Our Time is Coming to an End…

Great Friends!

It is crazy to think we have been in Vanuatu for almost 4 months, time flies; our time in Vanuatu is coming to an end. The last few days before leaving we tend to go to bed later, wake up earlier to get everything done. In Less than 2 weeks we will have lived in 4 different places/parts of Vanuatu. 1. A different island (other than Santo) 2. South Santo 3.Central Santo, and 4. Northern Santo. We slept on beds, yoga mats, couches, and inflatable mats. But as we look into the future, we do not see this pace of life slowing down anytime soon, once when we get back to America we start our tour of seeing people and that go-go lifestyle will continue, remember when we were on deputation? 50k miles traveled, stayed in over 100 beds, and traveled through many states. But to be honest our Lord has been gracious and kept us charged and focused in the midst of all the busyness and commotion.

Kids Enjoying the Slip and Slide

Remember how we said, “if you want to come over and do some projects, come on over!” Last week a team from our coworkers home church in America came to help build a church and run a kids camp for another missionary in a different area of Santo. We split up into 2 groups, 7 men, and 2 women went to the build-site, and then the other 16 went to another area to run a kids program in the morning, leadership conference in the afternoon, and then services at night. It was fun and busy, but we accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish during that time, and between the two sites and all the programs for kids and adults, we believe over 85 people made a profession of faith for Christ! Praise God! The days of preparation, the travel, waking up before the sun comes up, and going to bed way after midnight day in and day out led to God’s grace and people acknowledging their need for a Savior. That is what is all about! A group from Big Bay came down to join our team for the week. This was especially awesome because the Big Bay people can speak the heart language (especially key for explaining the Gospel clearly) of the people where we were. It was so encouraging and special to be on this outreach trip with our friends from Big Bay. There were many opportunities for discipleship, one opportunity was where Seth discipled a person who then led 6 people to the Lord, that was Seth’s highlight. Being able to encourage, provide an opportunity, and push someone else forward to lead others to Christ, that is what our hearts desire is all about, discipleship and missions. Empowering others to further the Gospel.

Kids Activities

The overall trip was a success! We are pretty sure everyone slept for a whole day when we returned. Planning the logistics of ministry, arranging helpers to come and assist the team with the language barrier, cooking for over 50 people for 3 meals a day, prepping things before and after the team arrived; it took a lot of work from our team but it was all well worth it. In the end, souls were saved, peopled were discipled, we made new friends from VFBT, and were so impressed with the quality of servants who we call our teammates; both ex-pats and Ni-vans. There are many things that happened during that time, several things that just happened in the past few days, and some VERY EXCITING things happening in the next 48 hours. Please stay tuned! Once we come back… yes, we head to the bush again in just a few short hours for 3 days, we will give you the exciting details!

Services under the Tent

Please pray for our trip, we will be sharing several times, and there will be some BIG things happening. So we ask you to pray for us, we need to have wisdom in how to communicate and how to conduct ourselves these next few days. This is an exciting time!

Dedication of the church building

 Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes