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)