intimate Epostle team set out to Armenia March 22nd to visit with refugees from Artsakh and see how we could establish and develop outreach programs there.When we arrived in Yerevan, it felt like the land itself was holding its breath, quiet, ancient, and waiting. In a city where every stone tells a story, we were welcomed into a week that would carry us through the heart of Armenia, its pain, its hope, and above all, its people.

Our first visit was to the Down Syndrome Center, where the smallest gestures felt like miracles. A toddler learning to walk, a child learning to chew, simple things that most of us take for granted were here, celebrated with patience and joy. I remember Monte, a clever boy whose laughter echoed through the streets as he used a walkie-talkie to talk to his father. He taught us something we didn’t expect: that communication isn’t always about words, it’s about connection. That joy is resilient, and children always find a way to shine.

From Yerevan, we journeyed to Vanadzor. At the Diocese of Gougark, we saw a church not only preserving the past but stitching together a future, literally. In a room filled with humming sewing machines and determined women, we met mothers, widows, and dreamers. Some were making sleeping bags for soldiers; others were learning to build a future with thread and fabric. What they were really stitching was dignity. One woman said, “Before this class, I thought I knew how to sew. Now I know I am learning not just a skill, but a purpose.”

The program initiated by Epostle, has become more than technical training, it is a movement of healing. It empowers women who once thought their age, their trauma, or their past defined them. Now, they are breaking cycles. They are no longer just wives or sisters, they are creators. One woman shared that for the first time, she is doing something just for herself. Her self-care was knitting alone at night while the world slept. And in that quiet act, she reclaimed something sacred: herself.

In Vanadzor’s Children’s Center, I saw kids who have lost so much still chasing dreams, painting visions, learning English, weaving carpets dyed with the colors of nature. These children don’t just create art. They process trauma with each brushstroke, each knot of thread. Their fingers are small, but their courage is vast. They reminded me: hope is a discipline, not just a feeling. It is practiced every day through creativity and care.

And then, there were the women from Artsakh.

No words fully capture the heaviness in that room. These women, nurses, teachers, chemists, had fled with their children and their memories, only to find their professions left behind with their homes. Their new passports now say “Azerbaijan” for a birthplace. Their grief was not distant, it was palpable, raw. One said, “Listening to them is like hearing our grandparents speak of 1915.”

We often say “Never again,” but here, we felt the echo of genocide repeating, silent to the world, yet screaming in the hearts of our people. Still, even here, in the midst of displacement and pain, there was the seed of something more: resilience. These women, too, were learning to sew, not just for survival, but to build new lives. To claim agency in a place where it had been stolen.

At the soldiers’ rehabilitation facility in Yerevan, we saw the aftermath of war written on bodies, scars, limbs lost, and souls relearning how to walk. But we also saw rebirth. Machines helping with balance. Salt rooms cleansing lungs. Psychological healing alongside physical. They are not just recovering, they are rebuilding.

One doctor told us, “We give them the tools to rise again.” And isn’t that what Armenia has always done?

We met with youth groups dreaming of futures in science, art, therapy. We heard Gala’s voice tremble as she recounted fleeing from Baku to Artsakh, and now from Artsakh again. “When you hate,” she said, “there is nothing to create.” Yet here she was, still creating, still hoping, still showing up.

Our Journey ended with the children of the “Birds Nest” program, orphans of war, cared for by the love and vision of women who refused to let grief be the last word. In their drawings, they expressed pain. In their words, they shared dreams. To be scientists. Teachers. Artists. Healers.

This journey to Armenia was not easy, but it was sacred.

As we reflect on the Easter season, we remember that resurrection comes not only in grand miracles, but in quiet ones too:
In a child’s first step.
In a widow’s first smile.
In a refugee’s first breath of safety.
In the rebirth of identity after it has been stripped away.

From the ashes of genocide and the sorrow of displacement, our people rise.
Again and again, we rise.

Like Christ risen from the tomb, Armenia rises with wounds visible, but love undefeated. And just like the stone rolled away from the tomb, we are called to move the barriers that keep us from seeing each other fully.

This isn’t just a story of suffering. It is a story of resurrection.
Of light breaking through stone.
Of a nation held together not by borders, but by love, creativity, and courage.

Let us carry this light forward.
Let us tell their stories.
Let us, too, become witnesses of the resurrection.

The time is now to transcend fear

With courage, 

So that we may become expressions of love

From ashes to Light, we rise.

BY GREGORY BEYLERIAN