ARichArmenianMission: April 2011

One of LDS Charities main functions here in Armenia is helping the villages with their water problems. There are 933 villages in Armenia. The water systems, pipes and valves, in 600 of these villages are owned by the government. LDS C works with the other 333. These are the drinking water systems. In most of the villages that we work with, the pipes were installed 40 or 50 years ago and they have long since rusted out. Many of these villages have had no water in their homes for 20 or 25 years. We provide new pipe and money for the construction. We run the pipe down the streets and the villagers make their own connections to get the water into their homes. Prior to this they have to walk to some water source, fill up containers and carry them back home. Needless to say, they do not have indoor plumbing. The evaluations as to which villages we work on depend on the need. A village with no water inside of the village will have a higher priority to one that does have some water. Our water engineer, Nshan, is the chief engineer for the Congress and knows the water systems in every village in Armenia. He has worked part time for LDS C for several years and is a valuable asset.


Leaky Water Pipe, this leads to contaminated water.

Walk a mile to fill your bucket from this dribble of water.

This year we selected 31 villages to work on with a cost of about $600,000. The next step is for the water engineer to design the systems for each village. After we get the project approved, we have a meeting with all of the Mayors. We talk about the project and they sign their contracts. They agree to provide a lot of the labor. They have no problem with this because they are very happy to get the new pipes.

This was one of the two Mayors meetings that we held.


What would a meeting be without refreshments.

When spring arrives, we go to work, so do the villagers. The entire county doesn't dry all at once. We have some villages in the mountains and some in the flat farmlands.

Digging the trench.

Making a connection to get water to the house.

Nshan and Elder Rich checking the thickness of the pipe.

This is as far as we currently are on the 31 villages. Some of the villages haven't started yet. We will update the blog as the work continues. This water project will consume the majority of our time for the next four or five months.

Missionaries, Baptism and Easter

We just finished a great and very memorable weekend. It was Easter and Elder Rich's birthday. On Saturday, the 23d of April, Elder Rich's birthday, we normally would have gone out to the villages to inspect the progress on the water project. As it turned out, Nshan cancelled the trip because of the weather. This proved to be one of those Missionary Miracles. The birthday was not a big deal, because Elder Rich has had so many of them, that he really doesn't care about them, but.... We got a call from Elders Garner and Zebley from our Branch. The young man that Elder Rich had been serving with in Young Men's had received his Mission Call and would be opening it at the Mission Office on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 P.M. They also said that there were two men being Baptized on Saturday night at 6:00 P.M. Elder and Sister Rich had been able to participate in teaching both of these good men. Normally, we would have been in the field on Saturday and would have missed both of these events. We were able to attend both. We felt like the Lord was really helping us. Elder Rich was asked to confirm one of the men in Church on Sunday.