8 days till departure...

Busy, busy, busy! Sorting, packing, donating, and praying.  In just 8 days we will be on the road returning to Dine Bikeyah.  After a year and a half on furlough, it is time to return to our beloved Navajo!  It is sad to say good-bye to friends and family here in Kentucky, but there is much work waiting for us among the Navajo.   We have a 2 bedroom duplex waiting for us, and only a bookshelf and dishes to furnish it with thus far.  But as always, where God guides, He provides...

We have a two day journey starting out on the 28th, when we will be spending the night in Oklahoma, then we shall push on to Farmington, NM on the 29th.    We sign on the duplex the 30th and spend our first night in it that day!  We officially move in on February 2nd.


God is so good, and He is the Lamp unto our feet and the Light to our path... no matter how little beyond the next step we see He always goes there ahead of us.

Ahe'hee'! (Thanks!): to all who have helped and are continuing to make our work among the Navajo happen!

~ Rob and Michelle Nickles

Christmas Update 2013

What a year on furlough it has been! It was hard for us to leave the Navajo the first place, but God knew that Rob's mom would have back and neck surgery, and that we would start out 2013 in Kansas helping the Houser's due to my adopted mom, Linda's cancer treatments.  Rob even worked as a cart pusher at Walmart. April saw us returning to Kentucky, due to lack of jobs for both of us nor acquitted housing. It was a joy to return to our church home at Immanuel Baptist Church of Corbin and all our dear friend and family in Kentucky. We began making calls seeking what path God was going to have us take the next and quickly an answer came.

May 6th was a big day for us, because we became missionaries partnered with San Juan Baptist Association, at the advice of friends and NAMB.  Summer 2013 saw us on a whirlwind tour of churches from Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  In August we traveled back to the Navajo Reservation for a young friends passing.


September and October saw me employed for the first time as a temp worker at a local factory.  That fizzled on me.  Just as it did, we received a call asking us to be full time Youth and Student Ministry worker.  We will work bi-vocationally until the church can fully support us.  December sees us with 12% of our start-up support raised with a planed leave date at about February 1st!  Pray for God's will in our leaving...

As we leave this year of 2013 behind and prepare to enter into 2014, let us not forget Jesus, our Emmanuel, God with us, who came here over 2000 years ago as the greatest missionary and only Savior the world has ever known.  We pray that He will be the song in your hearts this Christmas, and the hope that dwells richly in your hearts throughout the New Years.


God bless and Merry Christmas to all!

~ Michelle and Rob Nickles

Back in Kentucky/Opening Doors

Been back in Kentucky for about 2 months busy working and saving, and God keeps surprising us with awesome doors to walk though.  Not that everything is easy.  Never is when preparing to serve the Lord in ministry.  But the door that is opening for us right now is big, and we are praying whole heartily for wisdom on timing to walk through it.  When we do, it would mean being back in Dine Bikeyah for good this time and would be a major step forward for us... timing is the issue/wisdom we need!

~ Rob and Michelle 

Travel and Our Hearts...

 So, our travels begin with Michelle taking a trip to Kansas.  Then we will be traveling around Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and then Texas and who knows where else.  It will be good to reconnect with old friends, make new ones, and see how missions is done around the USA at the churches we visit.  Cannot wait for this adventure... but even more we are longing to return to our home in Dine Bikeyah, the San Juan Region of the Navajo Reservation!


What can we say?  When there are over 265,000 Navajo living in an area a little larger than the state of West Virginia, and only 1% - 2% are born again believers.  48,000 of these live in the San Juan Region, and we have only 10 churches among the Navajo in this region. That is 1 Small Church (holding 100-200 people) per 4,800 Navajo.  Poverty is high.  Many areas have not had electricity yet, in 2013!  Hopelessness is a Great Plague, and often is the root of alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual abuse, and suicide all of which are 5x's higher than the National averages.  Is it any wonder we long to get back to our mission work among the Navajo?

~ Rob and Michelle Nickles

The Next Stage Starts...

Well, here we are in Kentucky, with 9 to 11 months of Friend Raising a head of us.  With all that travel and prepping for ministry, there is not much time for other stuff.  Yet we still have a storage unit full of items that moved back from the Rez with us.  Now, before we get super busy is the time to get it and our room sorted through...  What will we do with the stuff we don't keep?

