I think I forgot...

As I was sitting here this morning, I realized I forgot to mention a few things. First off, and update on Ruby's arm. She has her cast off! We could not be more thrilled about this. She went in and got another x-ray and it looks like everything healed nicely so we were able to remove her cast. For the first few days she was a little hesitant to use it but now she is back to her normal self (besides this cold going around). Trent is doing amazing. I took him in yesterday to get weighed and he is a whopping 10 lbs. 11oz. He is growing perfectly they said but I say he's growing up a little to fast. I never thought that it would go by this quickly but looking at Ruby now, it seems like my baby girl is now a little toddler. We are so grateful that God blessed us with two beautiful healthy children. Preston and I are doing well. Parenting has presented a whole new area of growth and to be honest we haven't always tackled it gracefully. Thankfully, we know that this is a huge learning process and God in His grace allows for growth through failure. We also know that no one is perfect and parenting is no easy task, so for now we are taking it one day at a time. 

So as for the next few months, we are planning on coming up to Michigan for Easter weekend. We cannot wait. We truly miss fellowshipping with our church family at First Baptist and we cannot wait to rejoin them even if its just for a short while. The following weekend, I (Stephanie) am going on a weekend getaway with a small group of ladies that I have been meeting with since we've been here. I will be leaving the kids here with Preston so that I can have the weekend to relax and fellowship with these ladies. There are 8 of us going and we are all so excited. We have received some money gifts from a few ladies to help towards our expenses which is a huge blessing. For our summer, we plan on moving back to Michigan so that Preston can work. We are still in search of a place to stay during that time. We are looking to stay in the St. Johns area so that we can be close to church and so that Preston won't be to far from work. If anyone does know of a place that takes month to month payments or a basement that is open that for us to stay in we would appreciate it. 

Thank you all for being so invested in our lives and for keeping up with us. If you would like to call or write us letters or e-mails we would love it. 

 Ruby at the doctor's office with her splint off!

 Our handsome man on Valentines Day. What a stud 😊

 Preston working in Tech Class.

 Trent helping me with the multi-meter.

 On our walk home from class. Ruby loves being outside.

Honesty is the best policy...right?

So, this is just Stephanie speaking this time. I just wanted to share what God has been teaching me this past week. Right now we have been going through classes that have challenged my thinking so much. I feel like I am at my wits end. My candle has been burning at both ends. When I think of everything that has been going on in our lives over the past month, I really am shocked that we're still chugging along. But at times like these it is when I realize I need God the most. I see that there is nothing in this life that I cannot do without the Lord's help. When I finally realize that I am at this point, it's usually been a while. This time has been so different though. I finally understand that it is times like this that God is revealing a small piece of himself to me in a whole new way. I was so sad that I couldn't grasp who God is and what He means to my life, but after this week, even though I still have a lot to learn, I am feeling so encouraged. God has been so faithful to come alongside me and teach me more and more each day who He is. I have a whole lot of head knowledge of who God is and what His character is but as for heart knowledge, I'm just now realizing, I have no clue who He is to me. I have been changing my heart towards each day. I have never prayed for God to get me though one day at a time but now I find myself waking up and praying that every morning and it has made such a difference. I have seen His love so much more clear and been able to love my husband and kids in a much better way because of it. I'm not writing this to discourage you or anything but I'm writing it out of joy. Joy because I have been growing so much and I just wanted to share that with all of you hoping that it may be an encouragement to someone who may need it. Ok I'm done blabbing now but I just wanted to share that with who ever is reading our blog.

Just a quick update

Just wanted to share a huge praise. God has been so faithful to us throughout our whole time here financially. Within this past week God has provided another $500 for our school bill. This means that we only have about $700 more for the rest of our semester. It has just amazed us at how God has been so faithful even when we have doubted His faithfulness to provide for us. It is times like this that we look at our lives and realize how much more we need to grow. We just wanted to share this with all of you so your could celebrate with us and so that you can know how God has been providing for us. Thanks!

Well to start off, I just want to say that I hope that this blog will help keep all of you a little bit better connected with our lives. Because our schedule is so full, it get's hard to send out updates to everyone we hold so dear. I hope that through this blog, we'll be able to show you a little bit better what we're going through currently and how you can be praying for us throughout the rest of our time here. We also have so many things that we want to give praise to the Lord for and we would love to share them with all of you.

