He is the God of Every Season

January 6th, 2024

Introduction

A lot has happened in our family in the year of 2023.

We can tell you we’ve been through the spring, summer, winter and fall both literally and metaphorically.

With each new season came new blessing, joy, and favor; but also new trials and hardships.

If you’ve spent time walking with the Lord, you know that the enemy loves to try and trip us up each and every step we take with Jesus. We’ve experienced this a lot while we’ve been following the call of God on our lives in particularly since we began this journey 3 1/2 years ago. While each new step of obedience comes with a new challenge, we can confidently say that Jesus has been in each and every season of our lives. We can always rely on the Lord’s provision and consistency. There’s not a place you can fall that He can’t pick you back up again.

We are filled with excitement and anticipation for the next big step we’re taking with the Lord; which is leading us to Vienna, Austria.

Our 2023 In Short

If we could sum up our year in a word, it would be transition. We used to view this word in a negative light, but this past year brought a new perspective. We knew the Lord was doing a work in our hearts and transitioning us from our assignment in Egypt, but we were not sure what that was going to look like exactly. After much prayer and fasting, we felt the Lord leading us to Europe. After visited Vienna, Austria we had an immediate peace in our hearts to transition to a new assignment there. As we continued to seek the Lord, He began to give us an even bigger vision for our future in ministry and a heart to plant the church in Europe (I will expand upon this below).

We transitioned back to the States in March and began our new fundraising journey, all while preparing for our daughter’s arrival. Our next transition was to parenthood, which was exciting, scary and rewarding all at the same time. Our daughter, Saige, arrived in July of 2023 and brought so much joy and light to our lives. Our family as a whole has also welcomed 3 other children this year! We have been so blessed to have an amazing support system in every transition we went through. Our family, church family, friends and ministry partners have been such a blessing to us, and we are so very thankful for them.

Since we’ve been home, Stephen has been working at our home church, Brightmoor, using his finance degree and learning a lot from the church staff. We have also been fundraising and building relationships with new churches, and individuals. More recently, we have been working on creating a website for our ministry that this newsletter has just been released on. You will be able to view our ministry vision, newsletters, prayer requests, and other updates on our website. You will also have the ability to financially support our mission by clicking on any of the “Give” buttons.. We hope this will make it easier for all of our prayer partners and supporters to stay connected to us while we are overseas or back in the States.

European Globalization & Witness Opportunity

Europe has become the home of people from all over the world for many reasons. Circumstances like oppressive governments, war, and economical hardships have pushed unreached people groups to places in Europe that welcome foreigners with open arms. Currently, half of Vienna’s population is the home to non-Austrian peoples making it one of the most diverse and globalized cities in the world. Diversity does not just include race, it also includes religion, culture, and worldview. Just because a person leaves their home country does not mean they leave their home culture. Europe creates accessibility to the gospel for people in previously inaccessible places.

It is our hearts to reach, train, and disciple peoples of all nations, so that they might have the confidence to bring the gospel to their homes and communities.

We recently heard this testimony from Pastor Curt Wolfe of Vienna Christian Center:

A couple of international college students showed up at Vienna Christian Center and asked one of the pastors how they could learn more about Jesus. Since they were able to access the internet in Austria without all of the blockers placed by their home government, they were finally able to watch a Hollywood movie for the first time. In this movie, one of the men quoted a man named Jesus. When the college students heard the quote, they felt a peace in their hearts that they had never experienced before and they wanted to hear more quotes from Jesus. They came across an ad for Vienna Christian Center and got connected a discipleship group in their native tongue at the church. They both got saved and discipled and when they graduated, they returned to their home country and they planted their very own house church among their community.

We believe we have an amazing opportunity in Europe to access people from inaccessible places.

Vienna Christian Center (VCC)

VCC is an international church that is home to over 90 different nations. The church was planted in the 1980s and its main purpose was to engage with the mass amounts of international peoples moving to Vienna. The church has become a community for people of many different nations and tongues.

We will be working alongside a group of pastors from VCC to learn the ins and outs of international church ministry in Europe, and more about church planting. This assignment for us will serve as a developmental term to learn and grow as ministers of the gospel, so we can one day go to another part of Europe and plant a church among the lost.

Our Fundraising Journey

How Can You Pray For Us?

Pray for our fundraising journey. Pray for new prayer partners. We would like to be able to leave for the field by April of this year, and to do so, we need to be 100 percent funded.
Pray for more testimonies like the one we shared from Vienna Christian Center.
Pray for those who are seeking truth in Europe, that they would find Jesus.
Pray for our leaders: for wisdom and discernment on how to minister in Europe well.