In Österreich wie im Himmel

The summer of 2023 was the first time we stepped foot in Vienna, Austria. We had no intention of even visiting this historic city because we were going to serve at a sports camp in Slovakia. The missionaries that hosted us lived in Vienna, so we spent a day or two in the 21st district. During our time we met the other missionaries that have served for decades in this great place. If I could sum our experience up in one word it would be “invitation”.

I’ve heard it said before, “We often find our calling from God by the invitations we receive from His followers.”

The sports camp in Slovakia was amazing. If you are a financial supporter of ours, you read about the incredible life change that happened during that time. The camp finished and we went back to Vienna. As we were boarding our final train, Lynna and I looked at each other and we smiled. We sensed peace about Vienna.

Prior to this visit, we faced some of the hardest spiritual warfare we had ever experienced. Our marriage was tested by fire. But, the Lord saw us through. He provided a way for us to become stronger because of this! The enemy wanted to separate us through our differences, but Jesus is greater in every way.

It all made sense why this happened to us now. God was showing us Austria.

Lynna and I are very different people. If you have met us, you experienced this! We have prayed for years and years about a place where we could spend our lives serving God. Whether in Europe or in the United States. Before we were really united on whatever God wanted, we both had to give up our expectations on what we wanted, and surrender to what God wanted. After all, He is Lord of our lives and we are not. After all we have went through, we would not have it any other way.

That being said, the narrative of what we hear about Austria is that it’s beautiful, but it’s very tough spiritual ground to work. “If you are coming to Austria, the visa process is tough, the work is hard, and if you want to come here, it has to be God.”

We prayed. We stayed faithful where God had us. We didn’t try to force anything in our own strength. We stayed planted. “If God wants Austria to happen, he will make it happen.” was our thought process. Now I look back and see that God was developing us. Lynna has been developing her coffee skills the last 5 years while serving hundreds of people every day. I took on 6 direct reports during my time working in mobilization. I ended up taking leadership courses through GEM’s LDC model. (Lead, develop, care)

It turns out that my cohort leader for my most recent LDC course was an Austrian missionary who has worked in Vienna for the last 40 years. We spent 6 months on and off together throughout this program. January of 24’, during one of our in person cohort meetings in Malta, my cohort leader asked me, “So when are you and Lynna moving to Austria?” I was kind of shocked, but excited to share this with Lynna.

We continued to live our life and I was bringing up Europe more and more. I was really trying to influence Lynna to say “yes!” immediately. It was all so exciting to me. I’m so glad she didn’t just jump into it and do what I wanted. She had things she needed to work through with the Lord. She really taught me that patience is important in a decision like this. I realize now that my plan for our life was not God’s plan. Whether we ended up in Europe or the states, I was not trusting God with the outcome. I did not want to stay in the states. I then realized that I have to give up my dreams and desires to go overseas, just like Lynna had to give up her dreams and desires about staying in the states. If we would have tried to go two years or even two months before we tried to go, we would have not made it because we needed to surrender everything about our life to Jesus.

Side note: We said “Yes” to Jesus in the moment of our salvation, yet surrender is still a daily practice.

The summer of 24’ was the best and most redeeming summer of our marriage. We took the time to really pray and engage with the idea of giving up our desires for whatever God wanted. Europe or the USA. Whatever God wants is what He will get. We felt united by the end of the summer about Europe, so we decided to apply for long term appointment in Austria.

GEM required us to go through a “day of discernment” after we applied and that day we faced heavy spiritual warfare. We spent the day apart, but came together that evening and came to the same conclusion. With tears in our eyes, we both said the same thing, “We feel called to go, but our marriage needs work first.”

So thats what we did. All fall we really leaned into becoming united on all forms of communication, loving each other well, and serving each others needs. I’ll never forget after a meeting with our marriage mentor in early October when we had a breakthrough. Since then, our excitement to move forward with Austria was stronger than ever.

Since then, we have received an invitation to join a church just south of Vienna. This church is connected to an Austrian network of churches and we are just honored that they would invite us to come and join their team. Pray for us! We want to serve the mission and vision of the Austrians, but also hope our giftings are used. First rule of mission: Throw your expectations out the window. We want what God wants. The church has made it clear that there is much work to be done in their community and in their country. We love that we can scatter the hope of the gospel across the world through our partnership with God’s kingdom in Österreich wie im Himmel.

As we move forward with this process, we are reminded of a statement a friend told us when we asked him, “Why Europe?” His response was, “Why not?”

It’s unknown, it requires much patience and prayer, it requires us to slow down, it requires dependence on an unseen God. Yet, this God created everything that we see and everything in it? Sounds like His kingdom something worth living for.