Monthly Archives: November 2014

Do not worry; we are not missing any of our literal hands. God has been more than gracious to us this past week. We put a prayer request out there less than 2 weeks ago of needing 10 more partners… and in just 4 days God moved 5 partners to join our team at the needed monthly amount. Only God can do that! We have also been contacted by a couple more people this past week who have shown interest in joining our team. Truly God has raised our support! We have “slowed down” our traveling and been able to reconnect with our home church. We facilitated a small group, shared in 4 Sunday school classes, and taught in 1 high school class in 15 hours J. We will be leaving Lord willing in 8 weeks and 1 day!

Things are in motion!

First off, God has been using people to humble us from day one. We walked into our Sunday school class at our home church (in Pittsburgh, PA) to give an update and they surprised us with a love offering, which will pay for our plane tickets to PNG! Wow! Such an amazing gift, truly a moving of God in their hearts to have the foresight and yet God ordained because they did not know how much the tickets would be and did not corroborate together how much they raised. So that’s a big thing off our list. Money for plane tickets? Check!

We just heard back from our leadership that our work permit paperwork is being processed and Lord willing they send it back to us shortly! So we might have it in 1-3 weeks. Next step is to get our visas. Paperwork… check!

We need 5 more supporters to be at our minimum monthly goal of 75% to be permitted to leave for PNG. We are at an approximate 68% of our committed monthly support as of today.

We will need to pack a crate soon, and then purchase a few more items for that crate in the next month. We will still need some assistance in other fees and what not but we are not worried. God has done all this in just 11 months and we know that in these next 8 weeks He will overwhelm us. We want to say thank you to all of you prayer warriors and to our Sunday school class by overwhelming us with their love!

What have you guys been doing this past week or so?

We have been in places from Kansas to Indiana, to Tennessee to Kentucky, and now we are currently back in Pennsylvania. That has been just in the past 10 days J. We have connected with many groups, churches, and individuals as well in between. We have shared, taught, had coffee, played basketball and much more with many friends, family, churches, and schools. We have strived to connect with as many people as we can the closer we get to our departure.

Seth Preaching in Kansas

What will you guys be doing these next 8 weeks?

We will be in New Jersey for Thanksgiving then come back to Pennsylvania to finish up sifting through all of our belongings and begin packaging them up for our crate. We will then go up to New York for hopefully our last speaking tour which will end the week before Christmas. The week between Christmas and New Years is always an intimate time we have with Nicole’s family in Virginia. We will then have a send-off service in New Jersey (Jan 4^th) and then have our commissioning/ordination service at our home church in Pittsburgh, PA January 14^th at Harvest Baptist Church. We would love to have YOU join us for these special events. We will give times when we know more details. After that, we will tie up loose ends and then LEAVE FOR PAPUA NEW GUINEA! That is our next 8 weeks in a “nut-shell” for those of you who are interested and need to plan for those events. Hopefully this helps you know how to pray for us, plan to connect with us, and what to expect from us.

Please continue to pray for those 2 final details we need to come to fruition: For 5 more partners and 1 piece of paperwork. When you look at your hand think of us… 1 hand… and 5 fingers. Thank you so much for your partnership! We have heard from many people how they and their church are praying for us, please continue doing so, we are encouraged by your intentionality in our lives.

God Keeps His Promises

Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes.

Our Blog                                                                                             Partner with Us

Basketball with the Boys

Ladies Coffee Date

Do not worry, neither one of us have had an accident. Although we have gone back and forth between the time zones and have had temperature changes of more than 40 degrees…we are both still healthy and encouraged. We had the task set before us last week to get 10 new partners in 10 weeks before we have to leave. And praise God within 48hrs we have had 3 of the 10 officially join our team. How encouraging to see answer to prayer in such a short time! How great is our God that we are getting that much closer to having our needs met, and to see Him move through people and have them be our co-workers and partners in getting to Papua New Guinea!

