We are so close to our goal! God has provided through new and old friends and family who have continued to contribute to our financial support! We are now sitting at 58% of the total support that we need to raise for our first year in Nigeria. GLO gives us a goal of 60% that we have to raise before we can fly to Nigeria in the middle of July. We are nearly there, and we don't foresee any delays in our fly out date due to not enough funding.
Thank you to the Pilgrim Lutheran Church - Bellevue, NE, Redeemer Lutheran Church - Springfield, MO, St. Matthew's Lutheran Church - Lee's Summit, MO, St. John's Lutheran Church - East Moline, IL, Emmanuel Lutheran Church - Odessa, TX for hosting us in this past month! We very much enjoyed sharing our story with you and meeting so many wonderful people! Our June Sundays are completely full of presentations at different churches, but if you are in the North Texas/Southern Oklahoma area and have a midweek evening Bible study or LWML group that would be interested in hearing us speak, we would love to see if we can figure something out for sometime in June. If you have such a group that might be open to hearing us speak, please let us know. You can send an email to this address: [email protected] We are almost to our 60% goal to hit before leaving, but we still need to raise the rest of our first year's support as well. If you feel led to help us get closer to being fully funded, you can find details on how to do that (online or by check) at the bottom of this newsletter. |
In response to the request of some of our friends, GLO now officially has a way that they can accept stock donations to our ministry support fund! Working through Thrivent, they can accept the stock, liquidate it and put all of the funds that come from that into our support account. Since you would be donating the stock to a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 c 3 of the Federal Tax code and not cashing out the stock yourself, you don't have to declare that stock as income or pay taxes on that donation at all.
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If you are interested in donating this way, please email [email protected] to get further information on how to do it.
In last month's newsletter, we mentioned that we have been waiting on both of our passports to come in the mail. We are happy to be able to share that we do have both of those now. Now, we are getting started with the VISA application process. Thankfully, we have a very experienced man at Hillcrest that is helping us with that process. We would appreciate your prayers for this process to go smoothly and as quickly as possible so that we are able to leave in the middle of July as planned.
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For those of you who have been signed up for our newsletter since last month's edition, here is the house we will be living in in Jos! We will be living in what used to be the school nurse's office. It was renovated into a home toward the end of the time that Heather's family was living there, but she never got the chance to go in after it was renovated. Here are a couple pictures of what the outside looked like when she lived there as a kid (we called the nurse's office the dispensary). It makes it even more exciting being able to picture what our future home looks like.
Heather said very emotional goodbyes to her students and fellow teachers at her school, Zion Lutheran School in Belleville, IL at the end of May.
Since she taught students from preschool through 8th grade, Heather had many of the same students every year for 3 years. That definitely created some special relationships with the students, letting her get to know them personally and teach them as individuals. Heather is looking forward to building great relationships with her students at Hillcrest starting in August and sharing God's love with them as she teaches them about music. |
Nathan had his last day of work at the Panera Bread Headquarters Help Desk a few days before we moved out of our house in Belleville.
He had a great experience working there this year, and it has given him some great experience helping people with their tech problems over the phone. That experience will help him a great deal with being able to help the other Global Lutheran Outreach missionaries around the world with their tech problems over the phone or email.
He had a great experience working there this year, and it has given him some great experience helping people with their tech problems over the phone. That experience will help him a great deal with being able to help the other Global Lutheran Outreach missionaries around the world with their tech problems over the phone or email.
The packing process this past month went terribly. It took much longer than we had expected because we have never moved without family's help before, and it didn't occur to us how huge of a difference that makes in the time it takes. We ended up having to stay up in Belleville a couple days longer than planned before finally driving down to Denton to move in with Heather's parents for our last 6 or so weeks before heading out.
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We made it to Heather's parents house! We'll be based from here until we leave for Nigeria.
Another hard part of moving to Nigeria is that we had to find new homes for our 3 fur babies Rumple, Catta and Emma. We have found great homes for Rumple and Emma with a friend and family member, so we'll still be able to see them over furloughs. That'll be wonderful! We also found a good shelter that can take care of Catta, our older cat.
