The Story of Nareg (Audio)

ITP #18: In Episode 18, Anush shares how divine intervention has affected her life in a very personal way and given her an amazing gift.
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The Story of Nareg

What is the meaning of Divine Intervention?  Typically, divine intervention means God intervenes in the affairs of our world and/or our lives. Basically, whenever we pray then, we are asking God to intervene.  Last week I shared with you about the book I illustrated and the role that prayer played in it.  In the past, I've witnessed divine intervention many times on the streets of Skid Row when specific needs have been filled in front of our eyes.  And today, I wanted to share with you how divine intervention blessed me with a wonderful son.  My son Nareg.  

I have been blessed with two children in my life.  One grew in my belly, and the other grew in my heart.  Despite the years that have passed, and the number of times that I've told this story, the events are still amazing to me - the way it all fell into place - the way that it was meant to be.  The way that - well...the divine intervention of it all.  But to fully understand how the puzzle all fit into place, I have to take you back a bit. 

Back in 1981, my husband and I were expecting our first child.  We were so excited.  But our happiness was shortlived when in December of that year, right before Christmas, I miscarried.  That was a tough year as we had to un-tell everyone that we were no longer pregnant.  I was so sad.  Depressed.  About a month or two after the miscarriage, my mother called from work.  She was working at the Armenian Church Diocese, and she had heard about a baby whose mother was ill and  had passed away.  The baby's father was distraught and didn't know how to care for the baby.  Did we want to adopt?  Adopt?!  Us? Me?  I never thought of that.  I mean, yeah, that would be great...but now?  Talk about bad timing!  I just lost my baby.  I wanted to be pregnant again.  I wanted to have my own baby.  Is that so wrong?   No, I told my mom.  I can't do it.  I said no.

A year went by.  Two years.  Three years.  I was the first of my friends to get married.  But then slowly, my friends all got married after me....and all were getting pregnant now.  I kept getting invited to baby showers.  And at first they were great.  But after a while, it just became too hard to go.  I couldn't handle the questions, "When are you starting a family?  What are you waiting for?  Don't you want kids?"  I knew people's questions were natural and good natured, but inside, it was too much to bear.  Pretty soon, I made up excuses why I couldn't attend the showers...then the baptisms...and the first birthdays.  

After about 4 years, my husband and I started thinking that we had better look into adoption because the reality was that conception might not happen.  I contacted the county, looked into foreign adoptions, put our names on waiting lists.  And we waited.  And then about 2 years later, we got a call from  L.A County.  Our application was finally up for review!!  We were so excited.  We met with the case worker who was going to help us through the process.  We filled out the applications.  And then she said, "Now, once we start the process, if you pull out for any reason, your application will stay open for a year."  I asked her, "After waiting so long, why would we pull out?"  She said, "Well, if you get pregnant..."  I laughed.  "Right, I said....that's not going to happen."  I didn't know it at that time, but I was pregnant!  

At first I was a wreck.  We were so nervous about miscarrying again that we decided not to tell anyone except immediate family (and my friend Laura, of course!) that we were expecting...until I was showing.  I remember being 5 months pregnant and at a friend's wedding when we finally relaxed enough to share our joy.  We put the adoption on hold....and in May of 1987, our daughter Ani was born!  We were thrilled.  And fell right into being parents.  Parenthood was (and still is) a joy.  And we embraced our mommy and daddy-ness and felt very, very blessed.  

About the time Ani was 2, we started thinking about a second child.  We each had grown up with siblings and thought how nice it would be if Ani had a sister or brother to grow up with.  We were hoping to get pregnant again, but this time, I was open to adoption if it didn't work out.  I called our case worker to get the process going again...but 2 years had gone by, so we had to start back several steps.  But in the meantime, life was good enjoying our little girl.

Another year went by.  I had been serving on the summer camp committee for our Diocesan church camp for a few years.  The session of camp had come and gone, and so had the new year, and we were meeting to start work on the coming summer sessions.  One of our discussions was always about what went well the previous year and then how we could improve.  They discussed the busride back to the parishes...and then our chairman mentioned that there was a problem with a child not knowing who was going to pick him up at his parish.  They had to call around.  And it seemed that this child's father had been ill, and several families within the parish had offered to help during the father's illness.  Hearing this broke my heart.  The seed had been planted. 

