Finally settling down

The last month has been a crazy whirlwind of events. We got married on July 9th and the wedding turned out to be fabulous. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. It was personal and beautiful and a blast!!! The following day we left on our honeymoon to the beautiful Punta Cana for a whole week. It was so relaxing and just what we needed after all the chaos of the wedding and preparing for our big move. Just as soon as we flew back into Cincinnati, the chaos was back full force. We drove straight down to Hendersonville, TN to present to the missions committee at the church on Sunday morning.

Sunday, we drove back to Columbus to open our wedding presents and get the apartment in order and ready to move. We had one week to pack up everything, use the gift cards we received, tie up any loose ends and visit my family one more time in PA. It was kind of a bittersweet week, having to say goodbye to everyone, but still we're excited for the future.

Tuesday, July 27 was when we started our journey across the country in a great big Uhaul. I thought it was a pretty fun adventure as I have never driven across the country. We stopped in St Louis to see the arch, which was really fun. Then we went through Oklahoma City and Albuquerque. We had a couple hiccups including losing air conditioning for about 4 hrs, but we made it safely on Friday, July 30.

Since then we have been doing a lot of unpacking and trying to get the new place organized. We are getting ourselves familiar with the town and with the church here in Kayenta. We have already connected to a young girl in High School that wants to learn more about the Bible and we’ve set up regular studies with her. Also, we had the opportunity to attend AIMS- American Indian Mission Seminar held in Colorado Springs this past weekend. Some of the preachers from the Navajo reservation were there and spoke about their challenges, successes and ideas to improve. One speaker couldn’t attend due to a death in the family so Nick got a chance to fill in. He did a great job speaking about why we chose the Navajo reservation to be in the work of the Lord.

Now that we are here, we see an even bigger need to work with the teenagers. This is mainly due to the large number of teens but also because there hasn’t been a lot of structure for them in the past. We will be looking to build a solid youth and family program here to get the teens involved as well as their parents. The first Sunday we were here, there were 56 people in attendance and 26 of them were under 18. Speaking of which, Josh wasn’t feeling well that day so Nick got his first opportunity to preach here.

We got puppies too!!!! We got two sister puppies from a litter of seven. They are basically pure mutts (they call them rez dogs), but adorable. Nick is trying to train them up to be guard dogs but they are too cute for that right now. Their names are Uncle Paulie and Mr. Rocky Balboa- yes you heard that right, they are girls but they have boy names.

Well, so far so good. We really love it here and are so excited about the opportunities we have already found. We thank you for your continued prayers and support.

One month to go...

Once again, we have neglected to update this as often as we intended. We haven’t had a tremendous amount of news to report. In the past few weekends we have been able to make presentations for the University church of Christ in Morgantown, WV and the Watterson Trail church of Christ in Louisville, KY. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be making a presentation at the Dublin-Powell church of Christ and immediately after the Honeymoon we’ll be travelling to Nashville to meet with the missions committee at the Hendersonville church of Christ. We are keeping busy however we still need to find support! We have made a good start, we have eclipsed the amount that will make it possible (although very tough) to make the move and go through with our plans. That being said we still have a considerable need for continued monthly supports.

I had dinner a month or so ago with my grandparents. My grandfather has been very ill with cancer (I’d certainly appreciate every prayer you can give on his behalf) and so I have been made even more aware of the uncertainty that is life. While we were eating we started to talk about some of the challenges of the work in Arizona and how to deal with people. He said, I have always answered people’s complaints the same way, with one question. ‘What did they say when you told them that?’ It’ll fix the problem every single time he said. That reminds me of something I want to make sure that I’ve been very clear about in regards to our plans and communications and especially this blog. I would rather answer a couple of questions about something that’s been unclear so I can let you know exactly what I meant or think instead of the alternative. I myself have been guilty of reading or hearing something and then using it to gossip rather than straightening out the issue at the source. Great piece of advice, via Bob Smith. As often as I can manage it I will be sharing nuggets of wisdom from my grandfather instead of my own. I am very blessed to have a strong Christian man as an example in my life.

On the Road Again...

It's been a couple of weeks since we've updated the blog here, been a while since we've had much news to report. I just wanted to leave a quick note about our coming weeks plans. We are still looking for support. So if there is a person, a congregation, an Eldership or organization that might be interested in getting involved in this work or might have connections that we could use to meet potential supporters, please let us know. (That sentence should probably have a colon or semicolon or something. I only use the colon when I'm writing the time and the semicolon when a comma doesn't seem appropriate but something is needed.)

This coming Sunday I am headed down to Louisville, KY to the Watterson Trail church of Christ to meet with the members there and give a presentation about the mission work. Unfortunately, Heidi will be staying behind on this trip to attend (and host) a wedding shower at the church for our friend Lisa. Then the following weekend we'll be headed together out to Morgantown to visit with and make a presentation for the church there. We also have a meeting set with the Hendersonville church of Christ in TN on the day after we return from our honeymoon in July. As far as dates on the calendar, that is the extent of our travelling schedule for now. We've been talking with a few local churches and are waiting to hear back from a handful of churches in other areas. Please continue to pray for our support raising efforts as we still have some work to do.

We are just over halfway to our goal right now, in terms of monthly support. We have also collected a very generous amount of individual donations and one time supports that will be very helpful in making the actual move and getting some things set up once we arrive in Kayenta. Hopefully, the gas prices will continue to go down. I've been advised that a uhaul (fully loaded) pulling a car behind will get about 8mpg optimistically. Our trip is going to be close to 2,000 miles. Ha ha, so we'll need a lot of gas.

In other news, the wedding plans are coming along well. We are just over a month away now and are pretty much down to the minor details. There are still 2 groomsmen who haven't been fitted for a tuxedo yet, Ahem. Excuse me I'm just getting over a cold. We're also anxiously awaiting the RSVP's, that has been one of the best parts of the wedding experience so far. I personally, can't wait to see and experience the Western PA tradition of a cookie table. Retraction, I can't wait to be married to my beautiful bride and then to see the cookie table.

Heidi has started a Bible study with a friend of hers from work and has been really excited to share her faith. We've both been excited to get to Arizona and get started in this work, putting our faith into real action. Thanks for all of the support and encouragement that you've graciously given us both.

Nick

House Keeping

Something I want to clear up as it may not have been clear enough in our earliest packets and communications, any checks sent on our behalf to the Northeast congregation in Albuquerque, NM should be made out to "Northeast church of Christ" and should say "Rice-Kayenta" in the memo line. I know this information doesn't apply to all of our blog readers, but it needed to be straightened out somehow. If you need to contact our sponsoring congregation or are preparing to send support for us,their address is:

Northeast church of Christ
11000 Paseo del Norte NE
Albuquerque, NM 87122

Second on the list of housekeeping items, consider this your official invitation to make comments on any and all blog posts. The comments don't have to be related to the postings themselves, if you wanted to ask a question or comment on some other topic feel free.

Lastly, Heidi and I are taking the advice of a good friend (who I will name this time, Robin Weier) and planning a night of Questions and Answers. I'm working on setting a date with our host and then the official invitation will be sent out. The idea is that we'll order pizza's, hangout for a little bit and then open it up for any and all questions you might have about all things Kayenta related. Have a question that you were afraid to ask during our presentation? Have you wondered, will you have to learn to speak Navajo? Will you get jobs out there? Will you live in a tee pee? You can ask anything, and I'll come ready to answer everything.

We'll also have a commitment form that you can fill out if you are interested in supporting our work on the Rez monthly.

If this event interests you at all, please let me know in some way (preferrably a written way) so that we can make sure we don't have too many people or too few pizza's.

Update on raising support

Hello Friends! We had a great weekend. Nick presented at our home congregation (Fishinger & Kenny Roads Church of Christ) about our future work in Kayenta. Lots of people at church had heard about our plans but didn't know many of the details. The elders allowed us the opportunity to present on Sunday morning during Bible class (combining all adult classes).
Nick gave a great presentation explaining the current situation in Kayenta and the hands on work we will be embarking on this summer. Nick is a great speaker and I am so proud of him when he speaks in front of the church.

Let me back up a couple months. In the middle of March, Nick made a trip to Albuquerque, NM to meet with the Northeast Church of Christ about being our sponsoring church. He made a presentation and delivered a sermon to the congregation there. He had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the people and was very encouraged by every one's excitement about the work on the reservation. Northeast agreed to be our sponsoring church. If you are not familiar with mission work, this means that all of our funding will go through the Northeast church and they will dispense our "paycheck." In addition, several individuals made donations to help us get our feet off the ground. The generosity and love that people expressed gave us a great start to our fundraising.