We just kicked off our new semester on January 15. It was four days after we welcomed our son into the world. Although it was a little stressful at first, God has given us the strength to make it through the first few weeks. When Trent was almost 2 weeks old, we had our E-Linc Group (a small group made up of people from our class and two staff couples that we meet with twice a week for the whole time we're here) over. Ruby was sitting on a chair across the room and she slid off the front of the chair and landed right on her left arm. We weren't sure if she had truly injured it so we had Steph's dad (a former paramedic) come over to check it. He recommended that we take her to the hospital. We left Trent with Steph's parents and headed to the hospital 30 minuets away. Turns out she did fracture her arm right above her elbow. She has a splint on her arm and is doing well. We love that she didn't need a full cast because we are allowed to take the splint off and give her a bath. We praise the Lord that it was just a small fracture and not a full break. It is amazing how in these times of craziness, we fine peace in the Lord and are able to look to Him for strength.

We have been enjoying the classes a lot this semester. Just a brief overview of the classes we've gone through and are currently in are:

Families and Education (Finished):

In this class, we learned some of the struggles that families may face on the field as well as how to deal with difficult situations. We were able to see how having our family overseas may cause some struggles but how it can be a huge blessing and asset to your ministry. We also learned different options for educating our children when we get to the field. There are far more options that we had originally thought so that is very encouraging. This class was a huge learning time for us both.

Biblical Parenthood (Finished):

This class could have not come at a better time. We have been trying to figure out how to raise Ruby. She has been a little more testy and we were struggling to find what was the best way to deal with it. There is always areas to grow in and if your a parent you know exactly what we were struggling with.  It was great to go through this course and see different areas where we were failing and how to correctly discipline and parent. It's was also amazing to see how God's word really gives us clear direction in this area. Please continue to pray for us as parenting isn't a walk in the park. We feel a little more confident after taking the class but everyday is a he learning experience for us.

Romans 5-8 (Finished):

There isn't a ton to say about this course except for the class brought us back to our knees in humbleness. If you haven't read through Romans 5-8 in a while, you should go through it again. This course was just a good reminder of who we are and what Christ has done for us.

Student Teaching (Currently taking only on Monday's):

This course is just once a week. It is designed to help us learn how to better communicate when public speaking. As missionaries, we will be speaking in churches, small groups, one-on-one and who knows where else. So the class is trying to better equip us to speak in an effective way in front of people.

Missionary Tech (Currently taking):

This course is still going on for us. It has been a very challenging for Stephanie to keep track of everything that is being said in the class but Preston is rally soaking it up. This course is to equip missionaries to know how to take care of electrical equipment and different money saving/labor saving devices to use once overseas. We have had the chance to solder and work with batteries and other electrical equipment which has been a lot of fun. The course has been very enlightening and helpful.

Missionary Partnership Development (Currently taking):

This class has been amazing. It is a hard subject for us to talk about. When it comes to raising support, both of us feel like we have no idea where to start. What we have been realizing is that it truly isn't about the finances, it's about the mission God has for us as believers. We realize that if we look at it that way, we get excited to ask people to join us financial to help assist in the Lord's work around the world. We are still going through this class and understand that we have much more to learn about how to approach this whole topic but it has been amazing so far. 

Feild Health (Currently taking):

This is such a helpful class. It's talking about the basics of field health things that tend to show up on the field. We will be studying common sicknesses and we might even be able to practice some emergency situations. We will also be learning how to keep ourselves and our children healthy (to the best of our abilities) while we're on the field. 

As you can see, this is a heavy work load but it is amazing classes. We have been so encourage going through all of these classes and cannot wait to see what else God has to teach us throughout the semester. 

Our schedule is a bit full as of right now. We are in classed from 8-12 a.m. Preston has work detail from 1:15-5 on Monday's and Tuesday's and also has his ministry outreach on Monday and Thursday nights. We also meet with our E-Linc group on Wednesday's and Friday's. On top of that we have a moderate homework load. Although some day's seem more stressful than others, we are extremely happy that we are here. The longer we have been here the more we feel that this is where God wants us right now, and there is no better place to be than in the will of God. We have had to look to Him for strength, endurance, wisdom and rest during this time. 

We appreciate so much the prayers, letters, phone calls, text messages and Facebook contact that we have had from all of you. We always feel so encouraged when we hear from people back home and how things are going there. Please feel free to contact us at anytime. 

Our address is:

134 Main Dr.

Roach, MO

65787

Our e-mail: psnichols10@gmail.com

Our phone numbers: 989-640-4529 or 616-340-8024

We'll be posting on the blog to try to keep people posted a little better on what is going on in our lives. We love you all so much!

In Christ,

The Nichols Family

Below are our beautiful pictures of our kids. Ruby is being a little crazy in some of them but she just wanted to show you some of her personality.

