Abridged Version:

We shared some information that is pretty BIG news for us, and to make sure we shared it clearly we wanted to repost some thoughts and make sure we communicated effectively.

A few short weeks ago, the pastor of our home/sending church; Pastor Kurt Skelly asked us to be open to a new ministry opportunity. Missionary Jeremy Pinero of CSL (Camp Shining Light, we apologize their website is currently under construction) in Vanuatu asked our Pastor if he knew of anyone who could help fill a need in his ministry for a period of time, while explaining to him some opportunities that were opening up to them in Vanuatu. Immediately God put us, Seth and Nicole, on our pastor’s heart and that is where this all started.

We are being asked to help fill the base manager position from the end of July through the end of November. We would be given some freedom during that time to get to know the other missionaries with CSL, learn the make-up of the organization and more importantly, go and be with the nationals learning culture and language. Fortunately, there are many similarities both in language and culture to that of PNG. 🙂

Some time in August we would go to the Island of Tanna with Jeremy Pinero and do a survey trip. Once there we would see the logistics of doing church planting there. We would then finish our commitment in November, come home, reassess what God just did in us and through us.

Once home, we would pray, fast, seek counsel, and connect with you all. We are not wanting to take any decisions lightly, but we also know God is the Author of Peace and He will confirm this or deny this pretty quickly in our hearts once we are there.

If we see this is of God, after connecting with you all (hopefully face to face), we would then resign with NTM, then sign up with CSL and get a multi-year visa and go back to the Island of Tanna and start the process of church planting in 2017!

Other details about this opportunity.

Our intent with this blog is to give some detail to our story and the story being told. This is a lot of information and you probably have many questions. Please write us, we would love to help and answer any questions you might have.

Our history with this missionary and ministry: our home church has supported missionary Jeremy Pinero for several years now, doctrinally he and the organization would match up with the core beliefs that we, our church, and NTM have. The organization CSL was started by Jeremy Pinero’s father, his father was trained by New Tribes. His father felt led to go to Vanuatu and thus started his own ministry, since NTM does not operate in Vanuatu. Jeremy took over the ministry more than 8 years ago, he has grown it to an NGO status and made good relations with the government in Vanuatu. The NGO status enables them to get multi-year (1-5) visas, as well as enables work crews from churches in the USA to come through quite frequently and serve. That process actually helps the NGO status, which in term helps the mission and its missionaries. The freedom of inviting others to come and serve is one of the many things we like about this opportunity!

Vanuatu is not a large country, and for most many are not sure where it is… and rightly so! It’s not that big! It is east of Australia and directly west of Fiji. In the early 1800’s the famous missionary John G. Paton served there and planted many strong churches, sadly he was just one man. And much how like PNG is full of unreached people groups, Vanuatu actually has more UPG per capita than PNG.

When God led us both into missions, our desire was like Paul’s in Romans 15:20, wanting to get to those who have not had any chance yet to hear God’s glorious Gospel. This opportunity is in step with God’s calling on our lives and one of the main reasons we are wanting to visit Vanuatu.

We were told that our time as base manager enables us to have some freedom. Not only do we get to know the mission and other missionaries, but we can get to know the nationals, learning their culture and language.

Bislamah is the trade language for Vanuatu, it is 70-80% similar to that of Tok Pisin, and the culture is very similar to that of PNG. From what we heard and are studyng, the cargo cult has a greater influence there in Vanuatu, making their eastern-shame worldview and their Judeao-Christian-animistic-syncretistic prone belief system get a little bit more messy, google John Frum occult in Vanuatu for a taste, but in the end not much more different from PNG.

When we leave PNG we would make a small detour to Rock Hampton Australia. We will go there to meet the home pastor of Jeremy Pinero and get a better feel of the ministry.

During this whole time we will need you in prayer more than ever, with so many transitions, unknowns and seeking God’s will, we will be fueled only by God’s grace and your prayers.