The Flea Market of course!  Just like there are open air/flea markets out on the Rez, we have them here in Kentucky too. So any furniture, clothing, decor, and the likes that we don't need will go to a booth and sell off. If Michelle can gather supplies, we will most like sell soaps too.  Where will this money go?  Gas Money for traveling, and if there is a wee bit to spare: Rob's favorite chair gets reupholstered.

~ Rob and Michelle

We head out to friend raise!

We are returning to the Navajo winter 2013-2014 as missionaries partnered with the San Juan Baptist Association, when our support is raised... We start visiting at our own church Immanuel Baptist of Corbin, later this month into early June.  After that, Michelle will be travelling to Kansas for a week to visit family and connect with our churches there.  Then we will expand on through Kentucky and Tennessee.  From there maybe Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and states in between.

The missionary life is not for everyone.  That first step of faith (no matter how many times one has done it) can be absolutely terrifying.  Depending in God daily for our every need is not easy, but it is a blessing.  We have never been without what we need, and we learn more of what are wants and what are real needs.  While not everyone can live this life, we would not trade it for any other life.

~ The Nickles

Next Stop...

Winds of change, as we have been in Kansas helping family out... but work is not forth coming.  We love our friends, we love my adopted family, we wish we could spend more time with my birth family... but we have to think of what is best our little family, to, get back into ministry, and  back to Dine Bikeyah.  It might take a while, but we will get back.  For now Kentucky is the next stop...

~ Rob and Michelle

Christmas was Good!

After a rough Christmastide, Christmas weekend and day were good.  As gifts go, this year was one of the best in years:  beautiful gray sweeter, awesome Starbucks cocoa gift set, a bike rack to take "Gypsy" bike places on "Stormy" car, heavy winter coat, two dressy western flannel shirts (one green & one turquoise), and a nice pair of snow boots (plus many small items too!).  But even more important were the memories made and those shared.  Christmas in KY was awesome!

As I have begun prepping for whatever path God has for the future, I began looking over alot of notes and remembering stories from my journey, I wonder where is all this going?

~ Michelle

Living our Faith...

When we talk about living our faith, and being Jesus hands and feet, what do we really think about? Do we see a poor widow?  Do we see the fatherless kids down the street?  Do we remember the thousands without clean water?  Do we think of the many without a meal, especially the 1 in 5 children who will not eat today?  Do we remember the orphans, the homeless, the strangers, and the outcasts?  Do we think of those ill?  Do we think of those alone?  Do we care? Do we picture feeding 5,000?

When Robby and I returned to Kentucky, we also returned to our anchor church here, Immanuel Baptist Church of Corbin, because of their heart to reach the world.  Little did we know we would be returning during the Love Loud outreach, which is not just hosted by IBC but many other churches from the area.  One of the goals is to feed 5,000.  How?  That is the awesome part...

Have you ever gone to church Sunday and had a reverse offer?  What is that?  Were the church passed the offering plate and TOLD you to take $1 dollar out for yourself.  Then we learned about the parable of the talents   Then we all, along with many other churches descended upon walmart (only food place that could handle all of us), and each spend that money, and many of us beyond that, to buy food for others.  Result?  One large truck, plus 7 small pick-ups full of food...  how many feed still pending...  That to me is living our faith... in a BIG way.

~ "Morria"

Torn..

Here I sit in a home soon not to be mine, torn between my life here in Dine Bikeyah and the new life I will lead in Kentucky until our return... Yes, the open road is calling me.  Yes, I am very restless.  BUT  I have so many friends here.  I have a good life here, except for no work... *la sigh* Tis that not work part thats killing me... 11 days and then farewell, for how long I know not... Next time I will ask for more than a year settled down...

Tis not like we don't have friends in Kentucky; we do, and family, too!  It is just we have not lived there in 3 years.  We both have changed, grown, and become different.  We know where "home" is, where we are called.  Until the day we get to settle (though the road will always be part of my life), the day we establish "home base" here in Dine Bikeyah... I will be among the wanderers.  As Tolkin said, "Not all who wanderer are lost."

~ Rob and Michelle