In April, we made a trip to the Ohio Valley to the 6th & Washington Church of Christ. Nick met with the elders and gave a presentation and sermon at their Sunday evening service. They have agreed to generously support us monthly and we received a lot of uplifting words of encouragement in our short time with them.

We have three other congregations we are making plans to visit and present. In June, we are visiting the Watterson Trail Church of Christ in Loiusville, KY. In July, we'll have a meeting and prepare a presentation for the Hendersonville Church of Christ in TN. Please continue to spread the word about our work and keep us in your prayers, because we have a long way to go in raising support.

Heidi's point of view

Sometimes it's hard for people to see Nick and I both as full-time missionaries. There are obvious reasons for this, like men's and women's roles in the church. Then there's the fact that Nick has a degree in ministry while I have a business degree and have worked in the corporate world for a few years now. It seems as though many people refer to only Nick in the missionary setting and I just wanted to clear up any misconceptions already out there by describing what my role will be in the church. Also, I want people to know that this is a dream come true for me in several ways. I have been looking for a job where I can directly impact peoples' lives and after my mission trip to Kayenta in 2006, it has been my dream to become a full-time missionary.

So, what will I do? Our main goal is to build up adult leaders in the church and strong Christian members of the community. With that being said, my first focus will be to have Bible studies with the women of the church and the community. In addition to this, I have several ideas for ladies programs and classes. While setting up different programs and classes, the goal is always to teach other faithful women to do the same. For example, while I prepare for a class, I have another woman working beside me who will teach the class the next week. Our overall goal is always to teach the people how to be leaders in hopes that one day they don't need us.

I would also like to tackle some of the administrative pieces within the church. When looking at a small church just getting off the ground, it might seem insignificant. However, I believe that the more opportunities we can create for people to get involved, the stronger the church will become. I would like to teach a couple members how to create and sustain their own bulletin.

I am getting my Masters in Counseling and when you look at some of the cultural issues in Kayenta, I look at this as an internship for my career as a Counselor. I hope to become a mentor to women who feel hopeless in any area of their lives whether it is their spiritual life, home life, career, or social life. The Bible and the Church can certainly be an answer to a lot of womens' needs. Pray for me as I lead people to these answers.

The last role will of course be to support my husband in everything he does. He will be studying with a lot of men. But in addition, he will be working with the members to build a youth and family program. I will assist him in these activities. Together, we make a great team!

...the name is Rice

This is the start of what I hope will be years worth of updates and great stories, information and interesting thoughts about life on the reservation. As Heidi and I make plans to move to Kayenta, AZ this will be the place where you can keep track of what's going on. My hope is that this will eventually be much more interesting, but for anyone who doesn't know what we have been doing or planning this first post should get you up to speed.

Long story short, (and if you want the longer version maybe I could post it another day on request)last September we went to Kayenta for a week to consider getting involved in the mission work full time and fell in love with the people and the possibilities. We started talking about how we could make it become a reality and now here we are. Right now we are seeking out support for the work we hope to start on August 1st, we've been travelling to churches and making presentations in hopes of raising all of the funds we will need to support us for the next two years.

To date, I have made a trip to Albuquerque, NM to meet with the brethren at the Northeast Church of Christ. They have been involved on the reservation for years, and are very supportive of Heidi and I making the move to add to the work that's already being done. They were very gracious hosts and incredibly generous with their support for us. They will serve as our head supporting congregation, if you want to call it that, and will collect and manage all of the funds for our work. The work couldn't move forward without their involvement.

We just came home from a trip to the 6th & Washington congregation in Marietta, OH where I was able to present the mission and request their help in support. The members there were very receptive to our work and very encouraging to Heidi and I personally.

In the early stages of our involvement as missionaries in Kayenta, we have been blown away by the individuals who have stepped forward to support us. We always believed, and now have confirmed, that we are blessed by some of the greatest friends that this world could offer. I won't be in the habit of naming names, but to those of you who have helped to support us in this in every way...THANK YOU!!

Here is our packet so that you can read more about the specifics of what we plan to do. PLEASE feel free to take that packet and pass it on to anyone who might be able to connect us with congregations willing to support this mission work.

Goodnight and God bless.
Nick