Monthly Archives: December 2014

We just heard back from our PNG government reps, they were originally going to apply for our visas on December 17th, but due to other complications they were not able to process our paperwork until the 23rd. That puts the paperwork almost a week later than expected, so that means our paperwork should not get back to us until the second week of January. Our leadership and government reps do not sound worried at all in terms of us being able to get there in a month… but they did tell us to pray and ask for others to pray that our paperwork can go smoothly and have no more hang ups. This is ALL in our Great and Merciful Abba-Fathers hands so we are not stressing out. We want to keep all informed, and ask all you prayer warriors, “will you join with us in prayer?”

Please Pray that our paperwork will process smoothly and have no more hang ups.

Please Pray that while our paperwork is being processed, the parties involved in our paperwork will communicate quickly to us so we finalize any loose ends.

Please Pray specifically that our paperwork will be DONE by the second week in January.

Please Pray that we do not just learn contentment in all of this, but experience joy from our Father, He does all things purposefully and we want to learn even during this time.

Thank you for your prayers, your sent-ones to the unreached of PNG, Seth & Nicole Stokes.

Where do we begin…we had a great Christmas, we were able to communicate with almost all of our family, see several of their faces, hug them, and we even got to say good-bye to some friends. Things are still surreal for us as we head to PNG in about a month, but alas we move on. We were able to attend our home church’ (in PA) Christmas Eve service. Always great to spend that time reflecting on the message that angels came to the to the lowly shepherds, the unimportant and then give them a GREAT message! A King is Born! and many signs that accompany his birth…and yet the angels did not have to tell them to go and see the baby, it was implied that they would go because this message is soooo great! As we head to PNG we look at the TRUTH of this great message and are reminded that even though we are commanded to go (Matt. 28:19-20), we would not need that command because this message is so great we MUST share this with all nations. ALL people must hear the truth of Christ’s first coming, now a days people argue about the details with Christ’s second coming, and yet over 1/3 of the world has yet to hear about the first coming (the birth of Christ)! True perspective.

God has provided several places for us to share and reconnect with over these past 2 weeks; 2 churches in New York, and 2 churches in PA. Seth Got to share several times, and preach from Acts 13:1-3, James 4:14-17, Eph. 6:17-19, and Nahum.  Each sermon was to different demographics and was able to challenge and encourage many people. We were able to go through some of our stuff for packing (almost done, yay!), which is just another encouragement, and we have been lavished upon greatly by many churches like Rosedale, Journey, and Fellowship who thought intentionally about us to ask us what do we need financially in order to leave in a month. We are feeling loved and encouraged. We have many loose ends to tie up and it seems like a lot, but we know it will all work out in time.

Pray:

Our paperwork for our visas is being processed and should get to us within the next 2 weeks, this will be cutting things close since we will leave in about a month but we know this is all in our Fathers hand’s. Pray we can use our time wisely as we balance packing, paperwork, banking, purchasing, Seth prepping for his ordination, seeing friends and family, and saying good-bye these next handful of weeks. Please Pray for Seth’s grandma on his dad’s side, she had surgery on Christmas day, she had her large intestine removed and is now out of surgery and is now on her way to recovery. It will be a long process for her to recover so please pray. Thank you.

FYI:

We will keep everyone informed once we get our paperwork finalized and let everyone know what our status is in other realms for finalizing tickets, fees, and other loose ends as time gets closer. We are currently @ 87% of our support (Praise God!!!), we have room for more partners (we know many people are praying we get to 100%).

Reminder:

In 8 days (January 4th) we will have our first send-off service in New Jersey @ 10:15am. Address listed below.

2263 Allenwood Road, Allenwood, NJ 08720

In 18 days (January 14th) we have our commissioning service at our home church in PA @ 7:00pm.  Address listed below:

224 Harvest Lane, Natrona Heights, PA 15065

We will keep reminding you all about this because we want you there! We would LOVE to see you there and have YOU be a part of our special day! Thank you for your partnership!

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

This email is strictly for…ALL of you! Yes we mean that! We have two special days coming up in less than a month. ALL Pastors, friends, family, and even curious by-standers are invited to our special services in January.

IF you are in or near New Jersey this date is for you!

On January 4th, 2015 we will be having a send-off service at our home church in New Jersey, Calvary. We will be in the area until the 7th, so if you would like to meet up with us and catch up one LAST time before we leave…please contact us! We would love to see you!

Address:

2263 Allenwood Road, Wall Township, NJ 07719

Time:

10:15 am

IF you are in or near the Pittsburgh, PA area this date is for you!

On January 14th, 2015 We will be having our Commissioning service from our home church in PA, Harvest. If you come earlier in the day you could see Seth going through his ordination process. If you would like to meet up with us before we leave and you are free between January 8th-14th, please contact us! We would love to see you!

