Monthly Archives: June 2018

When you live in the jungle, things never go “as you plan”, but you always have to be ready to expect the unexpected and enjoy what God gives you. Even though two of the villages did not show up, we have heard from them that they were so excited about how the conference went and what transpired there that they are now even more desiring of the Gospel. So that is exciting!

Having Fun & Enjoying Doughnuts

Seth was able to train four men to use the Foundational Bible Teaching material effectively and two other men are at a competent level. The results were amazing as Seth, along with the six other men team-taught every day. Each day they went through seven lessons and you saw those who have heard the teaching before and those who have never heard it attentive and wanting more.

Teaching the Group

Teaching the Group

The event was Monday morning through Friday Night. We had lessons from 7am until noon (with small breaks in between), we ate together, and then played soccer and volleyball together, we would then head to the church for a nightly service whether it was a skit night, or sermon, singing worship songs in Tiale or even testimony night. Seth and the men organized a Godly focused week. Nicole and two of the Pastor wives cooked pretty much every part of every meal (breakfast, snack-time, lunch, and dinner) daily, and made sure the people were full and couldn’t eat any more.

Baking Bread

We all stayed together on the Bible School property. Thanks to the facilities we were able to host about 40 people and we all slept comfortably (we want to make more facilities, so we can host more next time! Look at our Newsletter for more information). People did not want to leave, it was like a retreat, all of us here at the school property, fellowshipping early morning until late at night, talking about God’s Word, eating well, and having fun. It was truly a time of rejuvenation for everyone. All the pastors in training, current pastors, attendees, and all their families were so grateful for the event… they cannot wait until the next one! Here are some of the things they said about the conference:

The Attendees

Afternoon Sports

One pastor who has heard the teaching before, “every time I hear this teaching, I get something new, it is so refreshing; I feel refreshed”.

Another pastor said, “I cannot wait till the next phase of this teaching, I need this”.

Another pastor said, “It is good for me to hear this, I need to be reminded of the simple Truths of the Bible and how it leads us to God Himself”.

One attendee said, “I never heard the story of Adam and Eve, I never understood where sin came from”.

Another attendee said, “I have never heard anything like this, next year I want to come back and get trained to know God’s Word better”.

Another attendee said, “This is good for me, I need this”.

Another attendee told me that this helped their marriage, “The Gospel helped us and our marriage”.

Upon Completion of the Course

Thank you for all of your prayers! It was a lot of work, but God heard your prayers and blessed the event. Even though the event may not have “looked” how we wanted; we know that a full-Gospel was spread, teachers were trained, the curriculum in Bislama was checked, believers were strengthened and encouraged, a couple of people understood the Gospel more completely and are now taking steps to follow God more wholeheartedly, and many fires were stoked because of this event.

            Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes

As we are gearing up for an exciting week here in Big Bay bush, getting ready for a week long Foundational Bible Teaching conference. Please keep us in prayer this week! Stay tuned for pictures and more about the conference…  Before the conference begins, we wanted to take a moment to update you all on some projects that we will hope to start on this September. We are working to build up the campus here at the Bible School so we put together some needs we will have in order to accomplish this goal. See the link below to read more…

Newsletter-May-June-2018

As always, we are honoured to represent you all here in Vanuatu,

Your feet to the unreached,

Seth and Nicole Stokes

Please pray for us, on June 18^th we will be hosting a conference that will be a conglomerate of eight plus villages, three of them have no Gospel preaching church in our near their area for hours. We are hosting four villages altogether, the other four villages are those who we are team-teaching with to work through the Foundational Bible Teaching; Creation to Christ. We will be teaching seven lessons a day, four lessons will be taken by four of the pastors in training, two by two local pastors who Seth is also training, along with Seth who will be taking one lesson a day.

The course will run Monday through Friday; at least ten of the individuals who are expected to come have never heard the full story of their Creator Who loves them and died for their sins. We have several dorms, buildings, and guest housing so we will be jam-packed with over 30 people on this property.

Coffee Break

Seth has taken the past 6-7 weeks to train these young pastors how to not only articulate themselves as they preach; but to also have the character and heart of a pastor, along with a working knowledge of the teaching and helping them apply the messages to their audience. (Pictures from the past few weeks during class).This is a really exciting time for us, one of the boys has only preached in public less than 6 times ever in his life!

Kevin Teaching

Isaiah Teaching

As you can imagine, planning any event is difficult, let alone trying to connect 8 villages, get verification on those coming, along with getting all the supplies for the conference such as; benches (special thanks to Frazer Graham and RV), sleeping arrangements, this Friday is “clean up day” for the Bible School property, water, and of course about $1,000 worth of food. All of which we had to spear-head and supply, but we are confident God will bless this conference.

Pattison Teaching

Francky Teaching

Please pray for us: as Nicole gets all the logistical things ready such as food, etc., and Seth as he continues training the men, and not making this a perfunctory act, but something that is done out of worship to our Lord. Our goal is to model a love for Christ and God’s Word in all we do, please pray for the multiple villages (1-5 people per village) coming, along with the young men as they grow in their walk with the Lord (Kevin, Frankie, Isaiah and Patterson).

