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Our journey can be summarized in three phases:

1. Allocation
2. Administration
3. Renovation

1) We are mostly done in the allocation process; yes, we are in Vanuatu, but we have not made it to our island yet, nor to our home in the village. Arriving at the airport 4 hours early sometimes means… you are “on time”. Both in USA and in Australia we found that 4 hours was still cutting it a bit close. There were some complications with the Covid testing requirements (in Australia-PCR), on one flight we were not seated together and on another flight they had us on separate planes! But God graciously made it all work out, never smoothly or easily, but eventually, we made it here TOGETHER and with all of our luggage!

2) Now onto the administration side, mostly everything on the administration side is “finished” or “in process” (we just turned in the last of it, a few hours ago). Anywhere from license renewal, medical exams, insurance, in country flights, to satellite provider to most importantly; visa renewals. Everything is either finished or in the “processing” stage. Once we have confirmation of the visa renewal (hopefully as early as sometime next week), we will head back to the island that God has called us to serve on, Espiritu Santo.

3) Lastly, once we arrive back on Santo, we will then check on the status of our house; water, piping, and electrical (solar), along with the process of cleaning years of mold off of everything, and then renovate whatever our house needs, along with the various Bible School dorms and buildings that were affected by the many cyclones (hurricanes) that have hit our island in the past two years.

Our trip to the capital has been a learning curve; we have not been here in 5 years and many things have changed, which means more walking around to find where we need to go (we easily get our 10k steps everyday before we get home at night). We are also making many more connections with other mission organizations while we are here, we are trying to use our time as effectively as we can. All of these various paperwork’s are being processed as of right now, but we ask that you would please pray for our visas to be approved and processed quickly so we can get back to serving the Tiale people. This process is in the Lord’s hands now, along with the prayer of His saints, and in advance, we say thank you! Stay tuned for an update…

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu, Seth and Nicole Stokes

We are now heading into the unknown… yes the place is familiar but the process of getting there is very much different.

Thank you so much for your prayers! We have enough of Nicole‘s medication for this next term, we have our bags checked and are currently sitting at the airport; already through customs, even though we had some hiccups already, (such as them having us on two different planes for one of the legs…) it will take about 40 hours to get us to our final destination (of this trip), several layovers and 4 planes later we will be in Vanuatu.

Continue to pray as we will start working on our visas hopefully on Monday while we are in the capital.

After that process is done then we will head to our island, and there we will have to do things like cleaning our house that has been sitting dormant for over two years… not to mention check the piping/plumbing for our water (our water comes from 2 big tanks filled by rain off of our roof), our the water filtration system, as well as see if our solar system (how our house os powered) is still good and running.

All that to say, we have many more hurdles still to come in the next couple of weeks. We are thankful for and very much in needing of your prayers. We pray that this is a somewhat easy phase of ministry so that we can get to the hard work of serving the people and discipling them into maturity, while also working on growing in our Tiale language studies.

We love and appreciate you all, God bless!

Your feet to the Tiale people & the country of Vanuatu,

-Seth & Nicole Stokes

THANK YOU everyone for your prayers for us to be able to get my (Nicole’s) medicine! They have been answered! We got my medicine today for our next term!!! Praise the Lord with us regarding this news! Pray for us to get all of the last minute details finished. We love and appreciate you all!

Your feet to the Tiale people & the country of Vanuatu,

-Seth & Nicole Stokes

Things feel surreal; with having had no certainty these past two years on our our departure date and now planning to be being back with our people in about two weeks, our emotions seem rather displaced. Are we excited? Yes. Do we have reservations because of the unknowns? Absolutely. To be completely transparent, we won’t feel “settled” until we are back in our home and with our people for probably about two weeks… Click on the link below to keep reading…

We are your feet to the Tiale people & the country of Vanuatu, ~Seth & Nicole Stokes

It’s official… we have tickets to head back to Vanuatu! Check out the short video clip below to hear more…

As always, we are your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu,

-Seth & Nicole Stokes

We plan on heading back to Vanuatu in about 10 weeks! The country is officially opening up next month, and with various things that work best; the current events of the country, along with visa paperwork, this is the time we see most advantageous to head back home! As many of you know, we have been eagerly awaiting to get back to serving our Lord amongst the Tiale people… CLICK the link below to keep reading.

We covet, appreciate, and NEED your prayers! Thank you for your partnership, we could not do our job without you fulfilling your role!

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu,

-Seth & Nicole Stokes

Hi friends, we want to apologize for the delay in sending this update, we wanted to share two BIG and exciting pieces of information with you! We kept delaying our post to see if they would come to fruition so that we could share all of the good news at once. The good news, one has! Seth is walking brace free! And the other one is “in process”; the Vanuatu borders are opening back up SOON! 

Thank you for your love and partnership with us in this journey and especially during these uncertain times! There are some other good pieces of information inside the newsletter below. Thank you for praying with us, as we are eager to get back to Vanuatu! Feel free to contact us if you have any further questions, we love hearing from you all.

As always,

We are your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu,

Seth & Nicole Stokes

We wish you all a very Merry CHRISTmas and a Happy New Year! We feel blessed to be called your feet to the Tiale people and to be able to serve in the country of Vanuatu. According to the Lord’s timing, we will head back to Vanuatu whenever the country opens back up, and when Seth is fully able to walk on his own two feet. We know that God meticulously planned the inauguration of His Son, Jesus, to come to this earth nearly 2,000 years ago. Likewise, He will take care of the details of when we will head back.

We love you all and appreciate your partnership in our ministry! We covet your prayers at this time. We hope you all can enjoy some special and meaningful time with family, friends, and loved ones during this Christmas season.

“Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭15:33‬ ‭

Your Feet to the Tiale People & the Country of Vanuatu,

~Seth & Nicole Stokes

Thank you all so much for your prayers, texts and concerns for Seth! He is home and on the road to recovery. Please continue to pray for his pain management; the nerve block didn’t work and pain medications usually don’t work on him… needless to say he’s feeling everything right now and is in a good bit of pain. The doctor said they don’t give out stronger medications. The surgery was successful and he is expected to make a full recovery. Thank you for your prayers, we greatly appreciate them!

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu,

~Seth & Nicole Stokes

Seth is going to have surgery at 7:45am today to attach his ruptured patellar tendon on his left leg.

We appreciate your prayers in two ways: 1. That the doctor does everything correctly 2. That Seth has speedy recovery.

We usually are the ones driving all over the place to visit family and friends… but this will ground us for this Christmas season. God is gracious in that we understand what “the Prince of Peace” looks like in many ways. Thank you for everything. God bless!