Local missionary departs for Armenia again
"God is giving me the opportunity to use all these lessons and experiences in His service." — KAARINA A. HAM

Kaarina A. Ham

Dr. Kaarina A. Ham is spending the next weeks or so getting ready for her new term of service in Armenia.

Ham, a native of South Ashburnham, is focused on extending youth and young adult ministry programs to schools and churches in both the urban and outlying areas of Armenia. Ham has ministered in the Republic of Armenia since 2004.

"It's a matter of diplomacy. … With proper respect for the leaders, they're welcoming," she said in a 2006 interview with the Journal.

Ham said there is great openness to learning the basics of the Christian faith in Armenia. She has served as a missionary to the former Soviet Union since 1979. She worked with the Slavic Gospel Association, first, and then worked with Youth for Christ International.

In 2006, she became the founder and general director of HOPE Armenia Ministries. This new mission focuses on youth evangelism and young adult discipleship in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia; and on biblical training seminars at the Lighthouse Training Center near Lake Sevan, in North Central Armenia.

"God is giving me the opportunity to use all these lessons and experiences in His service," she said in the 2006 interview. "Pioneering, directing, teaching, training, evangelizing, discipling. He's even adding a few: establishing, administering, renovating. Isn't this just like the Lord?"

Once an empire extending from the Black to Caspian Seas, the present Republic of Armenia is a semi-arid, land-locked, mountainous nation in the lower Caucasus region comparable in size to Maryland in the United States.

Today Armenia is bordered to the west by Turkey; to the north by the former Soviet Republic of Georgia; to the east by the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, and to the south by Iran.

Over the last 30 years, she has focused her efforts first in the Soviet "satellite" nations of East Central Europe, then in Moscow and Samara in Central Russia, to provide Christian discipleship and leadership training for teenagers and young adults.

Like each of the 15 former Soviet Republics since the demise of the Communist system, Armenia has struggled to move forward politically and economically, according to Ham.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, thousands of Armenians of the Diaspora (primarily the U.S., Canada, France, Russia, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran) have flocked to the homeland each year to assist in religious and cultural philanthropic ventures.

In the wake of the failed Soviet experiment, with its Marxist-Leninist atheistic ideology, Ham noticed a great interest in Christian faith among young people, who are eager to learn more about their historic status as the first Christian nation, according to Ham.

In 301 A.D., King Tiridates III declared the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church to be the national religion. 1,700 years of Armenian Christian faith were celebrated recently in 2001, according to Ham.

Ham graduated from Oakmont Regional High School and then went on to educate herself at Eastern Nazarene College and Fuller Seminary, in Pasadena. She earned three Master degrees and a Ph.D., steeping herself in theology, counseling, adolescent psychology and cultural anthropology. Her foctoral thesis explored the way Protestants are perceived in Eastern Orthodox lands, a fitting study for her future endeavors.

Ham is also the daughter of the former pastor of the Peoples Church in Ashburnham.

A service of dedication will be held on Sunday, Jan. 4, at 10:30 a.m. at Peoples Evangelical Congregational Church, 56 South Main Street in South Ashburnham, to which the public is invited.