May His name be made Great among us, your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes

I (Seth) like to call giving the Gospel “step 1”, but I like to call discipleship “step 2”. One of the pastors here said to me, “I knew the Gospel was important, but I have missed discipleship altogether, thanks to you I understand that I too need to do this myself as well”. If we are honest, in some ways, giving the Gospel can take 5 minutes, 1 hour, 2 days, or a precise moment that God allows. As long as you use God’s Word effectively and in a culturally comprehensive way, the job can be quick and almost immediately gratifying (the McDonald’s-western-worldview loves that aspect). But that is just step one… and if we are understanding the Great Commission correctly, we can see that the Gospel is not main point… that’s right, its referred to, but the focus is to “make disciples… teaching them to observe ALL things…” That’s right, the problem with step 2, is that it is nothing like step 1.

Signing a special with the Bible School Students

It takes time, lots of it. Not just hours of teaching Scripture, but also relating it in socio-structural (cultural) ways. This is where we are beginning to see fruit, discipling people to make their own disciples. To make things clear, the Gospel is the essence of what we all should be doing, but you can give the Gospel and not disciple someone, whereas when you are discipling someone it implies you are giving or have given the Gospel.

The principle of discipleship is quintessential to our faith, we have been spreading this teaching to several villages and churches and they have been in awe saying things like “we have never heard of this… I didn’t know all Christians were suppose to do this”. It has been very concrete-relational because when we share about this principle we use the young men (and Nicole with the women) we are training as our examples. We explain that yes, we teach them God’s Word, but we also have them in our house to eat multiple times a week, we eat with them in their setting multiple times a week, we participate in cultural events together, we work in the garden together, we play soccer and volleyball with them, we sit down by the fire and talk to them about their life and hear their struggles, we pray together often, and if needed we cry together… this is what it has taken, over months to begin to see true growth and understanding in their lives.

Recording the New Tiale Songs

To see them discussing scripture outside of class or church, to see them applying God’s Word in their daily lives, to see them trying to correct people who have sinned in a loving way, to see them open the scriptures and show people that witchcraft is of the devil, to see them teaching their young friends or even their four-year old about God… to see them want more of God and begin to look different than their peers, it is just an exciting time. To witness growth is just a blessing God allows, because we can plant or water, but He is the one who makes everything grow… and to be a spectator in the process is precious.

Ladies Bible Study

One of the pastors from a nearby village, his has asked us to be a part of a small ceremony for one of the young men (Kevin) I am discipling, it is not an ordination but is more a blessing and marking him for the ministry. If he continues to grow and be faithful, he could be ordained as early as 2020. The church will be hosting this event on the 24^th of this month, and I was asked to be the key speaker, to give both a challenge and encouragement about the ministry. Please pray for him, Kevin, his wife Josephine, his daughter Tiro, and his two sons John and Jeremiah.

The Gospel is glorious, and is step 1, but to see people conform into the image of Christ is a beautiful thing and takes work, but step 2 is the command our Lord gave us. Continue to pray for us as we seek out men and women to move them onto step 2, discipleship.

Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes.

Time flies by, day in and day out. Between teaching the pastors in training, discipling the established pastors, language learning, community life, constant daily grind of living in a jungle, we would like to share how things are going… so for the sake of brevity, we will try to condense it down for you all.

Nicole has started a women’s Bible study with a handful of women, mostly younger women who are interested in ministry, but one lady is married to a pastor in training. It is a very exciting time since there has never been anything for the women here in Tiale land. The ladies have a time of prayer, games, snacks, and Bible study; they are currently going through the Foundational Bible Teaching. This is being done in Bislama.

Ladies Bible Study-First Puzzle for Them!

Spending time together

We find ourselves constantly trying to fill the needs for today along with looking to the future. What we mean is, we are constantly learning their culture and the Tiale language, which will produce fruit in hopefully 2019 sometime, Lord-willing. But we are also trying to fulfill all felt needs of their today. There are some who are saved and desire to grow and are also versed in the national language of Bislama, so we are currently able to disciple and train them. Babes need milk to drink and children need solid food, so our goal is to give each group their personal need.

Teaching the Youth at the local School

Seth is the busiest he has ever been along with the happiest. He is currently training 4 men on how to use God’s Word; he is using the Foundational Bible Teaching study and applying it to their daily lives, teaching them basic hermeneutic principles, as well as a homiletics (because he gives them lessons to teach) course. Sometimes we walk around seeing them huddled together, reading Scripture together, hearing them practice preaching, truly it is a joyous thing for us to see and witness!

Singing the New Tiale Songs at Church

We have also had to shed some tears, there have been some incidents in the village and we have had to enact church discipline in several cases. It brings a strange joy in the midst of the tears because you can see God working to make these young believers stand more firm in their belief. We had to put several people on church discipline in the past month. Satan is trying to win this fight, but through God’s grace and your prayers he will not prevail. One of the pastors literally said, “If you were not here I would not be bold in my belief, I have always wanted to be more bold and impose discipline on sin, but I always feel alone and with no back-up, you encourage me and empower me to stand firm in my Christian walk”. And that is the real reason why we are here, to point people to God and His Word as the true absolute for their every day lives. If we miss that, we miss the reason for being here. Pray for the Tiale people, even though they have had the Gospel for quite sometime, they are Christians still in infancy. But it is amazing to see their desire for more. We will share more about that in the upcoming blogs.

Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes