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Emily's Bio

My Job:

My roles as the Administrative Assistant to the Vice President of Ministerial Advancement

  • Oversee the Canadian VISA application processes each spring as the personal representative of the individual students on the Canada/U.S. music tour team  

  • Edit the VP’s official letters and appeals

  • Assemble official bi-weekly e-mail updates on the behalf of the VP

  • Compose or edit various official letters as requested by the Field Representatives of the Ministerial Advancement Department

  • Respond to office answering machine messages, e-mails, and relay calls to the appropriate department members

  • Print out donation lists and assist in thanking each donor

  • Take part in maintaining the RGBM information database by adding and revising personal information of individuals, ministries, and organizations as requested

  • Gather appropriate mailing lists as requested for the Rio Grande Magazine and RGBM appeal letters

  • Maintain an easily accessible filing system of important documents in both digital and hard copy systems

  • Creatively invite the public to be interested in RGBM through the Ministerial Advancement social media outlets

  • Communicate on the behalf of the department with the campus Print Shop to ensure that the proper pamphlets, posters, post cards, and various office supplies are available when needed

  • Participate in the departmental daily prayer meeting when available

  • Collaborate with co-workers in strategic departmental meetings

  • Train in the financial planning strategies of the department to become familiar with protocol and planning techniques

My Testimony:
Our Call:

                God has blessed us immensely, as He not only has given us each other, but He has also chosen to give us a direction in which we are to go. God has asked us to continue in our positions at RGBM. I will continue as the assistant to the vice president of ministerial advancement and Nate will continue in his role as the manager of our campus coffee shop, Koinonia Koffe.  Together, we were recently accepted as a missionary staff couple at Rio Grande Bible Minsitries, and are beginning to prayerfully raise our full support levels. 

Our Future:

 Side Note from Nate: As I mentioned in my testimony, when I met Emily I was studying Biology at the local branch of the University of Texas. I am currently in my latter two years of study in the university in the premedical program. God has made it clear that He wants me to be studying medicine. It is the hope of Emily and I that in the future He will call us into a ministry in which I can utilize what skills God is giving me in this process of study.

                I grew up in Southern Alberta, in a loving, God honoring family. I am the second oldest of four children born to Ken and Dora Tiel. My parents always desired for us to serve God, which was reflected in their emphasis of regular church attendance and encouragement of heavy involvement in ministry, and the fact that they diligently prayed for us while God intricately formed each child in the womb. Although this was the case, no church, parent, or religious activity in and of itself could give me a right relationship with God. By God's grace, after a bedtime song with my mom I asked her who Jesus was, and that night, around the age of four I accepted the work of Christ on the cross on my behalf for myself. 

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                My first missions experience outside of Canada was in grade 11, when my youth group traveled to Costa Rica. While I was there,  God opened my eyes to the fact that He accepts and loves praise and fellowship from all people groups and languages. Although that experience was very important to me, my heart became very hardened towards the idea of becoming a missionary after returning to Canada very ill.  I did not want to be a missionary if it meant possibly becoming that sick ever again. God however had different plans and, in my last year of high school, helped me surrender my heart towards missions to Him. After my graduation, I entered a nine month Friends and Followers program with Venture Teams International (now Action Ventures). I began training with my team  while financially undersupported, but as I stepped forward in faith, God provided!  God stretched my faith in many wonderful ways, allowing me to even bless a teammate with my excess support.

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                The ministry which I did with my team of eleven in both Rwanda and England opened my eyes to the need the world has for the gospel. God also allowed me to see His transforming power through the forgiveness of His children in the midst of the pain that still lingers from the 1990’s genocide in Rwanda. When I was in England, God strongly laid a deep passion on my heart to study His Word. I prayerfully applied  to  study at Millar College of the Bible in Pambrun, Saskatchewan, upon my return to Canada. 

                I studied for three years and graduated with a Bachelors of Biblical Studies in May 2012. In time, God provided for me so that I could enter and complete my fourth year with Millar debt-free. A major part of the fourth year program is choosing a  ministry internship and my desire was to experience ministry outside of the U.S. or Canada. God laid out my plans and brought me to RGBI to study Spanish in January 2014 in order to cover the majority of my classroom hour requirements and prepare me for life in Mexico. It was during this time that I met my future husband (Nathan), though at the time I was very focused on my ministry preparations. We agreed to pray for each other as friends. After I completed my semester of classroom requirements, I traveled home to Canada, further prepared for life in Mexico, and finally moved to Mexico for my eight month ministry assignment with Camino Global. I arrived to aid the Ixtapaluca Team in their community outreach and church planting efforts on August 8th, 2014.

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                As my time in Mexico came to a close, I began to ask God for more direction in my next steps in life before I returned to Canada for my graduation from the fourth year program. During that time of prayer, I was reminded of my promise to pray for Nathan. I took the opportunity to ask him personally for prayer requests, and we quickly began to seek His will in each other’s lives by praying for the other through Facebook chat.

                As I returned home to Calgary, I found myself in a state of unease as I knew  that God wanted me elsewhere. Only a few days after returning home to my small hometown in Alberta, Canada, I was asked to join the staff family at RGBI. I still needed to graduate from my fourth year program, but I began to pray for God's clarity as to whether RGBI was where he wanted me next. After my graduation from Millar College of the Bible, Nathan and I started to date, and after much prayer, I accepted the position I was offered at RGBI. God provided mightily in my life as He orchestrated for Nathan to help me begin my move to Texas in June 2015.

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                When we arrived in Texas, I determinedly began my ministry at RGBI (now RGBM) and my second semester in Spanish. My hectic schedule was given a short respite when in October Nathan and I traveled back to Canada for my older brother’s wedding on October 10th. The day after, on October the 11th, 2015 Nathan romantically proposed to me in my home town. After celebrating with family in Canada, we returned to Texas, and continued in our studies and ministries and on May 12th, 2016, we got married.

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                We are now serving at RGBM as a couple with me continuing my job as the Administrative Assistant to the Vice President of the Ministerial Advancement Department, and Nathan in his job as the Manager of Koinonia Koffe, our campus coffee shop.  Nathan is also currently in pre-medical studies and together we hope to also be involved in medical ministries in the future.

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