Being strong and courageous
In our previous Ministry Update we shared about why we felt it necessary to go on a Vision Trip to visit OM in Austria.
It’s now been just over a week since we returned from Austria and what a trip it was! We were able to spend time learning about the various ministries OM is involved in. We were invited out to dinner by various OM team members and taken on a wonderful walking tour of Linz, the city we would live in (we walked about 100km in the 2 weeks we were there!). We were able to have good, deep conversations about what it means to engage in Church Partnership and Mobilisation, and People Care, the two areas we have been invited to formally serve in. We enjoyed some wonderful fellowship with the leadership of the church we would potentially partner with in order to obtain a visa, and were able to talk through both the practicalities and what it would mean to be a part of this Linz Baptistengemeinde. We were also very grateful to participate in OM in Austria’s monthly prayer day and pray with and for the OM leadership and ministry teams as they launched their new strategic vision of helping, challenging and bringing along the local church in order to see vibrant communities of Jesus followers among the least reached.
One of the unusual aspects of this trip is that it is coming at the end of our decision making process. Many times, Vision Trips happen at the beginning of a discovery process as a way of hearing if God is leading you to think and pray further. Before leaving for Linz, we had already spent about 8 months praying, thinking, chatting, emailing and praying some more. Going to Austria we knew that the kind of work we would do, the part of the world we would live in and the people we would serve was clearly in line with God’s leading.
Serving globally is something we believe God has called us to do, but could we make the necessary sacrifices and adaptations specific to this place?
Could we, with God’s grace and empowering, live in Linz?
Could we navigate the streets and trams and buses?
Could we live in a city apartment?
Could we learn the language and culture?
Could we, as a family, adapt to a different school and social system?
Could we work well with the people that would become our team mates?
These were the questions that we asked ourselves each day as we went to new places and met new people and had new experiences. And at the end of 2 weeks we are very confident when we say that the answer in our hearts is an excited, nervous, peace-filled “Yes!”
Throughout the time there we felt God saying “I will be with you”. As we heard from other missionaries about their challenges moving to Austria, or just started to scratch the surface of cultural complexity we had a strong sense that God would give us the grace and perseverance for each challenge that would come.
Joshua 1:9 has been a verse that has come up over and over since we stepped full time into ministry. Sometimes through a quiet time, sometimes through a sermon, quite a few times from both Cori and Lily when mom and dad have been wrestling with a tough situation. Be strong and courageous is a command that God is reminding the people of as they prepare to go into the land that He has been leading them to. We don’t begin to imagine that our situation is the same as the Israelites’, but this Vision Trip has been in many ways a clear and firm reminder from God that He has commanded us to be strong and courageous as we prepare to go in and settle in the land – the work, ministry, church-life, neighbourhood, and relationships – that He has clearly been leading us to over the past months.
Within the next week or 2 we are hoping to confirm with OM in South Africa and HomeGround Church’s missions committee that we have their support for living and serving in Austria. We will then send out a Targets and Timeline update where we will share the partner-raising, visa and language-learning requirements and processes and when we hope to make the move to Austria.
We are very excited for the journey ahead and are so grateful that each of you are journeying with us in some way or another. Our constant prayer is that what God is doing in, through, and for us, will be a testimony and encouragement to each of you.
If you would like to journey more closely than you already have, or feel God leading you to actively partner with us we would love to connect and spend some time hearing your story and talking about how God is leading you.
In His light and love,
Zippy, Dané, Cori and Lily
P.S. If you are in the Durban area in March we would love to invite you to HomeGround Church on Sunday 13 March. We will be sharing, in all services, about our time serving onboard Logos Hope and how that has lead us to consider serving in Austria.
The Benns 