Since our first mission trip together in 2018, when Dr. Richard Funt introduced me to Vardges Davtyan, President of the Lukashin Agricultural Association, I understood there was something special in the Village of Lukashin that calls us to locate our effort there. While Lukashin is within one-mile of the City of Armavir, it is about a three-mile drive from the center of each community.
The Village is home to about 2,500 residents who are primarily farmers, many of whom have family in the United States who fled to the States during the Armenian Genocide of 1909. The Lukashin Agricultural Association is an agricultural cooperative non-governmental organization (NGO) that functions very similar to our American agricultural cooperatives. Vardges’ NGO has been successful in seeking grants for shared equipment that his member farmers can utilize, including a large storage facility for farmer produce that is located on the southeast side of the Village.
The Village is located in the center of the Ararat Valley, with the clear view on a nice day of Mount Ararat’s snow-capped mountaintop in Turkey. The Village has a beautiful landscape and is representative of the farming conditions of the rest of the Armavir region. Mount Ararat consists of two major volcanic cones: Greater Ararat and Little Ararat. Greater Ararat is the highest peak in Turkey and the Armenian Highland with an elevation of 16,854 feet. As the landing ground of Noah’s Ark it feels like this chosen ground is perfect for our effort’s headquarters.
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