Be Our Guest!

Where do we begin? We know! THANK YOU! Thank you to everyone who gave of themselves in prayer, finances, and coming here to Vanuatu. We seriously could not have done it without you. We know everyone played a part, many individuals and churches backing us, but we would like to give a special thanks to five churches in particular; Harvest Baptist, Bethel Memorial, Journey Christian, Bethel Community and Noblesville Baptist. We are grateful for ALL of you, these five churches in particular blessed us tremendously and we are closing the final pages of this chapter tired yet encouraged thanks to YOU!

Many of you know that September was a month where we hosted three teams back-to-back, it was a flurry of events, picking them up from the airport and driving them straight to the bush, only to start working the next day. It was hard on them and us, we felt badly because we didn’t get to do too many “fun things” with them per se, and it definitely was a work-trip for them all, but each team assured us day in and day out that the choice of working so hard was their decision, and it was their blessing to do so. We never felt worthy of such dedication and love, but we worked alongside them every step of the way. It got to the point where some teams would take 5-10 minute meal breaks, work from 4am-8pm… and by God’s grace, your prayers, and their dedication, the house was closed off by the time team 3 left.

October was a month where Nicole and I began the process of making it a “home”, flooring, painting, staining, double checking most things, constant struggle with water fittings, caulking almost every inch of the house, and then started with putting furniture in it and officially “slept” in our house October 23^rd for the first time. We are not going to lie… we were pretty wiped from all of that. We had our “house-opening ceremony” and then started emptying our residence in town. We have about one more “load “ of things in town and we are moved out for good. We took time off from house-building periodically to make sure the people knew we were there; by just walking through the village, sitting down and connecting with family units, walking to nearby villages, and of course Seth has preached almost every week, if not two times a week. We even hosted two local families already in our house for a meal and fellowship.

Seth and the pig

We plan on leaving today and trying our first “dry run” in the bush for the next 3 weeks. We have running water, and even a washing machine (limited water of course), after that we plan on being in the bush for 3-4 months. We tried several options and are going down the route for a satellite; we need to have good internet service to stay connected with you all. It was not a “planned” expenditure start-up wise, but God is always faithful. So hopefully that comes in the next 2-3 weeks so we can install that and stay better connected with you all.

Seth, his brother, and his uncle

And now… time to share about the ceremony. We finished up the inside, and then the Tiale people began to decorate the outside, planting certain trees, some with meaning, others just for mere “beautification”. We had invited well over 8 villages to the event, more than one language group, several chiefs, some government officials, missionaries from town, and a missionary family from a sister language group. Giving each group a part in the ceremony to make the event a cohesive and very purposeful event. The people were so excited, the translation project has been dream of theirs for almost 2 decades, during which two different missionary families came and left in that time. They are seeking help for the Bible school, the pastors are wanting to be better equipped, and they have never done a ceremony to “kick-off” this event before, in particular they have never announced to the other/rest of the villages this is starting and is for them as well. We are so thankful God gave us wisdom and foresight to plan some things in advance; Pastor Gabriel and Chief Basil took this event seriously, we held several meetings to make sure it went smoothly, purposefully, and prayerfully. We even added some ceremonial things to show appreciation and respect to emphasize their culture.

Nicole and her mother

It was a long/short day, we started off with Seth sitting on a bag of rice… a pig was tied to a post next to him, and then a series of men who Seth calls “dad or uncle” culturally, began to cut and shave parts of Seth’s beard, and then do the same to the pig next to him. The pig is tied intrinsically to the ceremony, his life is to be offered as part of the ceremony, immediately the pig is taken away and killed to be cooked for the meal. This was done to show respect to their culture, as if Seth “grew up as a Tiale person”, and much more, many came to watch the event because they’ve never seen a white guy do this. They were all excited and encouraged that this occurred, afterwards a series of speeches were given by chiefs, pastors, a government official, Jeremy Pinero, and Adam Pike. The speeches really emphasized the people to be encouraged, this process has started, be patient it will take many years, and once received it will be a blessing for an eternity. Much more was said but for the sake of brevity, we are trying to keep it short. The ribbon was cut, the door was unlocked, and then the house was flooded with close to 300 people. Everyone passed through each room with curiosity to see how a “white-man” lives, people were confused and laughed to see a toilet inside their house, but all in all they caught the vision… this is not some bamboo made house like theirs, this is not some temporary shelter, this is big house built to last for decades… they saw the intent and understand we are here for long term. They are excited to have someone here to live amongst them, learn their language, live life on life with them, trying to understand their worldview and culture, it was a day they so looked forward to, if you see the pictures we hope you see their excitement.

Us in our get-up

We hung around for the rest of the day with the people, ate some food, laughed, sighed a relief of its over, brought our blow up mattress in OUR HOUSE, and slept in our house for the first time… we could here some of the leftover crowd chatting away still until after 9pm.

We could not have done this with you, our supporting churches and the Tiale people, this was 2 months of hard work, but it’s done. We will spend these next 3 weeks; connecting, furnishing, making a routine, and getting ready to do this full-time. Pray for us in our transitions, our bodies are tired but our spirits are wanting. Thank you for praying for Seth, his lymph node reduced a little bit this past week, continue to pray for us to have wisdom and discernment in how to proceed. And last but not least, now that we have a house, we can invite you to be our guest.

We love and appreciate you all, your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes