Our family is currently awaiting the decision of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior regarding our residence permits. This yearly process is always somewhat painstaking. Essentially, we have to send in a variety of documents concerning our income, employment, schooling (Lina), and legal status. The government must then discern if we fulfill their criteria to reside here.

Throwing COVID-19 into the mix complicates things, however. It means that we have significantly less commuication and transparency with our application, and we are relatively unsure how the process is going.

Please pray that the Lord would grant us favor in the eyes of the state and that our application process would receive a quick approval.

When COVID-19 struck, Crescent Project made the radical decision to cancel all of our on-site conferences for the rest of the year. By God's grace and the provision of many colleagues' sweat and blood, we shot off 3 online conferences instead. Our ministry was expecting that 2020 was going to be an extremely difficult year for our training and equipping ministry, but this proved to be some very mysterious providence.

All combined, our conferences had a total of over 3,500 attendees. And this is a conservative estimate since we can't always measure the size of viewing parties on a single device. In zoom rooms, I prayed for attendees in ministry in Africa, while others were sharing their faith for the first time in the Midwest United States, and still others were pursuing evangelistic relationships in the midst of lockdowns in the UK. After the conference, our staff made contact with many new Christians and churches who are considering reaching out to Muslims all over the globe.

Online ministry is certainly not without certain limitations, but I'm so thankful for how the Lord how ordained even this situation to His glory. Please pray that our work online this year would continue to bear fruit and more Christians would be equipped to share their faith with Muslims. I'm already in conversation with two attendees in follow-up conversations after the conference, and we're thinking about ways to reach out to Muslims where they are.

Current regulations in Austria continued to permit outreach ministries like the Oasis to operate under certain restrictions. There were a few weeks where things like this were impossible, but that is mostly the exception rather than the rule. Generally speaking, the Oasis had to keep visitors under 10 persons (not including volunteers and workers). This created some friction and some nights people had to be turned away, but we usually found room for people in TV rooms. During this turbulent season, the Lord also provided a number of opportunities to witness to people who otherwise might not have heard the gospel. Sadly, the government has instituted new regulations as of yesterday. It appears that ministries like the Oasis will be discontinued for the next month.

Ibrahim and Family
One particular story during this time offered some encouragement for both myself and the full-time workers at the Oasis. Ibrahim (not his real name) and his family come from the Middle East. His father exposed some government corruption in his region which resulted in his family being targeted. They fled for their lives in search of some place safe, but their home country's government was ready to expend every resource to capture them. Upon arriving in Serbia, Ibrahim and his family started to hear about Jesus. Ibrahim, a young man, also began to question some the ethical conclusions of Islam which had permitted and (to some degree) encouraged the persecution of his family for doing the right thing.

When I met Ibrahim, he had many questions about the Bible - mostly as it pertains to ethics. For example: May Christians divorce? What do Christians have to *do* in order to inherit eternal life. The time that I had with Ibrahim was mostly trying to show him the hopelessness of his estate as long as he trusted in his own works. He and his family began reading the Bible. They were amazed by Jesus and Ibrahim was slowly more and more interested in the biblical Jesus.

Although Ibrahim was transferred outside of Vienna, I'm staying in touch. Please pray that the Lord would provide a gospel-preaching church near the rural area where he was transferred. Also, join me in praying that the Oasis would be able to operate normally again soon.

Yesterday, our city and Austria as a whole experienced its first act of terrorism since 1981. Apparently, an Islamic terrorist loosely connected to the Islamic State carried out a series of violent acts that resulted in his own death at the hands of police as well as several injured and at least two innocents deceased. The police investigation is ongoing, and it will probably be some time until all the conspirators are brought to justice.

In light of this, I would like to ask Christians to pray for two things: First, pray that the state would continue to carry out its mandate of justice and those in authority would have wisdom by God's common grace. Also, and even more importantly, pray that God would dismantle Islamic extremism by the power of the gospel. Pray that those who are held captive by Satan's lies would repent and trust Christ.