Zora studied the man closely for a moment and then said, "Your father's father's name was Imalic Soliga."
The man stared at her in astonishment and then in further astonishment when she said both where he had lived and that he had been a soldier who did great evil in the persecution of Armenian Christians.
"I am a daughter of Armenia and I forgive you for the hatred of your generations towards mine and for the slaughter your grandfather was a part of." They had been hard words to say, but Zora felt released from her past in a way that she'd never been before.
The man before her was literally falling apart as tears coursed down his cheeks, "How can you forgive such a crime my family is guilty of against your people?" The man asked imploringly.
Zora pressed her hand to her heart and said, "I can forgive you, because I have been in turn forgiven for the evils that I have done."
She pointed upward and the man got what forgiveness of unmerited favor was like as it was pressed down from above and he broke down saying, "I believe!" Over and over in Arabic.
He started to sink to his knees, but Zora caught him and pulled him up and down toward the front of the church, "Come and let us worship God, who has turned an enemy into a friend, even as we both are now the heirs to the same promise that God set in place for both of us before the foundation of the world."
"Let it be so!" The man exclaimed heartily and then he said, "And let it be so for my family to! For I will bring all of them, who will come into the house of my Jesus and we will no longer serve the god of this world, who is not a god, but who is a liar and a thief of men's souls and known by such names as they for even they are among the forty names attributed to him and by which he is called among my people!"
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The revival went on into its third week, but we weren't there for it. We were back to walking down endless rows of corn and by fields of hay.
I gave a longing look at every wheat field we passed, but Zora rolled her eyes at me. She wasn't budging on that one. We walked along in amicable silence for several hours.
"So where are we going now? What stone or church will we turn over next?" Zora asked with excitement.
I grinned, "Who knows. I don't. Something inevitably always comes up though."