if you know us, or don’t.. start here
welcome! whether you have grown up with us, you are a miller yourself (there’s a lot of us, hi fam!), you just met us, or maybe we’ve never met, thank you for making it here! we are the little millers.
our name ‘the little millers’ originated from nate’s childhood nickname- as the youngest of 5 siblings, he was always ‘little nate’ & when we got married his brother called us ‘the littles’ and it stuck! we met when i was 14 and nate was 15 at a church camp in the spring. little did I know nate already knew who I was, and had been asking around about me. a mutual friend introduced us & from our first meeting, i knew my life would be different. what nate didn’t know, was the night before we met at the church camp sermon night, i first accepted God into my heart. i had a very emotional night of knowing Him for the first time. i said a little prayer that night and asked God that if He really did exist, would he find a way to show me I am loved, show me what unconditional love is, and to not let me down. i know it doesn’t make any sense, but when i met nate the next morning, with his long brown curly hair, i almost gasped. i knew he was the answer to my prayers. he felt like my real life tangible Jesus walking on this earth to love me and only me. with a couple of years of marriage under our belt and about a decade of loving each other, i can promise you he makes mistakes and is absolutely not a perfect Jesus walking on this earth, but he is 100% the answer to my prayers that night. he has never stopped loving me, always leads me back to Jesus, and makes me a better person every single day.
it took us a while to get the timing right, nate had a girlfriend and i didn’t think i was good enough for someone who loved Jesus so much- i thought i had to work on myself before he would love me. the following summer we went on our first mission trip to brazil together, and there was no more denying we were made for each other. my first mission trip to brazil changed my life. i fell in love with nate & with the indigenous people, i was baptized in the amazon river, and my life finally had purpose. on that very first trip to brazil we talked about being full time missionaries together. it felt like a pipe dream but we could never shake the feeling we had when we were baptized in the amazon. yes, it was everything beautiful about a baptism, but i couldn’t help but feel like god connected nate & i that day to each other and bonded us to the river forever. we joke around that the merky brown amazon water courses through our veins, because for almost the last decade- we knew He’d one day call us back.
we started dating a few days after that first trip to brazil together, i went to college in denver where i graduated with my bachelor’s degree in public health and nate a master’s in accounting. a month after we graduated from college and already 6 years together we got married on our friend’s private property in black forest, colorado. even our vows were flooded with references to brazil (wedding film below).
because we both graduated from college at the same time and had a few months until our careers started, nothing felt more right then spending those first few months of marriage in the place where it all began. after 2 months, the once pipe dream of living in brazil and working with ray of hope full time felt more tangible than ever.. then reality set in. nate accepted a job working as a CPA at PwC in new york city. i began my public health career at a small non-profit working with foster youth. for two years in busy nyc the thought never crossed our minds again. nyc has a way of engulfing your life and everything you do. when covid-19 hit, it was the first time i realized we lived on a very very crowded island. after quarantine began, and we got to work side by side all day, we knew our busy lives as we knew it were over.. for the better. nate wrote a blog about how we got from brooklyn to brazil.. i’ll link it here.
brazil has always been the dream, but with the help of ray of hope, grace church, and god’s perfect timing, we finally get to fulfill His plan for us. if you have any questions for us let us know! we are praying through an early summer 2021 move date to brazil, please help us pray that the borders stay open and visa applications are approved!