Hello from Vanuatu! What is New?

Well, to be honest… a lot! Where do we begin? Our first week here we got to experience Vanuatu’s 36 year Independence week. That week was a time of running around getting to know our fellow co-workers, the nationals we partner with, and the church we work alongside and getting settled in our new house. Right away our experience and time in PNG paid off! Bislama (pronounced “bish-lama”) is its own language but we have been able to understand most of what people are saying since day one. During our first week, the church held a pastor’s seminar and this is where we started seeing God move… but first we will share what else has happened. (We apologize for not adding pictures, our internet has been too slow for uploading pictures.)

We moved into a house that needed a good hard cleaning and several repairs. We worked on cleaning, fixing, painting, buying appliances like a stove and a refrigerator (the essentials), and of course beautifying the house to Nicole’s liking. Soon after we started hosting people from the team, which includes both foreigners and nationals (Nevans, “nee-van”, the people of Vanuatu). We are trying to get to know everyone and hopefully encourage them; this past season here in Vanuatu was a really busy and taxing season on many. We are trying to be a blessing and encouragement as the Lord leads us.

Ministry-wise: Seth jumped into a teacher role, teaching and sharing several times a week. He has started to lead a Wednesday night Bible study, help out with teaching and games for a kids club as well as help out with a youth program. Nicole is helping with administration and has helped teach some of the church ladies how to sew. Seth has done several small projects here on the base, as well as done a lot of driving.

Our Life here in Vanuatu Thus far…

We live about 15 minutes outside of town; the church we work alongside is about 10 minutes away. Vanuatu is similar yet so different from PNG; more clean (no betel nut here = no red spit everywhere), more safe , and in some aspects more developed. One missionary looked at us and said “I can tell you did not come straight from America, your expectations are lower, you are not so time-oriented, and you are appreciative of the small things”. It is true, to us PNG trained us to live almost anywhere warm. In Vanuatu, we ride in the back of pick-up trucks a lot, whether rain or sun. Most of our favorite PNG foods and fruit are here! For the first time in a long time Seth does not have to worry about someone breaking into our car or house, the culture here is completely different and way more relaxed. We have not seen a fight yet! While we were in PNG Seth saw a fight almost weekly, most of them resulting with people cutting each other with bush knives.

We are studying Bislama learning to change out certain Tok Pisin words for the Bislama equivalence. With Seth having to speak so many times already, he is feeling more and more confident in his speech. We are starting to investigate culture here, the “Cargo Cult”, along with the “John Frum Cult” are pretty dominate here. Just like PNG and it’s veneer of Christianity, mixed with a catholic heritage, a dash of animism, a pinch of eastern philosophy and shame culture, makes you think a lot when you communicate, especially when trying to communicate the truth of the Gospel.

What is on your agenda this next week or two?

Seth was asked by our team to translate the chronological teaching into Bislama. Seth will be working with the team and several nationals to do this task. Seth is really excited for the opportunity to work with the men, his passion has always been to do lesson development and translate. And now that time has finally come!

God moving…

Well, we told you we would share more about this. In 2 weeks, we will go to the region known as “Big Bay”. Both of us will go up there for a week and get to know the locals, live with them and investigate what are their needs are currently. This trip will have many parts to it:

• Week one: We both go up there and get to know the people, there are some strong nationally run churches that are there.
• Week two: Seth along with some people from the organization, men from the church, and whoever else wants to come will start a week-long plus trek. They will head to many villages some are 2-3 day hike away; they still wear loin cloths! The men will go around encouraging the local pastors, do some teaching, and evaluate how people are doing.
• Week three: Seth will come back to the main village and start a 6 day, 10 lessons per day class and teach through the newly translated materials. The goal will be to go from Creation to Christ, move quickly and touch on some topics of what the church is and its functions, take a sneak peek at Leadership in the church and then finish with the Ages of Ages. It will be a lot of material but it will leave the people with a strong foundation to build upon, and the work of translation is being done ahead of time so that men will have the materials to later teach themselves and their bodies of believers in their villages.

One of the exciting parts to this visit is to see if God is leading us to that location full-time. We are making no commitments but are in desperate need of your prayers! The people still use their heart language, outside of the men and the pastors they still hold to their heart language, there are no Bislama schools near them so they will hold onto their language for several more generations. With all that being said, they want a Bible in their language, they have a small Bible college that they started and they do that all in Bislama so we could help out with that as well. There are truly many aspects to the ministry that sound so exciting! The main landowner in the area is also very strong believer; he is even the Pastor of one of the churches. He has invited us to come and be with him during that time, an open and clear invitation. That is so amazing!

Needless to say that was a lot of information but we want you all to be in on every aspect of our ministry, we want you to know what we have done, what we are doing, and where God may be leading us. We know for many of you who have been praying for us for years to be with working with the people group God has for us, this is all so surreal. This is a very exciting time in our ministry! Thank you for being a part of this journey with us. Keep holding our ropes; we cannot do this without YOU!

PRAY:

• For wisdom and discernment as we look to the Lord for our long-term direction.
• For a local pastor named John and his family; their young son was diagnosed with a deadly illness.
• That we can be a blessing to; the team, our national friends, and the church.

It is our privilege to be your feet to the unreached, Seth & Nicole Stokes