"He who waters will himself be watered..."

Brothers and sisters,

This past month has been a whirlwind for us.  On top of our normal weekly duties, we have traveled to Kentucky twice to see two of my closest friends get married, Nic got a job as a guitar instructor and he also preached his first sermon, and we got the cutest kitten in the whole entire world.  His name is Shadowfax.

We are still getting used to living in a new city.  Every day Pittsburgh feels more and more like home to us, and we are very grateful that the Lord has called us here.  We've been blessed to have wonderful neighbors who warn us when a cop is outside and about to give us a ticket for being parked in the street during street cleaning hours, and who go out of their way to say hello to us when they see us out in public.  They've made us feel very welcomed and cared for here.  I am blessed to be able to say that I see my coworkers as friends and not just people who I happen to work with, and I'm really excited to see where those friendships go!  Nic and I continue to make new friends through our ministry all the time... we just seriously feel blessed by the people we have been surrounded by during our time here thus far.

Christ has been continuously teaching us about trust and generosity.  It seems that every month we hit a point where we don't really know how ends are going to quite meet up, but Jesus is faithful all the time and we have never been in want.  When we have no idea where our means will come from, we have learned that surrendering our worry to him is far better than trying to figure out our situation by ourselves.  Thus far, there have been uncountable occasions where we were in want and he provided us with a ridiculous gift of provision just out of the blue!  And he continues to astound us by giving us things we don't even need, like tons of fresh vegetables from my grandparents garden or free Pirates tickets.  We serve a God who is not only loves a cheerful giver, but is one himself!  And he has been teaching us how to cheerfully give of what we have as well.  Generosity has been one of the most important practices that we have been learning during our marriage so far.  When we get frantic over how the bills will be paid or whether or not will be able to go to the grocery store for the week, we are learning to respond to that worry by giving of ourselves even more, knowing that "he who waters will himself be watered."  Instead of letting anxiety build in our hearts during times of struggle, we encourage growth, in ourselves and others, by continuing to pour out, knowing our Father will take care of what we need in turn.  Sure enough, he always does.  We serve an incredible God.

The Vue is doing well!  Nic has taken over the worship and order of the gathering; he enjoys his work quite a lot.  I am still praying about what the Lord wants me to do as far as that ministry is concerned.  So far, I've seen him answer me by giving me opportunities to get out in the community to meet people in the form of art shows.  I am participating in one next week and I'm really excited about it!  I'm hoping that this trend will continue, and that I can really form a network of friends in the art community of Pittsburgh.  Also, the Lord has shown me and Nic that we should lead a Bible study out of our home.  Within the next month or so we hope to get that started, and we are ecstatic to have a reason to bring people into our home and share the things we have blessed to have been taught about the Word in our undergraduate years and life experience (and we are excited to learn from other people in return).

We ask that you continue to keep us and our ministry in your prayers.  We have definitely faced a lot of spiritual opposition in our work; we take that as a good sign! But we need people praying with and for us for what the Lord wants to do here in Pittsburgh. Nic and I appreciate your support and love more than you know.  God is good.


Grace and peace,

N&K