The following month we met again.  This time it was at one of the classrooms in the St. Peter parish.  We had taken a break for lunch, when a little boy came into our room, approached Sandy our committee chairman, and carried on a conversation with her.  I really got a kick out of him.  He was about 8 or 9.  Wirey, short cropped hair and the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen.  He was so at ease with the adults in the room. When he walked out, I asked Sandy about him.  She said, "That's Nareg.  He's the little boy we were talking about last month.  His father's been ill, and he's been looking for someone to take care of him."  She told me how friendly and good natured he was.  A couple of the guys on the committee said he was "a handful" up at camp.  So I asked further.  And Sandy said to contact Deacon Hratch about him.  That Nareg's father had asked Hratch to be the go-between.  I couldn't believe my luck.  Hratch was my brother's dearest friend.  That afternoon after the meeting I went home and told my husband about the cute little boy.  About Hratch. My original thinking was that maybe we could be the only family for this little boy. I didn't want him bouncing around between families.  My initial thought was that we could be his go-to family when his father couldn't take care of him.  So after dinner that night, I called my brother for Hratch's number....and gave him a call.

It seems that Nareg's father needed help with his son.  He was older, a widow, and was doing the best that he could to raise his young son at the home of his father-in-law.  His mother-in-law had been helping raise Nareg after his wife died, but recently she had passed away as well, and now it was these two men that were raising this very rambunctious little boy.  One thing that was certain was that his father loved him very much. And it was because of that love that he wanted a family for his child.  I talked to Hratch about my idea of being Nareg's extra family when needed.  Hratch spoke to Nareg's father, and we arranged to meet him after church on Sunday and have him come home with us for a couple of days.

That Sunday after church, we met in one of the Sunday school classrooms.  My husband, Ani and I.  I remember walking in and there was Nareg with his dad along with Hratch.   His father had packed Nareg's suitcase.  We met, talked, and exchanged phone numbers.  And Nareg came home with us to spend the week.  And what a fun week it was.  Nareg was very cute, and very knowledgable about all kinds of facts. I remember the first afternoon, having lunch on the patio.  Mid-bite he put down his hotdog and said, "Did you know smoking causes lung cancer?"  We thought this was pretty funny since neither my husband nor I smoked, so we didn't know where that came from.  One thing I noticed was that he wasn't used to doing things together, as a family.  We thought we'd take the kids to the Kidspace museum in Pasadena.  As soon as we got there, Nareg was off!  Climbing, running, spending time on his own, talking to other kids.  He was very social.  But he was also very gentle and sweet with Ani, who was 3 at the time.

We made sure that Nareg called home that night.  I could hear him telling his father about what we had done, where we had gone.  Afterward, I got on the phone to speak to his father as well.  And this went on for a few days, always ending with the two of us talking together before hanging up.  On the third night, Nareg's father brought up the possibility of us adopting Nareg....eventually.  When a child is 9 years old and close to his father, you cannot adopt and cut off ties with his biological father.   He told me that he couldn't bear that.  I could completely understand that.  We wouldn't want that for his father or for Nareg.  There was no rush, I told his father.  We could just continue on as is and see how things go.

It was July, and my father's birthday.  We had planned a family outing to the beach.  This was still the first week that Nareg was staying with us.  And my parents hadn't met him before.  My father loved kiteflying, so kites and kids in tow, we went to pick up my parents before heading out to Santa Monica.  As soon as we pulled up to Babajan and Mamajan's house, the kids raced out the car doors and up the steps to ring the bell.  My mom opened the door, Nareg said hello and ran in right past her, feeling totally comfortable.  My mom had a big smile on her face.  I had told my mom about the possibility of adoption over the phone.  She called Nareg over to her to meet him in person.  She hugged him and sent him over to Babajan and she turned to me and had tears in her eyes.  I said, "Isn't he cute?"  She looked at me and said, "He's come to you a second time.  He's meant to be yours."  I asked that she was talking about.  She said, "I know who this little boy is.  Remember 9 years ago when I asked you if you wanted to adopt.  You had just lost your baby.  You couldn't do it.  This is the same little boy...only 9 years later.  God wanted you to have him then.  You couldn't do it.  Now he's brought him to you a second time.  You have to say yes."

