We typically use this expression for Wednesday’s during the work week, and it means we are over the middle of the week or it means we are over the hard part and now it is smooth sailing…well, we have been over the “middle” for a while now, so to us it means it is down hill from here (Lord willing).

Paperwork

Nicole has been accepted! Her paperwork (letter of sponsorship) has gone through and now our visa’s are being PROCESSED! Praise God! Please continue to pray. They said it will be processed and “should” have no more hang-ups. They (our field leadership) said that they will be processing our paperwork and then sending it to us… so we “should” have our visa’s by the first week in January! We might have to drive to Washington DC to speed up the process but it will all be worth it. For all of you praying so fervently for us, thank you! Please continue to pray for us and our paperwork so we can leave by the end of January.

Support

Likewise, we are over our minimum required monthly goal financially! We still have quite a way to go to reach 100%. Several of you have expressed the desire for us to be at that 100% mark and are praying we meet that level of support. We want to say thank you for thinking about us and wanting more for us then we want for ourselves. Anything over the 75% mark is a total blessing and is a testimony of you, our prayer warriors, and how Great and Merciful our Lord is to His children. We are humbled by those of you who pray for us in such a manner.

Thank you!

Thank you to all of our new support teams and churches! Like Community Baptist and Journey! We are grateful to have such a strong support team behind us.

Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes.

Typically when people hold up their index finger and their middle finger it connotes the meaning “peace”, and in some cultures “victory”. Well for us it does both, when you look at your 2 fingers know we have “peace” because we are just 2 partners away from being at our required minimum goal of 75%. Also it means God has given us the “victory” in the area of support-raising at this stage of our life.
Likewise, 2 fingers represents the number 2, we need prayer for our support and also our paperwork. We just heard back from the field and Seth’s paperwork has been processed and has been accepted… but Nicole’s did not and is now being re-processed. Our leadership said it should all work out, but still to have as many people as we can to pray so it can be expedited!
Please Pray for our paperwork!
We greatly appreciate your prayers for us, thank you. We wanted to keep this post brief and focused. We will post again later this week about other updates.
When you look at your 2 fingers pray for us… Pray we may have peace in both our support and paperwork, and then also that we might have victory in getting our support and paperwork completed.

Dear friends and family,

We pray you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are enjoying the beginning of the Christmas season. As of today, we are now at 70%! We are super excited to be so close to our (minimum) goal of 75%. Keep praying for the required paperwork to come back from PNG soon in order for us to file for our Visas. Please read our latest newsletter below. Thank you for being a part of our team! We couldn’t do this without YOU!

Newsletter: October-November 2014

We are currently over 68% of our committed monthly support, we are just 7% away from getting to our (minimum) required committed monthly support of 75%. That means we need about 4 more fingers (Fingers is a reference to the past couple of blogs). We have about 7 weeks to go until we leave. We need our paperwork in order to finish the official en-route process in addition to the remaining support. So when you look at your hand, think of us. Just four more fingers ($100/mo./ea.)! And when you look at the calendar think of us (7 days a week): 7% more in just 7 weeks!

All of this is very surreal to us, we never thought our support would come in by this time. We remember the conversation we had with our Pastor when we started this endeavor, he said it would take us almost 30-36 months…we looked at him and said we are praying for 18 months…he said that we had greater faith than him… now God said, I WILL raise your support in 12 months, get ready! Truly everything has been on His timing and has been done by people He has moved to partner with us. Our God has continued to humble us in great ways. We are excited, anxious, and overwhelmed with the things that have to fall into place by the time we leave.

-PRAY FOR OUR PAPERWORK TO BE PROCESSED IN TIME.

-PRAY FOR THE REMAINDER OF OUR SUPPORT TO COME IN, and whatever support we receive over the 75% we see as a total gift and blessing from God because we never planned to be at 100% support.

SAVE the DATE!

• On January 4^th, 2015 we plan on having a “send off” service in New Jersey at Calvary so we can say good-bye to our east coast family.
• On January 14^th, 2015 we plan on having our commissioning service along with Seth’s ordination service at our home church in Pennsylvania, Harvest.

