This is our final newsletter from the United States! In a matter of days, we will fly to Taiwan to begin our vicarage. We will remain there briefly, only while we wait for Hollen’s visa to be approved.

The LCMS coordinates its Asia missions from the regional office in Chiayi, Taiwan. Pastor Charles Ferry is the regional director for our Asia team (over forty missionaries!) and is like a second vicarage supervisor for us. He’s done a lot of work to coordinate and prepare for this vicarage and will get us started in Taiwan. Not only will there be opportunities to practice preaching at the regional headquarters, we will also receive orientation for mission work in Asia.

Though we will not be in Sri Lanka for another few weeks yet, we’re grateful to be entering the field at last, and we’re excited to learn from the missionaries in Taiwan. Moreover, through technology, God has provided us with opportunities to begin learning the Tamil language. So, although we must wait a little longer to enter the work to which God has appointed us, he is preparing us for Sri Lanka.

To you reading this, thank you for your patient encouragement and prayers while we’ve been waiting to leave. Now that our deployment is immanent, we’re looking forward to sending pictures and news from Asia! We ask for your prayers and continued support for our work—the Lord’s work, which He’s blessed us to participate in. See you on the other side … literally, the other side of the Earth!

Vicar Benjamin and Grace Vanderhyde serve the Lord through The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) as missionaries in Sri Lanka. In his role as vicar, Benjamin trains up musicians to serve the Ceylon Evangelical Lutheran Church while assisting the other LCMS missionaries serving in Sri Lanka with their work and learning from them. You can read more about the Vanderhydes at www.lcms.org/vanderhyde.