Familiarly Unfamiliar

Hello everyone! It’s been a while so we’re excited to update you all on what’s been happening in our lives! Once again we have a WhatsApp group for more regular updates and prayer requests, if you’d like to join please reach out to Sonia and I (Lucas) and we can invite you into the group. 

Trailblazer DTS 

If we were to use one short phrase to sum-up this school would be:

familiarly unfamiliar.

Why this wording!?

Every school we are a part of comes with a recognition that no two schools are the same. The end goal is yes, we aim to graduate students that have been growing in their intimacy with Jesus, relating to others how Jesus would, have a life long commitment to sharing the Gospel and making other disciples. 

BUT one major factor is that every school has different students from different nations and backgrounds, a staff team also in the same circumstances and we all meet in a nation to Know God and Make Him Known. So beautiful, and at times challenging for amazing reasons haha.

So why familiarly unfamiliar?

Life with the Lord isn’t about having everything figured out, but rather I’d say getting to know and understand better the one who does, God. For us as a school we all came from such different places and we learnt so much about God! All of us, staff and students, had been walking with Jesus before this school and we had an understanding of who He is. We were at different places in our walk with Him AND the beautiful thing is that in a room full of people He can meet everyone there in different ways exactly where they are at.

That’s how we'd summarize this DTS, God meeting everyone exactly where they’re at, in a personal and intimate way. A way that they needed to be met. The result of that? The outreach’s teams going into different nations, in the Middle East and Balkan’s and sharing about a God who sees, loves and cares. A God that wants to meet people exactly where they are at and walk with them hand in hand. In a loving and life giving relationship, because knowing God is life itself, Jesus says so too in the Bible

John 17v3:

"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

For us personally 

As a couple this was our first time in a bigger project staffing together, something that takes A LOT of our capacity. We were familiar with DTS and how it looks to be a part of one, but for Sonia it was the first time staffing one and for me (Lucas) my first time leading one married. It was a great opportunity to walk in our individual giftings God has given us and to encourage each other to do so! We were delighted seeing each other living out our calling, and even though it was a challenge to do so in our first year of marriage, we’re so grateful we said “yes”. Obeying God in doing so. We have a BIG heart in ministry to see the younger generation living out their calling with God and it was a joy to do this together and see exactly what we love, young people learning their calling and living in it with the Lord.. 

Winter Games (for a risk of copyright we’ll say this instead of the 0lymp1cs)

As DTS was happening a major world event took place two hours from where we live: the Winter Games. As a base we hosted an outreach team from Texas and we worked with multiple ministries to organize evangelism, worship nights, watch parties to invite local friends over at the base, and had services for the athletes. Lucas and I had the opportunity to go to Cortina to worship and pray for the Austrian downhill ski girl team. As we were there we both thought how wild are the places that the Lord leads us in sometimes :). He wants to reach the hearts of people and it is a privilege to serve Him and others. 

The church in Italy is not super connected but it has been so cool for us to see how ministries, pastors, youth groups all worked together for one cause: the kingdom of God advancing in the midst of such a great event!! 

Currently, TWO SCHOOLS

One week after the Trailblazer DTS graduated we welcomed 24 new students! As our team was still grieving the goodbyes we just said, we had to get ready and take on some new responsibilities. Sonia started managing the kitchen. She had to learn how to do meal plans, to create grocery lists and to cook for 50 people, coming to eat at the base everyday. Lucas took on the care of the vehicles we own as a ministry as well as continuing his role in the base leadership team. At the same time we were asked to mentor some students. We both said yes and in the past few months we have enjoyed seeing how God is so intentional and loving towards them. 

During the six months of DTS we were on the front line and now we are working in the background, making sure things run smoothly so others can get to know God and make Him known. 

Sometimes change can be scary, to not have a schedule set in front of us designed to help us and others grow intentionally can feel a little overwhelming. Especially after finishing up a season where we have served others and we have seen God move in such tangible ways. We have been so grateful though because in all the changes the Lord has led us in His peace. Guiding us closer to Him. He is the only one we can find our purpose in, not our missionary work. It’s all for His glory and sometimes our souls need to be reminded of this truth. 

Heart of hospitality

When we moved into the house we are in right now we got so excited to have more space to host people in, whether this means for a meal or for a night or more. In the past few months we have had the joy of hosting so many missionaries and friends over. Whether it is a vacation for them or just a dinner with us, our prayer is always that this house would be a place of rest and peace, a spot to experience the presence of the Lord in beautiful ways.

To end things off…

We hope you're encouraged to hear what God is doing around the world, here in Italy and also in the lives of Sonia and I. We’re grateful to know so many people we love are often praying for us and also supporting us as we continue to live out the calling God has given us as a family of 3 in missions! THAT'S RIGHT, if you didn’t know Sonia is pregnant and our child will be coming in mid August to mid September! We’re incredibly excited to be growing our family and know this is such a gift from God. Please keep us in your prayers and we’ll see you next time! 

God bless you,

Lucas & Sonia