Once our time is completed, we will come home back to the USA. We figured out that we will have about a month from the end of November through December to visit all of our non-PA supporters, sadly since some are spread out as far west as Kansas, south as Florida, East as New Jersey, and North of New York we will have to make this quick and our time slots might not be the most accommodating… we apologize if we might inconvenience you. We want to get the distance driving done for 2 reasons: 1. It will be close to snow season. 2. If God leads us to go back to Vanuatu, and we would be able to go back quickly, we would have already updated you face to face, our support team. That means for most of our friends in PA we would not be able to see you until after the New Year. Our goal has always been to communicate to you, and to show our appreciation and that is why we want to come to you and see you!

IF God has confirmed this new ministry, we would then go through the due process of resigning from NTM and then signing with CSL, go through the visa process, and then head back to Vanuatu and do church planting on Tanna in 2017! We can see how this transition and time in PNG is of God; our time with NTM here in PNG gave us many invaluable tools and contacts to do the job of cross-cultural church planting. Paul served many years after his conversion in a local church and also served in some short-term trips before God finally made him the missionary as we know him today.

Please pray for us, we need it now more than ever. So many thoughts and so many things to do for each piece to fall into place (Ps. 94:19, 1 Peter 5:7, Matt. 11:28-30).

If you have any questions please fire away! We will get back to you ASAP! We have to pack for Vanuatu (and for coming back to America in November), we will be in Indonesia until July 13th, head to Australia on July 15th, and then head to Vanuatu on July 24th, only to arrive on July 26th… maybe arrive on Spiritu that day or the next, needless to say we have many transitions, logistics, bad internet and other things going on… so please pray for us.

We are thankful God has put you in our life, thank you for praying and supporting us. Thank you for your patience in all of this, we are honored to be called your feet,

Seth’s mom arrived!

Kids being kids

Improvising and putting roofing down

Dem-land

A new Dem baby!

Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes

Us

Here is our Youtube video summarizing what we just shared:

Before you read we want to apologize, we have not had internet for almost 2 weeks, the satellite in the bush went down. And when we come out to town we heard the internet went down for the whole Island on the Papua side… a shark bit the power line or something… that has happened before! So we want to apologize in advance if you do not hear from us, we might not have internet capabilities for 2 more weeks and we are not sure if this will even post, we love you all.

Wow, we are not sure how many of you have ever had to make decisions quickly, feeling the weight of the decision before you ever make it, feeling overwhelmed even with the magnitude of what you might be doing… and that is how we feel, today, right now. But God is Sovereign, He is a faithful Creator, and His timing and planning is perfect for His Saints. Why then do we have so many questions, and not simply trust God with a child-like faith? One reason comes to mind, “we want to be like God and know everything before it happens”. But that is not how faith works, He asks us to walk without looking, and pursue Him over all things.

Our desire from day one has been to reach the unreached, and that is what God has pressed on us each day since, for over a decade now. We as feeble humans, with finite perspectives have been trying to figure out Gods “plan” for our lives. Some would say “good luck”, but that is what He asks of us, He gives us paths to follow and then one day like Paul, He will say “don’t go there! Go there!”.

We have served NTM-PNG Wewak for over a year; we have been in the country 3 months longer than that, totaling 16 months. And less than a few weeks ago our Pastor from our Home/Sending church proposed to us this ministry opportunity that sounds “to good to be true”; that is in line with the calling God has put in our lives, cultivated and walked through with hand-in-hand by our Shepherding Home-Pastor Kurt Skelly, while being done in unity and with the blessing of our NTM leadership, as well as confirmed by the peace of God that only HE can give in such a short time.

So what is this ministry? We will give in depth details in the following emails, but for brevity’s sake we will share our opportunity. We are being asked to go to the Island of Vanuatu (made famous by the missionary John G. Paton, he was almost eaten by the indigenous people several times), and serve as a Base Manager for 4 months. The purpose of the title and position is two-folded. 1. It is a vacancy that needs to be filled soon because another missionary is going on furlough. 2. It will allow us to get to know the missionaries on that field, get a feel for the organization, learn the national language, which is 70-80% similar to Tok Pisin, and see if this is OF GOD. We were asked by the director of the mission to come just for 4 months and see if God is confirming this decision IN us. Our Pastor is convinced God will confirm this ministry in our lives, but he too agrees that this is the best route.