We are officially at 65% of our monthly committed support. That is about 10% to go to meet our required minimum support level. Truly humbling to see how God moves and that we have been on this deputation trail for about 11months. We have just 2 goals now and have less than 9 weeks to go; 1. We need our paperwork to be processed in PNG and sent back to us so we can finalize our visa process. 2. We need 7 more partners ($100/mo./ea.) to finish up the last of our required monthly support.

Thank you to all of you faithful prayer warriors! We know we would not be here without you. We have stayed safe, healthy, encouraged, and have grown closer to God and together as a couple through this season. This is a time that the world, flesh, or Satan could have attacked but because of YOUR prayers we have been protected and spared. We have many things to do and it seems like we cannot catch our breath until Wednesday before thanksgiving, but God will sustain us. WE are grateful we get to see our family this last Thanksgiving, truly we are truly blessed beyond measure to get that gift.

We have been on the road for close to 3 months when it is all said and done for this tour, for the past couple weeks we have had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with different people each meal, then we would connect with another family/friend and talk until the next day. So needless to say we are excited for Thanksgiving; family, food, and possibly some rest 🙂

A random “fun fact” we tallied is that we have approximated to have traveled in the car for almost 38 days (totaled hours since we started deputation). That is a lot of time becoming good friends with each other and with our car 🙂 and yet another thing to be thankful for about Papua New Guinea; warm weather and no cars.

Please Pray for those 2 final details to come through in 8 weeks and 6 days. Pray for our continued health and safety. Pray we continue to grow closer together and closer to our Mighty and Merciful Savior.

Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes

Our Blog                                                                                 Partner with us financially

Snapshots From Our Journey

Why would we say, “when you look at your hands think of us”? Well, God gave us two hands and 10 fingers, and we ask that you would pray for us for the next 10 weeks. 10 is a big number for us right now, we have about 10 days left on this tour till we are back in PGH for the Thanksgiving. We have approximately 10 weeks till our projected departure date (crazy huh?), and we need about 10 more churches/individuals to follow through with their commitment/or have new partners join our financial team. We have been at this deputation/support-raising trail for about 10 months, by God’s grace and mercy we are now over 60% of our actual monthly support, God has been Good and Faithful.

We are asking that every time you look at your hands for the next 10 weeks, you pray for us. pray that 10 more financial supporters would join our team, that for the next 10 days we are safe in all of our travels (we will have traveled close to 10K this trip, 6K in the past 4 weeks), and that our paperwork process would go through and not be the cause for us to not be able to go this January. We need to have both our monthly support raised (minimum of 75%), and have our paperwork done by January (10 weeks). pray that all of this would come together according to God’s will.

When we get back to PGH in 10 days, Lord willing we will then finish up going through all of our possessions and get them ready to crate out. We aspire to be done with that process by the first week of December as well. We have about 3-5 churches we need to visit and revisit Lord willing before the end of the year, so we will see what God allows in all of this “busy-ness”.

For those of you who like geography, we have traveled as far east as NJ, as north as MI, as south as FL, and as west as KS during this tour, so needless to say we are looking forward to PNG and not having a car. We have been totally blessed this trip: we have met great new eternal friends, been able to visit old friends and family, blessed with safety, able to raise close to 30% of our start-up fees (without even mentioning any projects yet), and have seen our financial and prayer team grow. God is too good to us, thank you to all of you who are praying for us, we feel your prayers.

Fun Facts.

Since starting deputation:

-We have slept in 94 beds.

-We have slept in 7 different beds in the past 6 nights

-We have been in 19 states.

2 countries (we do not count Seth’s mission trip)

-We have traveled over 50K.

Our car is at 202K and we just drove 10K on Seth’s mom car.

-Seth has skipped 15 nights of sleep due to driving.

-We have connected with over 50 churches.

-We are over 60% of our committed monthly financial goal.

So the facts might not actually be fun  🙂  but it is fun to keep track of them. Please look at your hands and pray: 10 more partners ($100/mo. each) and for our paperwork. Thank you for your faithfulness to our ministry; by reading this blog, praying for us, and for partnering with us.

Lord willing next year, your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes.