It Begins…

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 country…?

That is a lot of questions… we did not even scratch the surface of the emotional roller coaster that this year has been, leaving our family, friends, and churches again… 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 about… 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 begins… no more training… no more schooling… no more transition phase or house-building phase… 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 “McDonalds” 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, “how long will it take”? The answer is… we don’t 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 year… others in much longer. Some people have done a New Testament in eight years… 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 ask… “how long”, 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 don’t plan on coming out to town for 3-4 months… 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