 That summer, Nareg spent the weekdays at our house, playing with the kids in the neighborhood and with Ani.  On Friday evenings we'd take him to his father's home and he'd spend the weekend with him until I picked him up after church to come home with us.  By the end of the summer, we asked his father if he'd like Nareg to enroll in school in our area.  In order to do so, we needed to become Nareg's legal guardians so we could sign paperwork for the school, deal with teachers and field trips.  We applied to be his foster parents, all with his father's consent.  The county came out and investigated us and we passed that hurdle. The entire time we never discussed adoption with Nareg.  If it happened, it would happen.  But for the time being, the situation was okay as it was.  And then one afternoon, I had come home from school, and my husband said, "Nareg has something he wants to ask you."  Nareg and Ani were both standing in the kitchen.  I asked what it was that he wanted to ask.  "Will you adopt me?"

And that's exactly how it happened.  The day of Nareg's adoption, we went to court with both Nareg and his father.  Together.  We met with the judge, we signed the papers, and then we celebrated by going out to breakfast together.  Nareg still continued to go visit his father on weekends.  It wasn't easy, but it was the right thing to do.   Nareg was the son that we always wanted.  And though in the beginning, Ani wasn't too thrilled because all her friends had baby brothers or sisters and she got a big one - I still remember her putting her hand on her hip and asking, "When's he going home!?" - the two of them grew close as brother and sister and are close to this day.

Sadly, a few years after the adoption, Nareg's father passed away.   I often think about him and how much he must have loved his son to make sure that he was loved, cared for, and placed with a family that could share his love.  He gave us a beautiful gift.

We are blessed by God to have such a wonderful son in our lives.  When I think back on how everything fell into place - I understand that it wasn't coincidence.  There was a divine hand in it.  Nareg needed a family and we needed a son to love.  

On this occasion of Nareg's anniversary of joining our family, I wanted to share this beautiful story that is a reminder to me, every day, of the blessings that God gives us.  Sometimes they come to us easily.  And sometimes we have to be hit over the head with them because we are resistant...but they are there nonetheless, ready for us when we are ready, and when we open our hearts to love.

Recognizing Divine Intervention (Audio)

ITP #17: In this episode, Anush catches us up on her trip to the midwest, the homeless outreach, and some new exciting news....and it's all got to do with some divine intervention!!
Links: Agra Hadeeg: http://ahnoosh.hubpages.com/hub/agra-hadeeg
DATEV Outreach 3rd Annual Walk Against Domestic Violence
Produced by Suzie Shatarevyan for epostle.net
Look for Inside the Pomegranate on BluBrry
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Recognizing Divine Intervention

 I'm back!! We spent 5 days last week in Chicago where Fall was in full swing.  The weather was fresh and crisp, and it even got chilly at night (something we haven't experienced yet here in California.) We went back to visit family, but really to see our sweet grandbaby Grace.  I had a great time babysitting and playing with her, and we're so glad we had the chance to get out for a visit.   I wanted to be there for her first tooth so I  could prepare hadeeg for her.  For those of you who don't know about this tradition, it's a little celebration when the baby cuts their first tooth.  You put out various small items that would symbolize vocations, and you see which one your baby will pick...and that will (supposedly) determine what they'll be when they grow up.  It's a lot of fun. The problem is though that we were out in Chicago in May when Grace was 6 months, but she didn't have any teeth yet, so we decided to forego her hadeeg a bit.  Grace is now 10 months, so I thought, great! We'll tie in the hadeeg now.    So I brought the wheat with me to Chicago, but at 10 months, she still has no teeth! But it looks like they'll be popping in soon, SO, I decided to have the hadeeg ceremony anyways since we'd be back in California when it happens. We had different items symbolizing different jobs:  a pencil for writer, small toy animal for a vet, thermometer for the medical profession, little stubby screwdriver for construction, you get the idea.  We covered all the items with a cloth, brought the baby over and sat her in front of it...and uncovered the items.  Grace looked right at them and picked up this small solar charger that I have for my cell phone.  She grabbed it and hung on to it, even though we tried to introduce other things that she might be interested in.  No go.  Soooo, the forecast is that she will either go into something with electronics or be an environmentalist (she did pick up the Solar charger, right?)

