Hrayr Jebejian: Go Forth and Heal
Hrayr Jebejian’s family escaped genocide in Armenia, only to find their lives upended by war in Lebanon. In this powerful address to THI’s 2025 Community of Practice gathering in Nairobi, Dr. Jebejian, now General Secretary of the Bible Society in the Gulf, tells the story of how God helped him survive the traumas of war and loss to become an “ambassador of hope,” and offers our community strength and inspiration for the healing mission that brings us together. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
From knowing to doing
It is beautiful, isn’t it, when we come together from different countries, cultures, languages, ethnic groups, and mentalities, as brothers and sisters in Christ for prayer? That is the power of the Body of Christ: when we pray, heaven hears, and the world is changed.
But let me tell you one thing: prayer is not the end. Prayer prepares us. It fills us. It sends us out. Now, we rise from this gathering not only as learners, but as commissioned healers, carrying what we’ve received to those who are waiting for hope.
You all have been equipped. You have been empowered. And through this conference, you gained a lot of information. Now it is time to move from knowing to doing.
Three tips: boldness, global fellowship, radical compassion
Christian theology should not remain on the academic level. The challenge that we have is to take Christian theology down to the grassroots level, integrate it into the community and people’s lives; let them interact with Christian theology through the Bible.
Let us put our hands to work and create real, tangible healing in the world! A couple of tips, if you will allow me:
Go back to your communities with boldness. Be strong; be courageous. We do not have a message that creates war; we do not have a message that kills people; we do not have a message that destroys. On the contrary, we have a message that brings peace, reconciliation, and love. And through that love, we create healing for all those who are hurting. Some of us, like me, work in regions where there is little tolerance; I know that very, very well. We need to be careful, but we shouldn’t be weak—we should be, rather, wise.
Remember that you are not alone. Don’t be confined to your own geographic locations! You have a lot to achieve in your home countries, but you are not alone. You belong to a global fellowship of around 240 Bible Societies. Your brothers and sisters are here to pray for you and support you! This is the beauty and strength of our fellowship….Just look around this big hall! United Bible Societies is the third largest organization in the world by geography, after only the United Nations and the Red Cross. You have friends and colleagues all around the world.
Move forward with radical compassion. We have a lot of war, destruction, hatred, and killing in the world today; we don’t need more. We need compassion. Christian theology, I always say, is the understanding of the other. The world today needs Good Samaritans. I lived through the war in Lebanon for 20 years, and I still live in the Middle East, where one war follows another. Sometimes I get so upset, so tired, so angry: it’s too much! Peace, all around the world, is like a mirage in the desert: the closer we get to it, the further it gets away. That is why the world needs people like us, who will share that there is something called peace, love, and reconciliation.
A young man’s dreams destroyed by war
Allow me to share my story.
I am an Armenian. I was born, raised, and educated in the beautiful country of Lebanon, along the Mediterranean Sea. I was born in Lebanon because my grandparents, with my father as a little boy, were deported from their homeland in Armenia, where 1.5 million Armenians were massacred in a genocide, among them 25 members of my family. I am a third-generation survivor of the Armenian genocide. It is in my genes, and the genes of each and every Armenian.
I was 17 years old when I graduated from high school, at the time when the civil war started in Lebanon. All my classmates went to Canada and the U.S., along with the majority of my extended family and my sister. My father drove me to Syria to apply for a visa to join my sister in Los Angeles. Because of the war, the main road was closed; we had to drive through the mountains. All of a sudden the car started sliding downhill. Somehow, miraculously, I stepped on the brakes. When I looked at my father, he was dead.
I couldn’t sleep for many months. I used to wake up perspiring. And then my U.S. visa was rejected, and my American dream evaporated and vanished. I remained in Beirut, with the war and shelling going on, and I experienced working in the valley of the shadow of death.
When you live in wartime, you come face to face with the reality of life and death. I was crossing from East to West Beirut. Members of a militia stopped our car and lined us up along a wall—young boys, eighteen or twenty years old, pointing their Kalashnikovs at us. One of them was cursing him in Arabic; his eyes were so red, as though blood was coming out. I closed my eyes and I started praying. That was another traumatic situation.
Becoming an ambassador of hope
I was a Christian in those days, so I kept asking the Lord, “Why? Why is it my father died when I was very young? Why is it my U.S. visa was rejected, and I have to stay back in Lebanon without all my friends and family? Why is it I have to go through this war, with all the bombs and shelling and killings, while people my age are enjoying their time in Europe or the U.S.A.?” Why, and why, and why?
Our good Lord speaks to us in a different way, in each and every situation. He tells us what to do if we humble ourselves to listen to him. He said to me, “Hrayr, stop asking the question ‘why.’ There is no answer. What are you going to do now? Not everybody will go to the U.S. or Canada; I want you to stay in this part of the world, and I want you to change your dream.”
He helped me to change my dream: from the American dream, to being an ambassador of hope.
And now I am standing before you right now after 45 years of ministry in the Bible Society.
It was a very long journey, but it was a very exciting journey. Whenever you share the word of God with a person, and you see how his or her life is being changed, that’s the greatest reward you can receive. When you see a person who is hurting, and the word of God brings healing to this person—and in the Gulf we have a lot of people who are really hurting—that’s the greatest reward you can receive.
“You are all ambassadors of hope”
When I finished my master’s degree in agriculture, I joined the Bible Society. My classmates said, “Hrayr, what is wrong with you? You end up joining an organization which has nothing to do with agriculture!” I said to all my friends, “I am very much in the field of agriculture. In agriculture, we learn how to germinate the seed so it will germinate fruit and flowers. In the Bible Society, we try to plant the seed of the Word of God so that we can have new lives.”
Sisters and brothers, we are all in the field of agriculture! We are all here planting the seed of the word of God so that we can heal those who are wounded, those who are depressed, those who are lonely. We bring hope to our communities.
I will ask you to stand for a minute, please. Close your eyes and just reflect on your own story, by yourself, with God. This story has helped each and every one of you become an ambassador of hope.
Now: as a commitment to our commitment to our calling as ambassadors of hope, may I kindly ask you to say this aloud or silently, in your own language? I commit to being an instrument of healing in my community.
I would like to discharge you with these four sentences: Go, and be bold in healing!
Handle situations with kindness.
Engage with others empathetically.
Act to create a better world.
Listen to understand and support.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you—with us all. Thank you very much. May the Lord bless you!
See Dr. Jebejian’s recorded session from the 2025 THI Global Community of Practice event in Nairobi, Kenya.