What does the timing look like, and what does that mean for our supporters? Well, we have been on the field for over 16 months, so that means we have accrued some break time, and furlough time. You know how some of you have used your vacation/break time for work projects, or some have taken personal time to go do some ministry? This is very similar. We will head to Vanuatu some time in mid-end July and serve for 4 months (we can get a tourist visa pretty easily). By the timing of things it looks like we would come back to America mid-late November. After the four months, we will go home and pray over what God might be calling us to do. From there, if God confirms things through prayer and counsel, we would transfer organizations and do the due process of formalities and paperwork. One of the main reasons we would come home is to see all of YOU (if possible, we know some have moved quite a distance)! We would love to enjoy your fellowship and explain what God is doing face-to-face. We would be able to get a multi-year visa for Vanuatu so that means we might not see you for a good long time, if the Lord wills.

One of the most exciting and attractive things about Vanuatu is that it has OVER 80 unreached people groups (NO Gospel in their heart-language), other major organizations, like NTM, are not there so this has a lot more of a pioneer mission feel to it, which is our heart desire. If the 4 months go well there, and God confirms this ministry in us, we would be asked to possibly go to the island of Tanna and begin, that’s right, begin a Church Plant there. During our 4 months in Vanuatu we are planning to visit the Island of Tanna in August. There are several languages on the island, there is an active volcano, tsunami’s are always a chance, the famous John G. Paton did go and try to witness to them, but most exciting part is: we get to have this possible opportunity to minister and do church planting in 2017.

We know this may be coming as a shock to some of you, imagine how we feel having to make all these decisions in quick succession? We are thankful for our Pastor helping us each step of the way, our supportive family, and our loving friends. We appreciate you all and value any input or questions you may have. Please Pray for us as we have many details we have to think through as well BIG decisions to make.

                  Seth helping unload plane

            Nicole with the Dem

Your feet to the Unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes.

We would love to talk with each one of you either through Skype, FaceTime, or a good ole fashion phone call. If emails or messaging is an option, then we can go that route as well. There are some transitions in our life coming up, and as your feet, we want to keep you in the loop every step of the way.

In saying that, we also know between the time difference and your personal busy schedule that connecting directly might not happen for quite some time. With that being said; if we do not hear from you by June 20^th, we will post a series of blogs explaining our new opportunity.

We love each and every one of you, we appreciate your partnership in our ministry. We want to be faithful to our relationship and that is why we sent out this update. Those of you who are a part of our financial support-team should have received an email, and or a letter via snail mail, if you did NOT receive either we apologize! Please contact us so we can rectify that mistake of ours.

Email: stokingthefires@gmail.com

FaceTime/Imessage: nicolestokes22@gmail.com

Skype: soldier4onegod

Facebook & Facebook Messenger: Seth Isaac Stokes or Nicole Stokes

Phone: you would have to message us with your number, and then we would be able to call you.

                         Us heading to Dem

Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes

Here is a brief video of our time in Dem. We wanted to post a quick video while the internet was good. Just click on the link and it should take you to our you-tube channel. Thank you for following us!

Please pray for the Dem and their missionaries, as we are posting this video we hear the wailing of the tribe, a woman died giving birth. Death is real, and the only Hope we have is in Christ.

YOUR FEET TO THE UNREACHED, SETH AND NICOLE STOKES

This trip has been one of the most memorable trips we have taken thus far, not only do we get to help a missionary and their work, but day in and day out we get to be a blessing to our family. One of the hardest things for missionaries is not being able to see family, we love our parents deeply… but leaving our nieces and nephews was one of the hardest things. Not knowing when we would get to see them next, how much time would pass and how much we would miss in their developmental years. We are thankful for video calls, and we are grateful God allowed us to see them, because after this time we are not sure when the “next time” will be. With our ever-transient lives every moment cannot be taken for granted. In 2013, Seth had Christmas with both siblings for the first time since 2002! That’s right, just 3 kids and because of furloughs and missions it took over 11 years for everyone to be together, who knows when God will allow the next opportunity.