Saying goodbye to those three took a huge emotional toll on both of us. We talk to them like they know what we are saying. They have become like kids to us since we don't have human kids yet. We will miss them so much! (Here are pictures of Rumple & Emma in their new homes.) |
More and more details of our move are getting taken care of!
Not only did we find a friend who will buy Heather's car from us, but they don't need it until the end of our time here, so we will be able to use it for the rest of our church visit travels first. God provides!!! Next on the list is finding a buyer for Nathan's little Chevy Spark. |
About 5 weeks left until we are hoping to fly out. What happens now? We will be basing our travel from Heather's parents' house in Texas. We will be visiting one church in Tennessee and 2 churches in Texas for our last 3 Sundays this month.
Prayer Requests:
- Please pray that we have a safe journey each weekend to the churches that we are presenting at in June.
- Please pray that we find more groups that are willing to hear us speak about our coming mission work.
- Prayers of thanks for all of the congregations who have extended invitations for us to visit them and tell them about what we will be doing in Nigeria.
- Prayers of thanks that God gave us the energy to get through the rest of the semester teaching/working while packing, figuring out details needed to move overseas and searching for opportunities to speak about our mission work.
- Prayers of thanks that we got done with the initial move down to Texas.
- Please pray that Nathan has a smooth transition into his new GLO tech support duties that area already starting now even before we get there.
- Please pray that everything gets figured out immigration-wise to get us out there by the middle of July.
- Prayers of thanks for those who have already been so encouraging and supportive so far.
- Prayers of thanks that we found great homes for our 3 fur babies.
- Please pray that we would find a buyer for Nathan's car.
- Please pray that we find more groups that are willing to hear us speak about our coming mission work.
- Prayers of thanks for all of the congregations who have extended invitations for us to visit them and tell them about what we will be doing in Nigeria.
- Prayers of thanks that God gave us the energy to get through the rest of the semester teaching/working while packing, figuring out details needed to move overseas and searching for opportunities to speak about our mission work.
- Prayers of thanks that we got done with the initial move down to Texas.
- Please pray that Nathan has a smooth transition into his new GLO tech support duties that area already starting now even before we get there.
- Please pray that everything gets figured out immigration-wise to get us out there by the middle of July.
- Prayers of thanks for those who have already been so encouraging and supportive so far.
- Prayers of thanks that we found great homes for our 3 fur babies.
- Please pray that we would find a buyer for Nathan's car.
HOW TO SUPPORT US
To support the Pittmans’ ministry online, click here. One-time or automated contributions are available.
OR
Mail a check to:
Global Lutheran Outreach
6709 Ficus Dr.
Miramar, FL 33023
Put "Pittman" on the memo line of the check.
Global Lutheran Outreach is a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 c 3 of the Federal Tax code. Contributions are tax deductible to the fullest extent permitted by the IRS.
OR
Mail a check to:
Global Lutheran Outreach
6709 Ficus Dr.
Miramar, FL 33023
Put "Pittman" on the memo line of the check.
Global Lutheran Outreach is a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 c 3 of the Federal Tax code. Contributions are tax deductible to the fullest extent permitted by the IRS.
Thrivent Choice Dollars® can help missionaries!
Are you a member of Thrivent Financial who's eligible to direct Choice Dollars®? Choice Dollars charitable grant funds can make a world of difference to our organization as we work together to send missionaries! Your Choice Dollars directed to Global Lutheran Outreach support missionaries who are underfunded or experience a temporary shortfall in funding.
Directing Choice Dollars is easy. Simply go to Thrivent.com/thriventchoice to learn more and find program terms and conditions. Or call 800-847-4836 and say "Thrivent Choice" after the prompt. If you have donated your choice dollars to GLO and would like them to be earmarked for us specifically, please email us at [email protected] with the amount that you have donated and express that you would like to donate them to us. We can forward your email to GLO, and they will get those funds out of the general GLO pot and sent to our support account. |