Wow... it has been a long time since I have posted on here. For that i am terribly sorry. Things have been going very well in the Nichols house hold. We got back from our trip down to see my parents on October 8th. It was a wonderful time down there. Preston was able to help pour the remainder of the foundation on the house. My parents were extremely encouraged to be able to see that part of the building process completed. While we were down there though, they did inform us that they were very far behind finically. They needed a large sum of money to be able to buy the rest of the materials to get the frame of the house up. In MO, the rules are that once they start building above the ground it needs to be up within 90 days, so they had a deadline to meet but it would be hard if they didn't have the money to get the stuff to make it happen. A group of guys from their supporting church was planning on taking time off work for two weeks to help them get the frame up for the house but they were feeling discouraged because they had no money to buy the supplies. But God is good... within the week God moved in the hearts of some people to give them money and they were able to buy exactly what they needed for the frame. Amazing, huh. So... right now the frame is going up on their ministry home. Thanks to the men who took time off work and away from their families to help out my parents. Here's the thing though... they only had just enough money to pay for the frame. They still need a lot of money to get the rest of the house up. It cost a lot of money to build a home and they don't have any. Well another awesome thing God did was He gave me a great idea. While I was in Thailand, I would make pies for a little extra income. It was a huge hit when I was in high school and I sold a ton of pies. So I got to thinking, what if I was able to sell pies to raise money to help my parents build their ministry home? I really wanted to help them out but being a mom I didn't know what I could do. But baking I can do while still being at home with Ruby. So I created a small business. It's called Slice of Heaven and all the proceeds are going to help the building of my parents home. I am so excited to be a part of this and to be able to see how God has already provided through the pies. I have seen God provide for this business already in really cool ways. A friend of mine gave $100 to help buy supplies and another friend gave me her Kitchen Aid cause I didn't have one and I really needed it if I was going to keep up with the orders. God has been so good. My goal is to try and reach $1,000 by the first of the year. After that i decided that every month I would choose a different missionary couple or family to send the proceeds to. My dad was saying that Slice of Heaven is a great name too, cause anyone who buys is helping support someone who is trying to spread the gospel to those who haven't heard and is adding to a "slice of heaven"... When he said it, it sounded better. Anyways, if any of you would like to buy any baked good from me here's the website: psnichols10.wix.com/slice-of-heaven. Also if you would like to donate money to my parents ministry home, you can e-mail me or visit their facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/PercysHarborHome).

Now onto more family stuff. Ruby is doing wonderful. We were just looking at pictures of her this morning of when we first brought her home and it is crazy to see how big she has gotten. She is such a blessing and has taught us so much even though she doesn't even talk yet. Preston and I were able to meet with our missions committee at our church on Oct. 11 and it went very well. We were just able to express where we would like to be in the next couple years and where we could see God using us. I have been able to get involved with the women's bible study on wednesday nights and Preston is looking to get involved with the youth. We also have joined a sunday school group so it has been very nice to be able to get to know some of the people in our church family a bit better. If you could just be praying for us as we look to the future. We are planning on moving forward with our missionary training within the next year but would really like to build strong friendships with our church family first. We know that God is leading us into ministry and we are so excited for that but we also know how important it is to have a strong body of believers in our lives to support and encourage us on this journey. God has been so good and so faithful in our lives and we have so much to be thankful for. We love all of you and appreciate the impact you have made on our lives and the love you have shown us. Feel free to e-mail or call us at any time. We appreciate all of you!

In Christ,
Stephanie (for all of us)

These are some of the baked goods i make:

 Chocolate Pie

 Blueberry Muffins

Apple Pie

Since the last time that I wrote a whole lot has happened. Currently we are in Missouri at the Missionary Training Center visiting my parents. It has been such a wonderful time down here to just see where we are planning on being this time next year and to be able to talk with the students that are currently here and let my parents bond with their new granddaughter. The last few weeks really have been overwhelming. We have seen God answer so many prayers and open so many doors for us. A few weeks ago we had been praying that God would make it clear to us wether or not we should go to the MTC next fall or if we needed to wait longer. We decided to tell our pastor what we were thinking and he said that he would talk to the churches missions committee about it and get back to us. In my head I was thinking,"Ok God this is it... we'll se what they have to say and if they feel like it isn't wise than that means we're here longer." I was finally ok with the fact that God may have us stay out of the training just a little longer but Pastor Tim came up to us the following Sunday and said that they were all very excited with where we were headed. It was such an answer to prayer. We finally felt settled with the decision to move on with the training. This meant though that we have a busy year ahead of us. We knew that we would need to get more involved with our church and start to build stronger relationships with our church body. We are now trying to figure out some ways that we can be more involved. Preston was approached to help usher at the church and I will be talking in March to the Awanas kids about how it was growing up in Thailand. The ladies at the church also just threw me and Ruby a wonderful baby shower so that was a good time to get to know some of the women in the church a little better. It feels so nice to have a body of believers involved in your life even though you may not know them that well. I didn't know many of the women at the shower but they all still came just to show support and be a part of our lives. We are both really looking forward to getting to know the people in our church better.

