We are not sure who prayed, but the Lord answered your prayer and then doubled it! We (Frazer and ourselves) just received a four year-visa! Which means we will have no problems for the next four years (in this area) š Praise God and thank you all!
We head up to the bush today, and then hopefully install our satellite next week, so hopefully you will hear from.
Love, Seth and Nicole Stokes
Hi there, just a quick prayer request: please pray for our visas along with our co-workers Frazer. We are heading to the capital for 2 days to hopefully secure the next 1-2 year visa… hopefully it’s 2 š
Once we are back we will head right back to the bush and will be there indefinitely for our first stent. We would greatly appreciate your prayers in the process for it to go smoothly along with the right people actually “being” in their office… that is a miracle only prayer can answer here in Vanuatu: Gods providence and YOUR prayers.
Thank you for your faithfulness to us and the ministry our Lord gave us. Your feet, Seth and Nicole.
Hello everyone!
In less than 20 days, Christmas will be upon us! We are sure more than one of you has an exact countdown till Christmas, including the hours š We hope that you all are enjoying the Christmas season and cooler weather. This time of year is the hottest time here in Vanuatu, so enjoy the cool weather for us.Ā We are getting ready to spend a 3-4 month stent in the bush and will spend Christmas and the New Year with the Tiale people. Yes, that will be much different from last year where we were home in the USA. However, we are trying to focus on the Reason for the Season; Jesus, who came to earth to live and die for us, and it is because of what He did in His short life, that we are compelled to do what we are doing. This truth helps keep the perspective when we begin to miss our families during the “Christmas/holidays in America”. We hope and pray that this Christmas you and your family are able to pull away from the busyness of your respective culture and re-focus on why we celebrate this special time; and how that (He) impacts the rest of our year/ life. It is because of the birth of our Saviour that we have hope in this life! We greatly love, appreciate, and miss you all! Your part in our ministry is vital; we cannot do this massive task without YOU! Thank you for allowing us to be an extension of YOU here in Vanuatu. Click the link below to read our latest newsletter.
Thanksgiving meal with our ex-pat friends from Reach Vanuatu
Your Feet to the Tiale people in Vanuatu,
Seth & Nicole Stokes
How do we express all of the things that it took to get us to this point? Do we start with our families and influences that led to our late-teen years and making the decision to follow God into missions? Do we talk about our collegiate years and what God did to mold us through that time? Do we contemplate the unique circumstances of how we met and got married, pursuing missions as individuals and then as a married couple in training? Or how about how God miraculously provided the amazing support team to get us overseas? Reflecting upon the time our home church made the prayerful decision of us going from Indonesia, to PNG, to now Vanuatu? Or do we just focus on the supernatural way God showed us the people to work with, the Tiale people, within the first week of arriving in this countryā¦?
That is a lot of questionsā¦ we did not even scratch the surface of the emotional roller coaster that this year has been, leaving our family, friends, and churches againā¦ a doctor telling us Nicole might die, to then her being healthy again! Just to shortly transition into the house-building phase; hosting teams come for 5 weeks straight, and then for the past 2 months we finished up things inside the house while preaching weekly and doing discipleship with some of the pastors and pastors in training. We had an amazing ceremony that will be talked about amongst our people for decades; hundreds of people came from over eights villages, all excited for the chance of having a full-time missionary working with them in their need of a Bible and discipleship.
So many things to talk aboutā¦ over a decade in the making, and now things begin. We are in town trying to finalize things with our one, or possibly two-year visa, please pray for that. And with being so remote, we purchased a satellite so we can stay in touch with the outside world, it should arrive on our island this coming Tuesday. Literally the local cell phone service has not worked for 2 weeks in the past month, and with safety being a priority, that is why we went this route. It was an unexpected expense but well worth it long-term.
And now it beginsā¦ no more trainingā¦ no more schoolingā¦ no more transition phase or house-building phaseā¦ now we begin the arduous work of learning the Tiale Language. To be an effective Bible Translator, you have to know the language, you have to know the culture and worldview in which the people look through and interpret everything. All the major mission groups and training centers in the world put such an emphasis on this process. We cannot westernize the procedure and āMcDonaldsā it, go through the fast-lane and get an unhealthy meal. We have to go to the garden, till the ground, grow the food, wait for the process to come to maturity, harvest it and then cook the delicious meal of speaking and thinking in a pre-literate society (unreached people group). This is not an easy or quick process, but we have to learn their language and culture to do an effective translation. God spent over a millennia compiling and writing the Scriptures, we ought to do our due diligence and translate the Bible effectively. We say all of that because we know many people have and will ask, āhow long will it takeā? The answer isā¦ we donāt know. We are not promised tomorrow and we have never learned an unwritten language before, we have learned two languages together as a couple, both with much help and both being on paper already, and that is why we need YOUR prayer. It is a daunting task, humbling yet terrifying, we are solely putting our trust in God and not our abilities to do this task. Its too big of a job for us to do, we need Him to do it for us. Some people learn a language in one yearā¦ others in much longer. Some people have done a New Testament in eight yearsā¦ others in forty. This is a long-term commitment and it is our privilege to be YOUR feet and HIS witness here in the Tiale territory. So if you are curious our want to askā¦ āhow longā, our answer will be 9-48 years :).
Overall we are doing well, we had some time to recover from the busy house-building phase, and we do miss our families during this Christmas and holiday season. But we are getting focused because once we move in this time we donāt plan on coming out to town for 3-4 monthsā¦ we are hoping to make some good head-way into language learning by that time. We could really use your prayers and encouragement during this time.
We are truly grateful for your faithfulness to us and the ministry our Risen Lord has given to us. We hope that you had a Happy Thanksgiving and have a Merry Christmas. Please pray for us as we begin this new phase in our lives.
Your feet to the unreached,
Seth and Nicole Stokes
Verse of the Day
Stoking The Fires 