He eventually reached New York City, having traveled through Tiflis (Tbilisi), Kiev, Warsaw, Berlin, and Hamburg.

[1] There, he met a group of people who were, like himself, ethnically Assyrian, and with whom he intended to study the Bible alongside the nondenominational Moody Church.

[1] During World War I, in early 1915, he was a witness to the terror brought upon Persia's Azerbaijan province by the Ottoman Turkish military incursions.

Having turned into a refugee, Andrew, his parents, and four brothers walked towards Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), hoping they could "escape through Russia to the United States".

[1] The journey was an uneasy expedition; the family was forced to dodge "maurauding bands of Kurds and Turks" for many weeks.

[1] Andrew's brother Benjamin stated in an account that their parents, Shamasha and Nassimo, died during the trip and were buried with unmarked grave markers.