Jacob and Natasha Pittman persevere despite delays, detours in their journey

Jacob and Natasha Pittman’s educational journey at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has been a lengthy one due to detours and changes in plans, but the couple continues to find joy in the community as they minister where they are.

Jacob grew up in San Antonio, where he was a part of a church that had “word of faith” tendencies. But he left that movement and in his early teens felt that God wanted him to serve the church in some way.

“I resisted that through my teens, and I just kind of got off on a big tangent, and just so much stuff that was a distraction from the simplicity of the Gospel and what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus,” Jacob said.

Jacob found opportunities to participate in short-term mission trips to Mexico as a young adult, which led him to ask questions and bring his faith back to the basics of “I am a sinner, and it is only through the blood of Christ that I am saved.”

In 2004, Jacob received a call from a friend from middle school who told him he had enrolled at Southwestern and let Jacob know that a college was opening that fall at the Fort Worth campus. He had long been interested in attending a Bible college. Jacob visited Southwestern and decided to start that educational journey, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities with a music concentration.

Jacob admitted his studies did not come to him easily, working through his degree gradually while also working in the campus carpentry shop and serving in a church. “I came here, and it was just really hard. It was very difficult for me.”

Natasha meanwhile was born in Russia, where her home church partnered with a church in Rockwall, Texas, and Natasha would often serve as translator for visiting teams. Through that skill Natasha was introduced to a couple from Rockwall. The husband was a dentist and asked Natasha to learn dental terminology so she could translate for him when he traveled, using his business for Gospel opportunities.

In 2004, Natasha moved to the United States when she was invited to join his practice in Texas. But four years later, Natasha said she “felt God was calling me to do missions,” specifically to the Czech Republic.

At that time, she had never heard of the International Mission Board, but her Rockwall church encouraged her to apply with the IMB, which had openings in the Czech Republic at the time. Natasha served as a journeyman in that area from 2008 to 2010 and then moved back to the States where she continued working.

“I felt that God was calling me to go back to missions,” Natasha said of that first year, saying this time she felt an urge to reach Muslims with the Gospel.

She started the application process again with the IMB, and learned she needed to get a master’s degree. Southwestern was the closest seminary to where she lived and she knew others from her time as a journeyman that were becoming students there, so she enrolled and started her Master of Arts in Islamic Studies in 2011.

Natasha worked on campus as a resident assistant in the women’s dorm and helped with the start of the International Baptist Church of Arlington. But her goal was to remain a full-time student and complete the classwork necessary so she could go straight into the field.

Within the first year of starting her studies, she met Jacob through mutual friends and a weekly prayer gathering. The following year, in March of 2013, they were married, and their plans began to take a slightly different path.

In 2014, when Jacob was finishing up his thesis and while Natasha took a break from courses for the birth of their first child Emma, they left campus and moved to San Antonio to be nearer his family.

Jacob served as a part-time music minister at a small Baptist church while also working long hours in a remodeling and construction business and completing his degree in 2015. That time stretched into seven years, as two more daughters were added to their family, but Natasha said it was a spiritually dry time.

“One thing that we missed most, I missed most, was the community of faith,” Natasha said.

During these years, Natasha also struggled with the change in what she thought would be her area of ministry—mission work with Muslims. Instead, she found herself with her degree on hold.

“I think even when I started coming to seminary, there’s always a mentality of going, you go on a mission field,” Natasha said. “And I think God really had to work on me, that sometimes your mission field is by staying.”

She said she recognized that, just like the Israelites in the wilderness stayed when the cloud of the Lord was still and moved when He moved, she was in a time that she needed to be still and minister where she was.

“San Antonio was my cloud that was standing still, but also I think that God was showing me that my field, my mission, is still to raise God, Christ followers,” Natasha said. “But my mission changed from a lot of people to three. And I think, not only reconciling with the thought, but also finding joy in that was different. … God brought peace into doing things and seeing that I’m still honoring Him as a wife, as a mother, and as a church member, and that my small mission field is still as important to him as the big one.”

In May of 2021, Jacob’s employer passed away and he faced the decision of what to do next. In that time of uncertainty, he called a mentor of his from his time at Southwestern.

“I called for wisdom,” Jacob said. But the man he called, who was part of the facilities team on Seminary Hill, said one of their career staff had just completed his last day and he himself was planning to retire at the end of the year.

Jacob admitted working at the seminary had been a “pie in the sky kind of a thought.” Natasha explained that they often spent their vacations in Fort Worth, staying at the Riley Center while they visited the campus and friends there.

“It was like our heart place,” Natasha said of Southwestern, adding they had already been considering what it would look like for her to continue her studies. But the job opening suddenly seemed to make the move possible.

“I thought, ‘If I don’t chase this out and see if there’s something here, I’ll be thinking about it and maybe regretting it if I don’t just see,’” Jacob said. In the next month Jacob was interviewed, he was offered a job, and they moved back in September of 2021. He now serves the campus as the housing rehab supervisor.

Natasha began to take courses again at a slower pace while she also cared for their daughters. And while they are not serving internationally as missionaries like they once thought, Jacob said they still have opportunities at Southwestern to serve international students through their location on campus and his job, something they had prayed for when considering the move.

“I feel like now we’re still having an international impact on what we’re doing just because of the community that God has put here,” Jacob said. He added that he is “humbled” to work with some international students who have suffered persecution in their home countries. “I get to teach some of them how to paint and how to do carpentry work and to help support their families while they’re here.”

Jacob was invited to voice a prayer during the Day of Prayer chapel service on April 8, praying that unity and love would be found on the campus and in the visiting board of trustees.

While the Pittmans do not have a timeline of when Natasha will complete the remaining hours of her degree or how long Jacob will continue working as campus staff, they are committed to faithfully serving while at Southwestern.

“I’m the result of God’s providence,” Jacob recognized. “I’ve never had a big plan. I’ve had desires, and I’ve said, ‘Okay, well, what do You want to do with it?’ … Part of us coming back here is saying, ‘Well, what’s next? What do you have for us?’ … We’re open to what the Lord is planning. And my answer has always been, ‘God I’ll stay here as long as You want me here.’”

The Pittmans are excited to continue leaning and serving during their time on Seminary Hill, benefiting from both the scripturally-grounded education and the relationships they have built.

“There’s a curriculum that’s centered around the Word of God, and a lot of things happen as a result of that. … The lessons that we learn here are manifold,” Jacob said, adding the relationships have provided opportunity for them to be encouraged and for them to serve and mentor others preparing for ministry.

“I’m a man who’s been called to follow after Christ, and He’s given me these different areas of influence, and what God demands of me is to be faithful,” Jacob said, whether that influence is at the church he currently serves at with music or on campus through the facilities team.