This all reminded me of my daughter Ani's hadeeg celebration.  Ani was 14 months old before she got herhttp://ahnoosh.hubpages.com/hub/agra-hadeeg

first tooth, and then she got 6 at once!  Because our family was spread out, we had planned a vacation where we'd all meet at Lake Mead.  My brother's family coming in from the Cupertino area...and us from L.A.  We did Ani's hadeeg on the grassy lawn of a hotel in Barstow!  I had brought the hadeeg wheat and the items, and my two brothers had brought a racing form to put in front of Ani....(CHAR!!!)  Of course that's what she grabbed and they were convinced she'd be a gambler!  But I made them start over, and she picked up a pen.  And if you know Ani, you know she likes to write, draw and blog...so it worked on that one.  And I think she's been known to gamble a bit as well!  Anyways, it's a fun tradition.  I wrote a piece about it on HubPages, so if you'd like to learn more about hadeeg, check out the  following link:   Here's the link to an article I wrote about it if you'd like more info about this tradition.

I wanted to also catch you up on our homeless outreach at Ascencia, Glendale's homeless shelter because I wanted to share what happened that evening because it was just one of those divine intervention things that are too cool not to share. So two weeks ago, after church, I was approached by Deegeen Azniv.  She told me that she had brought a bag of clothing for the homeless outreach, but she had put it in the church office. She wanted to make sure I took it with me to the shelter and asked me to go put it in the car.  So I went to get the bag from the office.  When I got there, there were two bags.  A bag of clothing in a Macy's bag, and next to it, a plastic bag as well.  I grabbed them both and put them in the back of my car.  I came back to join the crowd during coffee hour, and thanked Deegeen. Azniv for the bags.  She told me she had only brought one bag...not two. But I had already loaded the clothes in my car so I just left the clothing there anyways.

On Thursday, I pulled up to the shelter, opened the hatch to unload the food and soon some of the resident men had come out to help me bring in the food for dinner.  A man with a shirt wrapped around his waist came up and rather than help, he asked me if I would have a pair of pants I could give to him.  He told me that he had ripped his pants and that's why he was wearing his shirt around his waist.  He said he was a 9 year veteran, and that the clothing on his back was all he owned.  Well, as usual, I don't know what I have donated in the bags.  People save their clothing for our outreach, and bring me their bags which I store in my garage til we're ready to go either to the shelter or to Skid Row.  I told the man that we could look and hopefully we'd find something.  So there we were going through the bags of clothing and they were all either women's clothing or tshirts.  No men's clothes.  I opened the back passenger door of my car and there was Deegeen Azniv's bag.  We looked through that bag as well...there was a towel which the man was grateful for...but no pants.  And finally, I brought forward the extra bag.  Remember, this is the bag that Deegeen Azniv didn't give.  In fact I wasn't even supposed to bring that bag with me.  But there, at the very bottom of the bag....was a pair of jeans.  When I pulled them out to hold them up for the man, we found that they were the exact perfect size.  Now THAT is some serious divine intervention!  And there's one more cool thing to the story.  The man that received the pants was not even a resident of the shelter. Edward, the resident manager told me that the man had just stopped by as he was passing through.  And I wasn't supposed to have the extra bag of clothing, but somehow, I picked it up...and he happened to be at the shelter that night, ready to receive a pair of pants that I had brought just for him.   I love it when that happens.

I have another story about divine intervention that I wanted to write about.  It revolves around another exciting thing that happened this past week.  My book is finally published!!!  This is a book that I illustrated for the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church called "When I Go to Church".  It was a labor of love.  The book is beautifully bound on heavy board for little fingers.  The idea for having this book is to keep them in the pews in all the Eastern Diocesan churches so that when families attend church with their children, their child can sit and look at this book showing them what we do during the Armenian Orthodox services.  Familiar scenes to our service.

