Poster - Worship Slides

Poster - Front-and-Center Slides

Poster - Event Slides

Dear Christian Friends and Family, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, greetings! We have the privilege of sharing with you that our service in Sri Lanka as missionaries of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is ended. We celebrate all that God has accomplished and will yet accomplish as His master plan unfolds.

We already miss our life in Sri Lanka and our Christian family there. We still feel strange in this old but new home, the USA. But we thank God that He is preparing work for us to do our entire lives. This was, after all, a vicarage, a time for us to learn and grow into being a pastor and a pastor’s wife and pastor’s children. We have more learning and growing yet ahead—one more year of seminary at least—before the call and ordination. But we feel like nothing could ever compare to this vicarage experience when it comes to being formed as Christians and as a pastor’s family.

Thank you, dear brothers and sisters who have supported us these past two years, who prayed for us and with us. We thank God who used your gifts, given out of thankfulness and faith and love, to serve His purpose. We thank Him who uses the work of each of us individual members of Christ’s body to build up His Church in love.

This entire vicarage we have constantly felt like we were receiving more than we were giving. Our prayer is that we may one day be able to give of ourselves as our fellow missionaries and our Tamil brothers in Sri Lanka gave of themselves to us, becoming our family and our support. So, in the spirit of that prayer, we rejoice! And we wait with anticipation for God to show us the next doors He would have us walk through, the next neighbors He would have us serve.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

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.