“I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms”. John G. Paton
The above quote is from John G. Paton, famous missionary to Vanuatu, to an elder of his church as he headed out to Vanuatu for the first time, he says it right, “ whether eaten by cannibals or by worms…”. We all must come to that point where we must choose God’s will or the comforts of this world. This past week we got to spend some good quality time with our family, we were able to help out a little bit in the midst of relaxing; helping with food, supplies, packing and logistics, but the hardest part of this whole thing is that it will all come to an end. We will have to say good-bye, and when we will say “hello” again is completely in Gods timing. Like we wrote in an earlier blog, we did not have Christmas together with all of the family (Seth’s) for over 10 years at one point! And that is part of the cost Christ asks of us in order to follow Him.
For the next 3 days; Wednesday through Friday, we transition from Indonesia to PNG, from PNG to Australia, and a week later we head to Vanuatu to see if God is leading us there full-time. Please pray for our transitions, planes, bags, visas and other transportation norms. We spent a day and a half and 5 trips to the Indonesian Consulate office to straighten-out our Indonesia visa, and now we start this trip knowing we received an email that there will be a strike in Port Moresby during the window we travel through… of course there is, such is life.
We covet your prayers as we travel these next 3 days, we leave heavy-hearted knowing we will miss our family but count it as a privilege to serve them as your feet. We are also excited for this opportunity God has given us to serve Him in Vanuatu, it is our privilege and blessing to be your feet for our King. Pray that we get our minds ready and geared up for our time in Vanuatu. We also want to say we are sorry to several people who wrote us, we plan on writing back to you once we are in Australia next week with better internet, thank you for your patience.
We love you all and we will try to keep you apprised of our situation once we get to Australia. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes
Stoking The Fires 