Working on this book was a lot of hard work.  And there were many revisions.  The drawings had to be correct, and I never realized how everything in our church has a purpose and reason.  For example, I  had to do a whole new drawing because I had forgotten that the priest holds the gospel book with a cloth.  Or that the deacon holds the poorvar (censor) chain a certain way.  There were all kinds of details to pay attention to.  I would do the rough drafts, scan them send them via email to NY for  clergy's approval, and if all was right, then I could go ahead and work on the ink and color.  We finally got the drawings done...and were waiting for printing when Hurricane Sandy hit and that pushed the print date back.  But sometime last week, a package arrived from the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church.  I opened it and there it was!  My book.  It's finally in print.

As cool as it all is, it hardly sounds divine, right?  Well, there's a back story to how it all came to be.  And that's what I wanted to share with you.  It was all due to a prayer.  I went to school to be a children's book illustrator.  Unlike illustrators today, back in the day, we had to learn how to draw by hand...not by computer.  I have a degree in illustration and graphic design.  But what I needed a degree in marketing myself.  Self Promotion - which I have not been very successful with.  So although I could draw, I was not able to make a living with my art, and so I have done all kinds of jobs throughout my life.  And currently, I have a desk job managing property accounts for an insurance broker.  It's one of those kinds of things where on a daily basis I ask, "what am I doing here?" because although I have been at my job for 10 years now, it still doesn't seem "natural" to me.  So one afternoon, I was especially frustrated, and at my desk, I said a prayer.  I asked God to use me and my creative talents so that I would be able to do what I love (create) and bring Him glory.  That was it basically.

But we have to go back.  About 15 years ago, I went to a Sunday School conference to hear two speakers from the Eastern Diocese Department of Religous Education speak about curriculum.  Our church was using the Eastern Diocese Sunday School curriculum and I loved the illustrated books.  I had the idea to take my art portfolio and some samples to the conference to show these two women - Nancy and Elise. Their presentation at the conference was wonderful.  And afterward I went up and introduced myself and showed them my artwork.  They liked it, but sadly, they had just redone their curriculum and they didn't need any artwork done at that time.  I left them some samples of my artwork.

Fifteen years later, the idea of this book came about.  Elise was going through her files to find the right illustrator for this book, and she found my samples.  Mind you, this was about a month after my prayer to God.  So she pulled out the samples and she wanted to call me, BUT, since I gave her those samples, a lot had changed.  My name had changed after I remarried.  My address had changed.  My phone number had changed.  And she didn't have my email address (I don't think I even had an email address back then).  She couldn't find me.   But this is the amazing part.  Just by chance, in NewYork, there was a girl from California who was visiting the diocese.  The drawings were in Elise's office, when this girl happened to visit.  When Elise showed her my artwork and told her she wasn't able to find me, the girl stopped and looked at the samples.  She noticed my last name and said, "I think I may be friends with her son on Facebook?"  She contacted my son Nareg....and the rest, as they say is history!  Nareg gave her my email address, and Elise was able to contact me about illustrating the book!  Another cool Divine Intervention, right?  So never underestimate the power of prayer (and social media!).  God has us all in His hands.  We just have to trust and believe in those prayers!  How about you.  Have you had experiences with divine intervention?  I'd love to hear about them, so leave your comments on my blog!!

So I'm excited for this coming Sunday, October 27.  We're having a book signing with the debut of the book right after church.  A lovely member of our church family, Mrs. Nina Simonian, donated 100 of these books to our church to be used by the children of our parish during badarak.  So our church will have these books in our pews for children to use during church.  So come down to St. Peter on Sunday, October 27!

Oh one more thing.  This Thursday we'll be walking with Datev Outreach from Glendale to the Western Diocese in Burbank...about 6 miles in solidity against Domestic Violence.  Join us!!  More details at the https://www.facebook.com/datevoutreach  But meet up at St Peter Armenian Church at 632 W. Stocker Street in Glendale at 4:00 p.m on October 22.  Come on...it'll be fun!  And maybe you'll get the itch to do a bigger, longer walk - like the 2014 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer?  Maybe?  ; )