Well, the time is FINALLY here! We received our visas on Wednesday, we filled out a bunch of paperwork and tied up various loose ends with our board Thursday, come Friday morning we were given the official green light to buy our plane tickets. So the tickets and visas are in our hands! DONE.
We will still have to to finish a few loose ends like banking, visiting family, and pack just a little more, but for the most part, we are done! We leave Pittsburgh, PA very early Sunday morning (in 8 days). We fly to Washington, DC and then catch a connecting flight starting at noon to head to our home in PNG. Yes, our home. We have a place already for us, we have our crate packed up and ready to move, and we will be taking what we need with us until our crate arrives, leaving no real attachments in the USA (possession-wise).
Yes, we have basically packed for moving overseas in about a week, it has felt a little rushed but this is the path in which God is taking us on. For all of those who are wondering, “how long it will take to get there”; we leave our house at 2 am Sunday morning, and arrive in the city of our destination at 10:25 am Wednesday morning. Yes, Sunday to Wednesday. We go ahead in time 15 hours, we have a 19-hour layover in Singapore, and we spend over a day in the air, actually close to 40 hours.
Tomorrow will be our last American church service for years (Lord willing); we will enjoy that time “one last time”. We are trying to finish any and all “things” we need to do by Wednesday, so we can have some “down time” for the last 3 days, before we start our world tour and get thrown into language and culture study. We basically start right up the day we get there/the next day 🙂
Thank you for all of your prayers with support, visas, paperwork, and our traveling. Thank you for everything! Your prayers made all of this possible.
We have been reading many autobiographies from Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and John G. Patton. These men are heroes of our faith. Judson suffered a lot for Christ, and we have not yet had that privilege, but we might in the not too distant future. We desire to have our faith in God and resolve in His will so that when we do face trials and suffering, we can say this,
“If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived…”and then as Judson was getting older and young missionaries were coming to the field, he gave them this encouraging statement,
“bear in mind, that a large proportion of those who come out on a mission to the East die within five years (in modern days case, leave the field and go back home) after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore; death is narrowly watching your steps”. And one Theologian added, “The question is not whether we will die, but whether we will die in a way that bears much fruit”. John 12:24
~Your feet to the unreached people in Papua New Guinea,
Seth & Nicole Stokes
Stoking The Fires 