Walking up the Airstrip

Working with our Nephew

We have been able to help out a lot around the house; Nicole has done a lot of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids… even making special meals like homemade ravioli that take quite some time, which normally would be too long to make with the ever busy schedule in the bush. Seth has continued doing several jobs around the house, painting, sanding, staining, repairing, building, chasing pigs, cutting the airstrip with a hand mower (15% grade incline), teaching Bible and PE class, and much more… even running to the top of the hill to check on the water tanks because something clogged up the water. The houses are fed by fresh springs that fill up tanks, which when full, provide pressurized water. These tanks are several 100’s of meters up hill, pigs, animals and nationals sometimes bump into the hoses or tanks causing malfunctions that need to be fixed from time to time, no matter when that time comes.

Helping with Medical

Waiting for a baby to be born!

The addition to the porch

One of Nicole’s favorite experiences thus far has been hiking to a couple different ladies huts at night with the other missionary ladies. Many ladies are currently pregnant and Nicole got to be with several of the ladies right before and right after their pregnancy. This time was also very sobering as she got to see some animism first hand, one lady was having complications and so they literally laid a baby pig over her, said an incantation, and then they sacrificed the baby pig… this reminds us that though they smile and are friendly, they are still lost and need a Risen Savior. Please pray for the DEM team as they are learning language and culture so that one-day they can speak to the people and give them the Word of Life and Truth.

Thank you for your faithfulness to our ministry, your feet to the unreached,

Seth and Nicole Stokes

What have we been up to? Click the link below to read our latest newsletter.

Newsletter April-May-2016

~Seth & Nicole Stokes

Sometimes our life sounds like a never-ending transient journey, traveling from one place to another. We love the destinations, but packing and doing paperwork is something we have never been that good at, but God is gracious and lavishes mercy on us in our time of need.

We have done several bush trips now, but this one will be by far the most exciting… going into Dem-land! That is the tribe Seth’s brother works in, we are going to just hop the border and make the trip to go help them.

Seth’s brother and sister-in-law (and their team) are knee-deep into TCLA (tribal culture language acquisition), slugging it out with a tough language. We thought we could go and help them with any projects they need done. There are several work projects that Seth can do in order to alleviate (Phil. 2:25) time from Jay, so that he can put more time into language learning. Nicole will help with the household work; cooking, cleaning, maybe do some school with the kids. This too will relieve some time from Briana and enable her to get some more language time as well.

This is exciting for us in many ways; we as a couple have not been in a highlands mountainous-tribe, we have been in several swampy tribes in the lowlands, and even an island tribe, but this will be the first for us together. This will be Nicole’s first time in Dem-land, so that is very exciting! We can be a genuine relief to the ministry and enable them to put in more TCLA time, as well as hopefully encourage them. They have had many tribal fights and disruptions in their village recently, along with much medical care needing to be administered. We will be helping out in that ministry as well while we are there. Two more exciting parts about this trip:1. Did we mention we get to be with family? Nieces and nephew! Special times! 2. Seth’s mother is coming over for a short visit, which will make this good times all around.

Our Ride into the Tribe

Our Sweet Niece and the People

Seth Teaching Bible Class

We are super excited that God allowed this opportunity to come, we love bush life, we love serving, there is a lot of work for us to do, and how awesome is it to help others? Let alone help family?! We are so privileged to be your feet, and as usual, since we will be in the tribe, expect more pictures than normal!

Your feet to the unreached, Seth & Nicole Stokes

Thanks so much everyone, we know many of you read our update and were praying for Seth’s friend. Shortly after the update was posted, Seth was able to get ahold of his friend, Seth prayed many times for a clear opportunity to go deep with this guy. God opened the door, through the topic of prayer. God used this topic as the catalyst for Seth to navigate through the multi-layer worldview that many Papua New Guineans have… animism, syncretism, eastern mysticism, eastern shame culture, as well as a litany of other layers like cargo cult, other occults, and a veneer of Christianity plague this country, really much of the South Pacific. Because of these complexities of the culture, it makes you think through many things before you share, in order to communicate effectively.

We always try to be very clear, putting on that multi-layered worldview lens so we can understand better where we need to navigate in order to present a clear Gospel. The Spirit and prayer must be the focus of each opportunity God gives us. Seth was able to talk about how once you are saved, you have a relationship with God. Through that relationship alone does prayer make sense, Seth was able to use that topic and tie it into various aspects of the finished work of Christ, and how salvation is completely of God. There is not a drop of works you can be added to the mix, you must make sure the focus is on Him alone, removing any focus off of yourself.

