Several years ago, Lina and I got to know a sister-in-Christ, Andrea, and she eventually joined our church in Vienna, Austria. One day, while on holiday in Bolivia, Andrea was investigated by the Austrian authorities on suspicion of hate speech for writing a biblical evaluation of the dangers of the LGBTQ+ movement. At that point, she decided not to return to Vienna and potentially face criminal charges. However, she became a tremendous blessing to the saints back home in Bolivia. The church there grew tremendously in her time there. Additionally, this afforded me the opportunity to get to know her brother Alvaro who pastors the church. Over the years, that relationship developed into us financially fellowshipping with the ministry in La Paz.

Praise the Lord, we were able to go and visit the saints in La Paz this August! Lina and I entrusted the kids at their grandparents house, and we spent a week in windy La Paz. I taught about 10 times on topics like baptist history, congregational church government, and the dangers of feminism and marxism as anti-christian worldviews. Then I had the special pleasure of preaching for the church during their Lord's Day gathering.

Preaching
My preaching ministry in recent months has brought me back to Samuel and the story of the righteous davidic King. Two weeks ago, I just finished preaching the substance of the davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7:1-17. This Sunday I will be preaching on David's prayer of thanksgiving. These recent sermons in story of Samuel have been exciting and surprising for me. So much of David's life tracks with the life of Jesus. His humiliation, his new Exodus, receiving a Kingdom through sacrifice, and winning a people to himself. Much more could be said of course, and David's story will soon invite us to trust in God's promises even when the Kingdom is in shambles, and sin wreaks havoc, but until now, we are nearly in heavenly bliss going through God's story of the King after his own heart. More than that, however, by beholding Christ through David, we are being transformed to more and more like our supreme great high Priest-King.

Membership Movement
It seems that the Lord has purposed in recent days to grow our church. Starting in August, we have had unusual amount of interest in membership, baptism, as well as visitors. Praise the Lord, we cannot even offer membership classes fast enough to keep up with demand. Our most recent membership class stands to take in 6 brothers and sisters into our church covenant. One family also brings 3 children with them, so our children's facilities are also bulging at the seams.

Family Ministry
Our church is definitely growing in recent months. Consequently, we have experienced a few very good problems to have. Through consultation with churches in the states, we have again needed to revamp our approach to Sunday mornings and caring for children. Starting in November, the intention is to offer Gottesdienstvorbereitung (Worship prep) for children prior to the service, a Mother-child room during the service with livestream, and a children's sermon during the sermon portion of the service. All of this requires logistics and has demanded much of my attention in recent weeks. Please pray for our children, that God would reveal his Son, Jesus, to them, and that they would grow in the instruction of the Lord.

In the month of August, my family and I spent about 4 weeks in the US for the purpose of meeting with supporting churches and brothers and sisters in Christ. It was a lot of traveling for the kids. 7 states and 7 churches with 6 plane rides demanded much from them, but there was much encouragement as well.

It is always a joy for my soul to preach for the supporting churches in the US who give so sacrificially for the work that we are doing in Vienna. I always particularly enjoy to give snapshots of our expository ministry here but in my native tongue! Although I miss English hymnody the most, perhaps second place is being able to regularly hear English language sermons.

More than two dozen individuals came up to me this trip and to share how they pray for us, or to brag on another brother or sister who is faithful in prayer for our work. This encourages us to labor in faith, because the Lord of the harvest hears the prayers of the righteous. Thank you to everyone for your wonderful fellowship. Lina and I and the kids look forward to seeing you all again sometime soon.

Trinitas has taken off, and we have completed our first course on Introduction to Reformed Theology. Brad Hunter, our Chancellor, was the primary instructor, but Kai and I both got the opportunity to teach a few sessions. My task was to teach on historical context of the reformation and the role of confessions in reformational thought.

One obviously extremely fruitful investment has been having Naomi - a sister from our church - to manage the administrative side of Trinitas. This has freed Brad and other instructors up to focus on the teaching, and she has done an excellent job. We have letterheads, logos, systematized organization, and top notch communication with instructors and students. Truly, Trinitas Academy is becoming an excellent church-based bible college and resource for training church leaders. Hallelujah!