Address:

224 Harvest Lane, Natrona Heights, PA 15065

Time:

7:00 pm

We will remind you all about this one or two more times as we get closer to the dates… but we want to keep reminding you because we would LOVE to see you there and have YOU be a part of our special day! Thank you for your partnership!

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

We typically use this expression for Wednesday’s during the work week, and it means we are over the middle of the week or it means we are over the hard part and now it is smooth sailing…well, we have been over the “middle” for a while now, so to us it means it is down hill from here (Lord willing).

Paperwork

Nicole has been accepted! Her paperwork (letter of sponsorship) has gone through and now our visa’s are being PROCESSED! Praise God! Please continue to pray. They said it will be processed and “should” have no more hang-ups. They (our field leadership) said that they will be processing our paperwork and then sending it to us… so we “should” have our visa’s by the first week in January! We might have to drive to Washington DC to speed up the process but it will all be worth it. For all of you praying so fervently for us, thank you! Please continue to pray for us and our paperwork so we can leave by the end of January.

Support

Likewise, we are over our minimum required monthly goal financially! We still have quite a way to go to reach 100%. Several of you have expressed the desire for us to be at that 100% mark and are praying we meet that level of support. We want to say thank you for thinking about us and wanting more for us then we want for ourselves. Anything over the 75% mark is a total blessing and is a testimony of you, our prayer warriors, and how Great and Merciful our Lord is to His children. We are humbled by those of you who pray for us in such a manner.

Thank you!

Thank you to all of our new support teams and churches! Like Community Baptist and Journey! We are grateful to have such a strong support team behind us.

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

Typically when people hold up their index finger and their middle finger it connotes the meaning “peace”, and in some cultures “victory”. Well for us it does both, when you look at your 2 fingers know we have “peace” because we are just 2 partners away from being at our required minimum goal of 75%. Also it means God has given us the “victory” in the area of support-raising at this stage of our life.
Likewise, 2 fingers represents the number 2, we need prayer for our support and also our paperwork. We just heard back from the field and Seth’s paperwork has been processed and has been accepted… but Nicole’s did not and is now being re-processed. Our leadership said it should all work out, but still to have as many people as we can to pray so it can be expedited!
Please Pray for our paperwork!
We greatly appreciate your prayers for us, thank you. We wanted to keep this post brief and focused. We will post again later this week about other updates.
When you look at your 2 fingers pray for us… Pray we may have peace in both our support and paperwork, and then also that we might have victory in getting our support and paperwork completed.

Dear friends and family,

We pray you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are enjoying the beginning of the Christmas season. As of today, we are now at 70%! We are super excited to be so close to our (minimum) goal of 75%. Keep praying for the required paperwork to come back from PNG soon in order for us to file for our Visas. Please read our latest newsletter below. Thank you for being a part of our team! We couldn’t do this without YOU!

Newsletter: October-November 2014

We are currently over 68% of our committed monthly support, we are just 7% away from getting to our (minimum) required committed monthly support of 75%. That means we need about 4 more fingers (Fingers is a reference to the past couple of blogs). We have about 7 weeks to go until we leave. We need our paperwork in order to finish the official en-route process in addition to the remaining support. So when you look at your hand, think of us. Just four more fingers ($100/mo./ea.)! And when you look at the calendar think of us (7 days a week): 7% more in just 7 weeks!

All of this is very surreal to us, we never thought our support would come in by this time. We remember the conversation we had with our Pastor when we started this endeavor, he said it would take us almost 30-36 months…we looked at him and said we are praying for 18 months…he said that we had greater faith than him… now God said, I WILL raise your support in 12 months, get ready! Truly everything has been on His timing and has been done by people He has moved to partner with us. Our God has continued to humble us in great ways. We are excited, anxious, and overwhelmed with the things that have to fall into place by the time we leave.

-PRAY FOR OUR PAPERWORK TO BE PROCESSED IN TIME.

-PRAY FOR THE REMAINDER OF OUR SUPPORT TO COME IN, and whatever support we receive over the 75% we see as a total gift and blessing from God because we never planned to be at 100% support.

SAVE the DATE!

• On January 4^th, 2015 we plan on having a “send off” service in New Jersey at Calvary so we can say good-bye to our east coast family.
• On January 14^th, 2015 we plan on having our commissioning service along with Seth’s ordination service at our home church in Pennsylvania, Harvest.

We will give the specifics when the time comes closer, but we want to give everyone a date to put on their calendars. PLEASE NOTE: EVERYONE IS INVITED to these services.

Keep the tally of fun facts about us on deputation (we have):

• • Slept in over 95 beds
  • Visited 19 states
  • Put 40K on our car, which now has 203K.
  • Put over 11K on Seth’s mom’s car.
  • Visited 2 countries (not counting Seth’s missions trip).
  • Seth has skipped over 15 nights of sleep due to driving.
  • Connected with over 55 churches
  • Been in the car for 39 days (hours totaled thus far).

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

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