Seth left the conversation with his friend knowing that salvation is of God alone, believers have a personal relationship with God the Father, Jesus paid the debt for all his sin, and the Spirit alone will grow him in God’s timing, no work or service can add to Christ’s finished work on the cross. Seth also left knowing that his friend better understood prayer, and believes his friend has a relationship with Jesus! All of this is possible because of God’s grace, and YOUR prayers. Thank you for being involved in each step!

Your feet to the unreached, Seth & Nicole Stokes

Making Jewelry With Friends

For several days this week, I have been trying to get ahold of a friend, calling him daily and texting him on his 4 or 5 different phone numbers, which is quite common here in PNG. We had some amazing conversations last week and I wanted to follow up with him on it, he, like many others, does not understand the Gospel of Grace and the eternal destiny of the Redeemed. Like so many others here in PNG, and even America, my friend has a veneer of truth, knowing some scripture but still thinking he has to do some type of work to receive God’s salvation. God has put him in my thoughts and prayers all week, but I believe Satan is controlling his phone and hindering us from being able to meet.

Why is it we want to play such a vital role in leading others to Christ? Yes, we are to be ambassadors and persuade men to Christ, but how many times have we said all the right words… used all the right illustrations… got them to question their own belief, and still not see their eyes enlightened? It’s a good desire, but in the end salvation is of the Lord alone. We must fall on our knees trusting Him and completely depend on Him to do His job. He is a faithful creator (1 Pet. 4:19), so lets not begin to doubt him now.

Nicole actually got witnessed to… just like in America; Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons exist here too. While she was making jewelry with two national friends under a little bush during the heat of the PNG sun, some ladies came to Nicole and began to ask about her beliefs. Through the conversation she learned they were JW’s, and because of that conversation she was able to witness to her other (Mormon) friends. Nicole got to share her testimony and talk in depth about the finished work of Christ, how we are complete in Him, and we cannot add anything to our salvation, it is all the work of Christ. Nicole was able to give her a Bible, and left confident she understood the Gospel, now the rest is between them and the Lord. Isn’t that exciting!?!

Once again we are just reminded of how small we are and how BIG God is; everything is of Him. The timing, the situation, the openness of others, and even how you get to that conversation. He is so far ahead of us we could never keep up. We are like kids at times, admiring our Dad and how amazing He is. Hopefully that encourages you this week, like it did us.

As always, it is our privilege to be your feet, Seth & Nicole Stokes

Yep, some things got left: some food, cargo, books, a kid, and even us at one point 🙂

Sorry for the delay in giving all of you the details with our bush trip, but as most of you know we got back from our trip around 6pm on a Saturday night… about 9pm that night Seth started to get pretty sick, the next day and for several days his fever went up, body ached, and then turned into pneumonia. He had a fever over 105F. He took his medicine, listened to the doctor, and stayed in bed (mostly) doing nothing physical for 7 days. He did a lot of coordinating with supply buying and store managing, and after that week was over he has been doing well since! We attribute his speedy recovery to our Omnipotent God, Who heard the prayers of His Saints, thank you!

So, this is how the trip unfolded. We arrived at the airport ready to get into the float plane, some things had changed and so our weight allowance varied quite a bit, thus making decisions pretty hard on what to bring. Well after evaluating how much we needed for us, and the other family (1 adult male and 2 kids), and two national pastors, we got rid of some clothes leaving us 3 sets of clothes for 6+ days (Sleep, dry, and wet :)). We found out that even after cutting back more and getting rid of some water we were still too heavy, so one of the kids said “well, my brother wants to stay with my dad, Nicole you need to take care of my brother, my dad is preaching and the people need to hear God’s talk, the other men and Seth need to go and share too, so I will stay here in Wewak with my friends”. That was from a girl who is not even 10 yet, that is awesome to hear such wisdom and perspective from a young lady!

We made 2 loads for 2 trips with the floatplane and headed out. It was late in the day meaning we did not have time to hop on a canoe and take a trip up the river to our destination. We stayed with a national pastor in his traditional house on the river, you can pull the canoe right up to his house because it has been so flooded. The sun rose and we all got in the canoe and headed up the river, we sped for over 2 hours up the May river. We then turned into a small river known as the “Ni” river, we headed up that river for over 5 hours only to find out the water was getting too shallow to continue on via canoe… so that means most of us had to get out and walk the rest of the way, luckily it was less than an hour walk.

