And the lord said unto the servant, Go out… and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
Luke 14:23
Welcome to the family, Ben!
Hello everyone, thank you as always for your prayers. There’s a lot to cover in this update, so here’s a breakdown:
- Birth of our 4th child
- Christmas postcard project (expanded)
- Discipleship updates
- USA trip in 2026
On November 16th, Benjamin Emil Bonikowsky was born. He came two weeks early, weighing in at 7lb 13oz. Raquel was more than happy for him to come early, though he gave us very little warning time! It was an early Sunday morning— we left the house at 4:20 and he was born at 5:35 with no complications. We made it back to the hospital room with enough time for me to make arrangements for the Sunday service that morning. Just a few years ago, I’d have almost certainly had to cancel our church services, but now we have several members willing to help with leadership, so I decided to modify the order of service enough to where 3 men could conduct the entire service without me. There was no sermon, but one man led a study he had prepared on the names of God, another led the music and read a scripture passage, and a third read a catechism. They were nervous but enthusiastic, and did a great job. We watched the service on livestream. It felt like a real milestone in church!
Leire, Sofia, and Aiden love their baby brother!
Each year for Christmas my dad and I design and print gospel postcards to send to our respective regions. 2025 will be the 4th year that I send a card to every home in our church city of Errenteria. The postcard has a gospel message on the back in Spanish and in Basque, and contains an invitation to church. I believe it’s an effective way to both share the Gospel and help seeking souls find our church or contact me for Bible studies. This year, provided we have the funds, I would like to expand the region we cover to include several towns adjacent to Errenteria. If you would like to learn more about the project and consider praying for or donating the cost to send cards to a single neighborhood, please visit the project page!
Each neighborhood will turn green as funds are raised to cover it. Tapping on it will show its size, cost to cover, and a photo.
Meal with believers at church
I mentioned my discipleship classes in my last update. I finished the book we were going through on Bible doctrines, and we are now doing a weekly verse-by-verse study of the book of Ephesians. We now meet in the home of another church family, and the husband and wife participate in the Bible study as well. My goal as we go through the book is to teach these believers how to dive deeper in their own personal study of the Bible, and I’m hopeful this will lead to homiletics and the men’s first preaching opportunities in church.
There’s another elderly lady who regularly attends our Wednesday prayer services. She works on Sundays and currently cannot come to regular services. She was in the Orthodox church in her homeland, but is very sensitive to scripture and the Gospel. We are currently going over baptism and the rest of the Gospel, and she’s enthusiastic about being baptized soon.
I’m solidifying plans for our trip in 2026. We are praying the Lord would help us raise support to be more financially stable. To that end, I’m communicating with several new churches to visit, and I’m hopeful the Lord will continue to guide us to new ministry partners. We plan to fly to the USA the first week of April (after Easter Sunday) and stay two months till the beginning of July. We do not yet have a vehicle for our stay, and we’re now a family of 6, so we will need a van. We will likely be driving all up and down the East Coast.
November 2025
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Thank you for your prayers! God bless,
David
Psalm 34:3
Singing at a workers’ retreat at Aierdi
Family photo that turned out nice, but got outdated
Youth retreat at Aierdi, two young people from church
Church fellowship lunch