Page:Kvartalshilsen (Kvinnelige misjonsarbeidere). 1921 Vol. 14 nr. 4.pdf/5

God will give you truth and that there must be peace on earth, and I remain

yours sincere

Muschegh Durman.

P. S. My friend Haig is healthy and living in the North Caucasus.

•

Muschegh was the son of a merchant in Musch and his parents' pride and joy. He was a very handsome and attractive young man, tall and blond and with a pair of good blue eyes. He had a very good home. The first time I got to know him was when one day he came to ask me to see his sister, who was ill, and we followed him to his home, and I came there sometimes. He was probably about 14-15-years old, polite and modest.

His friend Haig was the son of a wealthy lawyer in Musch. He had received his education in Erzuroum and was a telegraphist when I got to know him during the massacre. Haig was also very handsome young man of the age of 17, tall and dark and very wise. I met these two again in the fall of 1915, when, as my friends may remember, I returned to Musch in early November to help the poor refugees and the homeless and see if any of our dear Armenian employees were still alive and perhaps in an emergency.

Our priest, Mihran Gabrielian in Havadorig, I now at least hope to do something for. He fled with his family up into the mountains to the Kurds; but from others I was later told that he and his wife and 4 children were killed up there. The last Sunday he had gathered all the Armenians who had fled into the mountain range for a sermon, and they had all surrendered in God's hand.

I got no rest in Mesereh at the thought of all the poor people in Musch whom had no one to help them, and when an auspicious apartment was offered, as an elderly Turkish major, whom I knew, was going back to Musch, I decided to follow him. Zerpuhi, my faithful helper, joined at his own risk as it was very dangerous to travel during that time, especially for an Armenian woman; but the Lord helped us through and gave us a glorious labor among the most lost.

That time in Musch dangerous, and daily we felt as left for dead, and yet I must again and again thank the Lord, because he allowed me to be there for these abandoned and despairing people, who were so completely at the mercy of the Turks. However, there were some Turks, who had a compassionate heart, and who hid Armenians in their homes or helped them escape. A Turk had thus given some cellars for Armenian families, and there was a crowd crammed into the dark, cramped rooms, which, however, gave them a reasonably safe refuge. There were only a few Armenian families who were together, most of the families were torn apart, so that, for example a mother did not know where her child was or if they were still alive. Here was a man saved, and there a woman or child. Almost daily, I encountered such little orphans when I was out, and as I did not dare to gather them at my place, I got some Armenian women who had lost their little ones to take care of these abandoned and lost children. It was most difficult to find shelter, as almost all the Armenian houses in Musch were destroyed during the massacre during the summer, so it was almost exclusively in these dark cold basements where the homeless lived. They did not have beddings and hardly any clothes, as the Kurds had taken most of it away from them. They had lost their homes, relatives and everything they owned. They starved, they froze, and they lived in constant fear of being sent away or murdered. No pen can describe their wailing and yet they were rich after all; because they suffered all this for Christ's sake. Only two families of these refugees had converted to Islam, the others could not imagine "losing their soul", as they used to say, and becoming Muhammadans in order to be well, they’d rather suffer all this and then be saved. What a grace it was