We arrived mid afternoon, tired, worn out from the canoe, but we were welcomed with open arms. This was the first time an outsider (whitey) came to preach in this village. These people moved to this location over 12 years ago and have had no formal teaching from outsiders. The people group were taught through the Gospels and some of the New Testament, but the work was never “finished” due to health and other things occurring not allowing the missionaries to stay. They were so excited for this teaching, they built a house for any traveling speakers who ever might drop by… this house was about 6ft off the ground and maybe 9’x’9’ and it was awesome to see their excitement to have someone use it!

Now it was time to teach! The next morning several people from other villages came to hear the teaching. The teaching house (church) usually would fit close to 60-70 people (by my guess). But once the teaching started men, women, children, dogs, pigs, and cassowaries would pile in and the overflow would listen from the door and sides. I would say during the course, over 100+ came regularly. We saw it as a privilege to be there, we were with a veteran missionary, Jason, (over 20+ years on the field, completed a work and a translation) teaching and discipling other indigenous pastors to teach God’s Word in Tok Pisin to another language group. Seth had several opportunities to talk with the indigenous believers, as well as the 2 pastors from the other language group about the teachings. Galatians was taught, verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter, beginning to end by both Jason and the national pastors from another village. For many it was their first time hearing some of those truths. Much of the scripture was exactly what they needed to hear, so many things directly applied to them and their current situation.

Each day Nicole watched the young boy, she cooked for us (but didn’t have to cook too much because the people brought us lots of cooked food many of the days), and Seth asked many questions to the veteran missionary, as well as encouraged and challenged the nationals. It was an encouraging time for us, and we know the body of believers there in the middle of the deep jungle were also greatly encouraged and challenged. Amazing story! Gods Word was preached, discipleship was done, and believers were encouraged. The story stops there…? But wait, how did we get back? Not at all a highlight or focus of our trip or story. But we will give the short version.

How we got there: 1hr. 10min floatplane ride, 6 hr. canoe ride, 1 hour walk, and spent the night at a pastor’s house. Well, the floatplane had engine problems for our return flight, so we got stuck and left in the bush. So we came up with a new plan. It was Friday and no one else is flying at that time (no airstrips are close by). When we started the trip back, the canoe was a bit heavy so the kids and some women stayed in the boat, and the rest of the adults walked part of the way. Well the boat driver left Seth and some others to walk the whole way to the next village (unbeknownst to Seth, who is expecting to meet at rendezvous point). Seth and some other nationals walked in hip deep swamp for almost 4 hours; Seth was the first white guy to walk that trail! Arrived at the next village, spent the night and got on the boat in the morning for the remaining 5 hours to May river station. So once there, we had to find someone willing to take us across the mighty and infamous Sepik River. After hours of talking to people to find a canoe and driver, we finally found someone. We started our 10hr long trek, spent the night in a random village, made new friends, and then arrived by noon to Pagwi. Once we arrived, we waited for some of our friends to pick us up in a big open back truck, and then we began our 4hr 15min drive back to our base. We arrived around 6pm and then Seth began to sick around 9pm. And that was our trip, 8 hours there, and 24 hours back :).

Seth rested for a week, and then we jumped back into full-time ministry, getting the store cleaned up and fine-tuned some aspects of that ministry. Did lots of buying for several bush orders: food, cargo, drainpipes for a bush church, batteries, and much more. We have been getting back involved in witnessing to some of our national friends here in Wewak. God is opening the eyes for some of them (PRAY!). Thank you so much for YOUR partnership in our ministry, thank you for your prayers and sacrifice, it is our privilege to be an extension of you.

Float Plane

The Teaching House

Plane Load 1

Door to Door Service

Hiking

Pulling the Canoe Along

A Sweet Friend

Canoe Ride

The Trail

Overnight Stay

Our Ride Home

For more pictures from the trip go to our Instagram: Get_Stoked_For_PNG

Seth & Nicole Stokes,

Your Feet to the Unreached in PNG.