Dr. Jacob Pursley, an Arkansas native who has spent nearly 25 years as a missionary in Turkey and Armenia, used a Conduit interview to make a direct appeal to Arkansas’s top elected leaders: come to Armenia.
Pursley, who helped organize the first-ever Republic of Armenia Prayer Breakfast last year — a historic first for a country where politics and religion have traditionally stayed separate — is now planning a second one for October 2-3 and wants Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sen. Tom Cotton and Sen. John Boozman there. He’s spent weeks trying to get through to their offices.
“Armenia needs Christian politicians like Senators Tom Cotton and John Boozman and Governor Sanders to come over to strengthen our relationship between our two countries,” Pursley said, adding that a visit would let them meet with Armenia’s prime minister and other officials who are, for the first time, publicly integrating their Christian faith into governance.
The timing, Pursley argues, is significant. The U.S. and Armenia have deepened ties over the past year: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have both visited the country, and last year President Trump brokered a peace deal ending a long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. That deal included a $13.5 billion U.S.-backed trade corridor — now officially named the Trump International Route for Peace and Prosperity, or “the Trump route,” as Pursley calls it — that runs directly through the border region where his ministry is based. American engineers are now on the ground there building the road, and Pursley says the corridor’s strategic value, including regional mineral resources, has turned what was once an overlooked outpost into a focal point of U.S. interest. He sees the moment as an opening for Arkansas, specifically, to be part of that relationship, and has floated the idea of taking a visiting delegation down the route itself.
His pitch is straightforward: an Arkansas delegation could build on the momentum of the first prayer breakfast, which drew former U.S. Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Louie Gohmert, and demonstrate that bold Christian faith and public office aren’t mutually exclusive — a message he says would carry weight with a country still finding its footing after decades of Soviet-era religious suppression.
Pursley said interested parties, including everyday Arkansans, are welcome to reach out about attending the breakfast or getting involved in his ministry’s work in Armenia.
Learn more about the International Bible Church of Armenia – click here.
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0:00 Introduction & his calling to missions
2:39 His father, Dr. Dow Pursley, and Arkansas’s pro-life movement
5:05 Moving to Turkey in 2002, learning Kurdish
5:49 The Armenian Genocide — and why it’s rarely taught
9:07 Ministering to the Muslim world: obstacles and misconceptions
12:10 Why he relocated the mission to the Iran border
14:31 Trump’s Armenia-Azerbaijan deal and the “Trump Route”
16:53 The wave of conversions coming out of Iran
18:45 Bible camps for orphans with disabilities
21:11 Helping Christians imprisoned in Iran
25:11 A biblical case for the Iran conflict
32:33 Organizing Armenia’s first-ever Prayer Breakfast
36:39 Planning the second breakfast, reaching out to Sanders and Cotton
38:44 His pitch to Arkansas’s leaders
41:09 How Arkansans can get involved in the ministry
43:35 A message to Arkansas viewers on hospitality
50:26 Where to follow his work
