Are you concerned that 39% of the world’s 7.7 billion people have never heard the gospel or experienced Christ’s love through the life of a believer and that this number increases by around 60,000 each day?
Operation Mobilisation – Be An Ambassador
If you’re anything like me reading a quote like the one above triggers a lot inside of me. A lot of emotions and a lot of questions: “Woah, that’s just too much!” “How am I meant to change that?” “This is a tragedy!” “How can we be letting this happen!” “Is God still with us?” “Does God still want to use us?”. A lot. But then I also read statements like this:
You have been uniquely shaped by God with gifts and passions for the purpose of sharing His love with the world. Our heart is to inspire you to discover and embrace these gifts and passions, and to equip and connect you with opportunities to use them, sharing God’s love with people who don’t know it.
Operation Mobilisation – Journeys
And I am reminded that God’s ultimate desire is a relationship with us and He is unendingly committed to partnering with mankind in redeeming all of creation to Himself. He wants us, and our work, and our hobbies, and our businesses and relationships. He wants our gardens, and our streets, and our neighbourhoods and our cities. He wants our governments and our countries and the whole of the universe reconciled back into a right relationship with Him. He wants this so badly that He sacrificed Himself to make this possible.
So many in the body of Christ are working diligently to live out God’s Great Command of loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbour as ourselves, and God’s Great Commission of making disciples of all nations. You can read some stories about what Operation Mobilisation is doing here.
But there is still more to do! There are still over 3 billion who have never heard the gospel or experienced Christ’s love through the life of a believer. And there are still many that have not taken up their place and their purpose in God’s mission for all creation.
Our next step deeper into our place and purpose in God’s mission is to be sent by our home church to serve with OM in Austria. To be part of the urgent work of reintroducing Europe to Christ and challenging the church there to more fully engage the task of making disciples of all nations.
What is your next step?
Timeline & Targets Update
In a previous update, we shared in some detail the targets and (hoped for) timeline as we work towards serving with OM in Austria. All in all, we think we are still on track!
2.5 months to go…???
A lot of the last few months have been preparing and then waiting for the next step. We are so grateful to share some very encouraging ‘wins’ we have had over the past few weeks.
We have been diligently learning German and preparing for our exam day to arrive (we are required to pass an A1 German Certification for our residency permit). Exam day arrived on 27 June and we mustered all our German vocab and Austrian-ness for a 1.5 hour exam that tests Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. Just this week we found out that we both passed!
The day after our exam we received notification that our Police Clearance Certificates had been finalised – only 4 weeks after we submitted our application. A small, but important miracle.
So now we wait for the last set of documentation; Apostilles from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation so that the Austrian Embassy will accept our documents, and our Rental and Employment Contracts and invitation letter which are being sent from the OM office in Austria.
We believe we are still on track to join the OM team in Austria in September.
Prayer Partnership
You can join The Benns Prayer Place if you would like to partner with us in this way. We will need plenty of prayer support as we serve in a place that isn’t as spiritually vibrant as HomeGround or Logos Hope. These updates will focus on more sensitive personal and ministry prayer needs and praise points.
Financial Partnership
In our last update we shared that we aim to have 100% of our support by 1 June (and need 80% to start the visa application process). We are not there yet, but are excited to share that we are currently at just over 78%, with more conversations ahead with potential partners. We could reach our target by having just 22 people commit to 1% (R750/€45) per month. But we have partners contributing from R50 to a few thousand… so there is no amount too big or too small.
If you would like to partner with us you can find more information on our giving page or connect with us. We’d love to have a conversation about what’s involved in partnership
In His light and love,
Zippy, Dané, Cori and Lily
The Benns 