On to other things... We have been so blessed this month. We were visited by my sister and brother for a week. Both of them live out of state and I haven't seen my sister in a year so it was wonderful to see them both. They hadn't meet Ruby yet so they got to spend the week bonding with her and it was a very precious time. The day that they left we made our trip down here to Missouri to surprise my parents. They had no idea that we were planning on coming so it was really fun to surprise them. They are currently in the process of building a house down here. They are on staff here at the MTC and are planning on sticking around for a while. God has blessed them with a nice piece of property and now they are in the process of trying to raise funds to finish the building process. One of the other reasons we came down was so that Preston could help my dad clear up some of the land. My dad has been doing most of the work alone so any extra help he can get he appreciates. They would really appreciate your prayers as they are trying to raise the funds for the construction and just prayer for the energy to work on it.

Preston and I are doing great. We have enjoyed being a family. Although it comes with many new challenges it has been a huge learning experience. Ruby is doing good and is a very healthy baby. We went into the doctors last week. Within the last 4 weeks she had gain over 3 pounds. She's a very heavy eater. It was nice to hear that she was doing good. It's a huge blessing to have a healthy baby and i never really realized how big of a blessing it was. She's growing up so fast so we're trying to soak up as much time with her as we can. 

Again thanks for taking the time to read this. We would love to have a strong team of people behind us to join in the work that the Lord is doing around the world. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, we are so excited to be a part of the team and we invite you to join us in the process. Please keep us in your prayer and feel free to write us whenever you want.

Till next time,

Stephanie

daddy's little girl

Hey Everybody!

So this is the first time that I've every blogged so I'm new at this. We thought that it would be a good idea to start letting people know where we are in life and what our future plans are. For those of you who don't know much about Preston and I, we are currently living in Lansing and have been here for a little over a year. We met at New Tribes Bible Institute in August of 2008. We started to date that October and 2 weeks after we graduated we got married. The following August we did and internship at the bible school as staff. Preston worked on the Physical Plant department which did maintenance   around the school and I worked with the Child Care department. It was a wonderful ministry experience. Preston and I learned a lot about working in a ministry setting. By serving with other missionaries and seeing how we can impact the unreached, it solidified what we felt like God was leading us to do. We knew that God wanted us to go into full time ministry. After our internship we moved to Lansing and started to get involved with a church in St. John's. In October of 2011 we became members of the church. It was amazing to become a part of a church body as a married couple, especially part of a church that is so missions minded. That started the next phase of our future plans.

A couple of weeks after we became members we had some other big news that entered our life. We found out that I was pregnant. We were so excited. It was an unexpected surprise, but God works in mysterious ways. 9 months later we got a wonderful surprise. On July 8, 2012 we had a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Ruby Deemae. She was born at 11:32 a.m. and was 7 pound 9 ounces and 20.5 inches long. She is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. Of course I am kind of bias. It has been  blessing to have a baby. We have learned so much and it's only been a month. God is amazing in what He chooses to use as a growing experience (those of you who are parents know what I'm talking about.) We knew that having a baby would change our lives and maybe our plans but we weren't sure how. God is faithful and we knew that He would direct our path.

Looking to the future, we are planning on going to the New Tribes Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Roach, MO in the fall of 2013. These plans are tentative right now because we aren't sure what God has in store for us, but we are extremely excited to finish up the training and go into full time missions. This year we are hoping to establish better relationships in the area and get more involved in our church. It is extremely important for us to establish strong relationships with people and build up a family of people who will support us in prayer as we are taking on a huge task of spreading the gospel to the unreached around the world. We would love for you to join us in this great task and help us in prayer as we look to the future. We are stepping out in faith into a world of unknowns and as scary as it is we are extremely excited. We have seen how God is faithful in our lives if we walk according to His will and we cannot wait to see what He has in store for us.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I will do my best to continue to update the blog so you know what is going on in our lives. We would love your support and feel free to write us anytime.

In Christ,
Stephanie (for both of us)