Nathan's Bio
My Job:
My position as manager of Koinonia Koffe exists to promote fellowship between students, staff, and the local community, and aid in the development of the campus as a Godly area to promote Spiritual growth. Koinonia Koffe is a Department of the Media Division of Rio Grande Bible Ministries under the authority of Keith Heppner (Vice President of Media). Our moto is “Promoting fellowship through coffee.”
The responsibilities of my job include but are not limited to:
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Vet and hire students for coffee shop staff.
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Ensure that the books are in order.
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Ensure that the computer system is working properly.
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Ensure that the machines are in working order.
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Develop the recipes to be used in the coffee shop.
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Design and maintain the website for the coffee shop.
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Ensure that the students (staff) are well trained in their jobs.
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Head up weekly coffee shop staff meetings.
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Ensure that all the proper licenses are in place.
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Facilitate staff training in food safety.
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Design the yearly budget for the coffee shop.
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Ensure that all supplies are in place.
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Ordering all supplies required by internet.
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Managing our Facebook presence.
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Managing customer orders.
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Facilitate yearly food safety inspection.
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Manage reservations of the building.
My Testimony:
I was born in the far eastern part of Montana in a small town called Wibaux (it’s French) a couple of hours north of Baker. If you know where I am speaking of I am impressed by your knowledge of Montana’s small towns! I was born to Larry and Ruth Windle and my three older siblings who were pastoring the local church in Wibaux. At the age of four my family felt God’s call on our lives to enter a different field of ministry. We raised our support, joined a mission board, and moved for a short time to a language school in south Texas called Rio Grande Bible Institute to learn Spanish. Once Language School was complete we moved to Bolivia, South America.
It was during this period that a major event occurred in my personal life. I was joined by a person who has since been a lifelong friend and companion: the Holy Spirit! Through the urging of my siblings and the guidance of my folks I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. Through His power and blood I was washed clean and now have an inheritance in heaven.
As a family we served as church planters in Bolivia during our first four year term and then served another two years with my father as the field director. We loved Bolivia and thought that we would be there for many more years. We were excited by what God was doing. In the years that we were there, we saw God multiply the churches by tenfold, but after our six years serving in Bolivia, God chose to move us on to the next stage in our family’s service.
We left Bolivia not knowing where God would move us to. We moved by faith and on the day that my dad told our support team that we were leaving Bolivia, three people individually contacted him asking if he would be willing to be the president of a small Bible College and Language School in the south of Texas: Rio Grande Bible Institute (RGBI).
When I graduated from high school I was not sure what God wanted me to do. I went through the Language School program at RGBI and entered the Bible College. I also started to work in the campus bookstore but God didn’t give me peace in the Bible College. After a semester, I dropped out of my Biblical Studies program to work in the bookstore fulltime. By that time I was an assistant manager and was in charge of a proposal for a student community center and coffee shop.
In the spring of 2014 I met a lovely girl named Emily Tiel, I was managing the now started coffee shop and studying fulltime in a Biology major at the local branch of the University of Texas. I was struck by her beauty and desire to serve the Lord. Before the semester was completed, she and I had agreed to pray for each other in our ministries as friends. I thought that was the end of it and continued my work and studies placing Emily in the group of missionaries that I prayed for regularly. It was a great surprise to me when a little over a year later I was contacted by Emily asking how she could be praying for me. We began praying with each other over Facebook, one of the requests was what Emily should do in the future. God answered this request in a rather unexpected way. Emily received an invitation to join the staff at RGBI (now Rio Grande Bible Ministries or RGBM) as an assistant to the vice president of ministerial advancement. Upon Emily’s return to Canada from Mexico we started dating.
Emily was accepted onto the staff of RGBM and with her so near, our relationship flourished. On the 11th of October 2015 I proposed. We were married in May the next year.
That is my testimony in brief, I hope that you enjoyed and were blessed by it and that you are now familiar with who I am a bit more.
Our Call:
God has blessed us immensely, 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. Emily will continue as the assistant to the vice president of ministerial advancement. I will continue in my role as the manager of our campus coffee shop, Koinonia Koffe. A slight change in our ministry is that she and I were recently accepted as a couple as fulltime missionaries with RGBM and are now raising our full support levels.
Our Future:
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 the latter two years of my studies in the university in the premedical program. God has made it clear that He wants me studying medicine. It is the hope of Emily and I that He will call us into a ministry in which I can utilize what skills God is giving me in this process of study.