Randyl: Hey, Veritas, my name is Randyl and I am on staff here with the Connection Groups and Care Team and I'm here with my friend Nikki and we are in connection group together. And just want to bring you guys yet another story of God's faithfulness among the people in our church. So, Nikki, go ahead. Just tell us a little about yourself.

Nikki: So my name is Nikki Hynek and I am married to my wonderful husband of 16 years, Paul. And we live on an acreage near Swisher. And we've been attending Veritas since the Chrome Horse.

Randyl: Been a while. Yeah, you've been around for a long time. Yeah, that's awesome. And how did you kind of get to your. How did you hear about us?

Nikki: Yeah, absolutely. When we moved to the community. So I met my husband at UNI and we started going to church. It was called The Heartland Vineyard. And that's where both Paul and myself, we say that we were saved, kind of born again and we moved to Cedar Rapids because my husband took over a family landscaping business and we started at Stonebridge Church. And we were involved for many years there. And we were just looking for something a little bit different. And my brother had went to a coffee shop and heard about this cool new church that was opening up in a bar. And we were intrigued. So we decided to check it out and we knew instantly it would be our our home church.

Randyl: Yeah. So talk a little bit more. You said that you kind of came to know Jesus when you were at that other church. Tell me a little bit more about just like how you came to faith, what that journey looked like.

Nikki: Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in the church and I like to say that I knew God. I knew of him kind of as a fact. So I knew that the sun would rise and there's a moon and I knew God, but I didn't have a relationship and I didn't really know that until I went to college. And I just was really searching and I was really rebelling against God. I didn't know it was rebellion at the time. But just following the world, I was drinking and partying and just chasing after all of those things. And I started to be kind of convicted of my sin. And somebody invited me to church and I knew that I wanted to make a change through God's saving grace. I was saved. And as I was spiritually immature, I started to make just different decisions and started battling sin and making changes. And there started to be some fruit and yeah.

Randyl: Yeah, that's awesome. I love just hearing how God pursued you like you were starting to feel convicted of your sin and then someone invited you to church at that same time and just hearing God's faithfulness through that. And I know that Paul has kind of a crazy story too that we might get to some other time. We'll probably have to have him on some other time to hear his story. But just kind of both of you together kind of coming to faith around the same time, how did that kind of change your life? How is your life different now with Christ at the center?

Nikki: Yeah. So when I met him, I would say we were just both searching and we probably in one of our first conversations, we were like, where are you at in Christianity and spirituality and stuff? And we were just at this time where we both, I think, were just kind of convicted and wanted something more. And of course, we knew we didn't really know what that was. And thankfully, we were kind of shepherded into a church. And so it's been an interesting ride, of course, because as we both were growing, you know, we're kind of growing a little bit differently at times. And thankfully, we found churches that just really helped us to strengthen our faith. And we just fell in love with the church and Christ's body and how important that is in helping us grow. So I think that, you know, it's been a journey for sure. And just strengthening that faith has been just interesting to watch in both of us at different times that we've been an encouragement to one another.

Randyl: Yeah, I think that that's a sweet benefit of kind of walking in your faith together with your spouse, is that you get to see each other grow and that's an encouragement to one another and kind of spur one another. I love that. And you guys are both Christian business owners like you both own businesses. Tell me a little bit about that. What does life look like or maybe how are things different? What kind of decisions do you make differently as a business owner who's also a believer?

Nikki: Wow. That has been probably one of the biggest challenges. Right? So when you're in business and we of course, I think both of us would admit we got into business for selfish reasons, for selfish gain or, you know, it was our livelihood. But of course, it was for me, it was about pride and like reaching goals and, you know, just a lot of things about myself. But eventually it turned into really more of kind of a mission. We see that the people that we bring in, we try to disciple and we do try to do things differently and we don't always do it well. But we definitely try to be up front. I would say when we hire employees, we're like and we're Christians and sometimes they're like, okay I don't care. Sometimes they ask more questions, but we put that out there right away. And then we do, we try to make decisions based off of our beliefs. And so sometimes that looks like grace, like sometimes we don't fire them when they deserve to be fired or we give them, I don't know, there's there's lots of examples. And we've had to kind of make some changes along the way. You know, what does this mean to the Christian business owners and how will we look differently? And of course, we pray for all of our employees a lot and we try to share our testimony as much as we can. And most of the time it's rejected and we have to live in that and have that tension of of having employees that are unbelievers. But, yeah, just trying to do things differently.

Randyl: Yeah, I think something that's been an encouragement to me from just seeing you guys kind of live out your lives is how you really are being everyday missionaries, where you're going to the places that God has you, which is your workplaces, your businesses, and you're sharing the gospel with people and you're sharing your testimony with people and you're talking with people in a way that's different with salt and light. You know, like you're just making decisions in a different way. And that's been a huge encouragement to me to go to where God has me in my neighborhood or, you know, in the people that he's put in my sphere and and just look different and talk different.

Nikki: And it's hard because you just want to you want to like, share your testimony and tell them about it because and then like you want to just see this change. But oftentimes I think we've discovered that we're the seed planters too. And I think the sweetest spot is when we get to step into nurturing roles. So some that have become believers, that is like, it's the sweetest thing because we get to nurture that then and see some of our labor, the fruits of our labor.

Randyl: So, yeah, I love that. Yeah. Well, Veritas we hope this has been an encouragement to you guys to go out as everyday missionaries where God has you and and display your faith in new ways. Thanks so much for tuning in and we'll see you next time.