We will give the specifics when the time comes closer, but we want to give everyone a date to put on their calendars. PLEASE NOTE: EVERYONE IS INVITED to these services.

Keep the tally of fun facts about us on deputation (we have):

• • Slept in over 95 beds
  • Visited 19 states
  • Put 40K on our car, which now has 203K.
  • Put over 11K on Seth’s mom’s car.
  • Visited 2 countries (not counting Seth’s missions trip).
  • Seth has skipped over 15 nights of sleep due to driving.
  • Connected with over 55 churches
  • Been in the car for 39 days (hours totaled thus far).

Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes.

Our Blog                                                                          Partner With Us Financially

Do not worry; we are not missing any of our literal hands. God has been more than gracious to us this past week. We put a prayer request out there less than 2 weeks ago of needing 10 more partners… and in just 4 days God moved 5 partners to join our team at the needed monthly amount. Only God can do that! We have also been contacted by a couple more people this past week who have shown interest in joining our team. Truly God has raised our support! We have “slowed down” our traveling and been able to reconnect with our home church. We facilitated a small group, shared in 4 Sunday school classes, and taught in 1 high school class in 15 hours J. We will be leaving Lord willing in 8 weeks and 1 day!

Things are in motion!

First off, God has been using people to humble us from day one. We walked into our Sunday school class at our home church (in Pittsburgh, PA) to give an update and they surprised us with a love offering, which will pay for our plane tickets to PNG! Wow! Such an amazing gift, truly a moving of God in their hearts to have the foresight and yet God ordained because they did not know how much the tickets would be and did not corroborate together how much they raised. So that’s a big thing off our list. Money for plane tickets? Check!

We just heard back from our leadership that our work permit paperwork is being processed and Lord willing they send it back to us shortly! So we might have it in 1-3 weeks. Next step is to get our visas. Paperwork… check!

We need 5 more supporters to be at our minimum monthly goal of 75% to be permitted to leave for PNG. We are at an approximate 68% of our committed monthly support as of today.

We will need to pack a crate soon, and then purchase a few more items for that crate in the next month. We will still need some assistance in other fees and what not but we are not worried. God has done all this in just 11 months and we know that in these next 8 weeks He will overwhelm us. We want to say thank you to all of you prayer warriors and to our Sunday school class by overwhelming us with their love!

What have you guys been doing this past week or so?

We have been in places from Kansas to Indiana, to Tennessee to Kentucky, and now we are currently back in Pennsylvania. That has been just in the past 10 days J. We have connected with many groups, churches, and individuals as well in between. We have shared, taught, had coffee, played basketball and much more with many friends, family, churches, and schools. We have strived to connect with as many people as we can the closer we get to our departure.

Seth Preaching in Kansas

What will you guys be doing these next 8 weeks?

We will be in New Jersey for Thanksgiving then come back to Pennsylvania to finish up sifting through all of our belongings and begin packaging them up for our crate. We will then go up to New York for hopefully our last speaking tour which will end the week before Christmas. The week between Christmas and New Years is always an intimate time we have with Nicole’s family in Virginia. We will then have a send-off service in New Jersey (Jan 4^th) and then have our commissioning/ordination service at our home church in Pittsburgh, PA January 14^th at Harvest Baptist Church. We would love to have YOU join us for these special events. We will give times when we know more details. After that, we will tie up loose ends and then LEAVE FOR PAPUA NEW GUINEA! That is our next 8 weeks in a “nut-shell” for those of you who are interested and need to plan for those events. Hopefully this helps you know how to pray for us, plan to connect with us, and what to expect from us.

Please continue to pray for those 2 final details we need to come to fruition: For 5 more partners and 1 piece of paperwork. When you look at your hand think of us… 1 hand… and 5 fingers. Thank you so much for your partnership! We have heard from many people how they and their church are praying for us, please continue doing so, we are encouraged by your intentionality in our lives.

God Keeps His Promises

Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes.

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Basketball with the Boys

Ladies Coffee Date

Do not worry, neither one of us have had an accident. Although we have gone back and forth between the time zones and have had temperature changes of more than 40 degrees…we are both still healthy and encouraged. We had the task set before us last week to get 10 new partners in 10 weeks before we have to leave. And praise God within 48hrs we have had 3 of the 10 officially join our team. How encouraging to see answer to prayer in such a short time! How great is our God that we are getting that much closer to having our needs met, and to see Him move through people and have them be our co-workers and partners in getting to Papua New Guinea!

We are officially at 65% of our monthly committed support. That is about 10% to go to meet our required minimum support level. Truly humbling to see how God moves and that we have been on this deputation trail for about 11months. We have just 2 goals now and have less than 9 weeks to go; 1. We need our paperwork to be processed in PNG and sent back to us so we can finalize our visa process. 2. We need 7 more partners ($100/mo./ea.) to finish up the last of our required monthly support.

Thank you to all of you faithful prayer warriors! We know we would not be here without you. We have stayed safe, healthy, encouraged, and have grown closer to God and together as a couple through this season. This is a time that the world, flesh, or Satan could have attacked but because of YOUR prayers we have been protected and spared. We have many things to do and it seems like we cannot catch our breath until Wednesday before thanksgiving, but God will sustain us. WE are grateful we get to see our family this last Thanksgiving, truly we are truly blessed beyond measure to get that gift.

We have been on the road for close to 3 months when it is all said and done for this tour, for the past couple weeks we have had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with different people each meal, then we would connect with another family/friend and talk until the next day. So needless to say we are excited for Thanksgiving; family, food, and possibly some rest 🙂

A random “fun fact” we tallied is that we have approximated to have traveled in the car for almost 38 days (totaled hours since we started deputation). That is a lot of time becoming good friends with each other and with our car 🙂 and yet another thing to be thankful for about Papua New Guinea; warm weather and no cars.

Please Pray for those 2 final details to come through in 8 weeks and 6 days. Pray for our continued health and safety. Pray we continue to grow closer together and closer to our Mighty and Merciful Savior.

Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes

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Snapshots From Our Journey

Why would we say, “when you look at your hands think of us”? Well, God gave us two hands and 10 fingers, and we ask that you would pray for us for the next 10 weeks. 10 is a big number for us right now, we have about 10 days left on this tour till we are back in PGH for the Thanksgiving. We have approximately 10 weeks till our projected departure date (crazy huh?), and we need about 10 more churches/individuals to follow through with their commitment/or have new partners join our financial team. We have been at this deputation/support-raising trail for about 10 months, by God’s grace and mercy we are now over 60% of our actual monthly support, God has been Good and Faithful.

We are asking that every time you look at your hands for the next 10 weeks, you pray for us. pray that 10 more financial supporters would join our team, that for the next 10 days we are safe in all of our travels (we will have traveled close to 10K this trip, 6K in the past 4 weeks), and that our paperwork process would go through and not be the cause for us to not be able to go this January. We need to have both our monthly support raised (minimum of 75%), and have our paperwork done by January (10 weeks). pray that all of this would come together according to God’s will.

When we get back to PGH in 10 days, Lord willing we will then finish up going through all of our possessions and get them ready to crate out. We aspire to be done with that process by the first week of December as well. We have about 3-5 churches we need to visit and revisit Lord willing before the end of the year, so we will see what God allows in all of this “busy-ness”.

For those of you who like geography, we have traveled as far east as NJ, as north as MI, as south as FL, and as west as KS during this tour, so needless to say we are looking forward to PNG and not having a car. We have been totally blessed this trip: we have met great new eternal friends, been able to visit old friends and family, blessed with safety, able to raise close to 30% of our start-up fees (without even mentioning any projects yet), and have seen our financial and prayer team grow. God is too good to us, thank you to all of you who are praying for us, we feel your prayers.

Fun Facts.

Since starting deputation:

-We have slept in 94 beds.

-We have slept in 7 different beds in the past 6 nights

-We have been in 19 states.

2 countries (we do not count Seth’s mission trip)

-We have traveled over 50K.

Our car is at 202K and we just drove 10K on Seth’s mom car.

-Seth has skipped 15 nights of sleep due to driving.

-We have connected with over 50 churches.

-We are over 60% of our committed monthly financial goal.

So the facts might not actually be fun  🙂  but it is fun to keep track of them. Please look at your hands and pray: 10 more partners ($100/mo. each) and for our paperwork. Thank you for your faithfulness to our ministry; by reading this blog, praying for us, and for partnering with us.

Lord willing next year, your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes.

Practicing Suturing

The past 10 days have felt like one very long day continuously strung together. When you do a similar thing for several days all day long, and it feels you are always on the “go; have you ever felt like that? We have been in classes from 8am until 5pm, or sometimes as late as until 9:30pm everyday studying a wide range of topics in the field of medicine. Specifically, medicine where there are no hospitals in remote areas. Homework, case studies, projects, and math problems every night; we look at the clock at midnight and hope that we can crawl into bed sometime soon, but a 3 o’ clock bed time is not uncommon. We better get ready because being in class by 8am comes quickly the next day.

There were many topics from our classes we thought would be fun titles for this blog update, so here are some highlights that will give you a glimpse of our training 🙂 . Our classes are truly equipping us for the field! We now feel more confident to administer so many necessary clinical procedures, and thanks to the case studies (50+), we feel more empowered to diagnose and begin the treatment process. The classes started off with this quote, “They (the people you will minister to) will see Christ through you before they ever hear about Christ from you”. This is such a true statement! We will be living with the tribal people, cooking, hunting, and administering medical treatment, and much more before we become proficient enough in the language in order to teach them about Christ. “They will never care about how much you know… until they know how much you care”.

Missionaries Doing Drugs

If that is not a headliner, then we do not know what is?! We have been given much information in terms of suturing, giving anesthesia, basic hygiene, and personal protection while prepping for a procedure. We know people will come to us with diseases we have never heard of, and we will have to give them a drug (medication) we cannot pronounce, but God is merciful. “God will protect you in your ignorance, but not in your arrogance”. This class has truly helped us become more empowered, but has also been used to show us our limits, and what is even practical for us to do once in a tribal setting. Did you know that the average life expectancy in Mozambique is 38-39 years old? We must learn practical steps to save lives!

The Earth is Truly Cursed

One thing we are truly seeing is that this earth is cursed! The very ground itself. While studying hour after hour, doing case scenario after scenario, we have found that there are so many bugs/sicknesses/diseases in developing worlds (like ascariasis, guinea worms, malaria, and much more) and even in the water like schistosomiasis or katayama disease. This class has made one thing clear for sure, we will always wear shoes when in a tribal location! God truly cursed the very soil we walk on every day (ex. hookworm). We have a new fondness and appreciation for washing hands, simple hygiene that protects us so much! (Caution: shaking hands 😉 ).

ALL Creation, Even Malaria…Truly is of God

40% of toddlers and an incalculable number of pregnant women die (in a developing world in the tropics) from malaria. Malaria is virus that has many strands, and is and has been in the top 5 killers of humans for most of history (those who live in hot/tropical areas). Thank God for antibiotics! But after studying “how” malaria occurs and what causes it to reign in the body, and watching the process of destroying the healthy blood cells, etc.… you cannot give any form of creation to anyone else, but to God. He alone could make something that intricate. Did you know more people have died in the 21^st century due to aids than all the wars in the 20^th century? So many simple and practical tips could help reduce that number drastically!

Ischial Tuberosities, Meconium, & Paristalsis…Anyone know what we are talking about?

Yep! We are learning how to deliver babies, what to do when the umbilical cord is wrapped around the neck, how to do an episiotomy, give sutures, and much more! We were trained to understand “that pregnancies are a natural process and not a disease to manage”. That thought will change how we engage in the situation. We find that in all of these classes we have to find a balance between being in awe of our Creator and being slightly grossed out by what we might have to do, and what can occur to the human body. Did you know the amniotic fluid is filtered and changed every 3 hours during the pregnancy process? Wow what an amazing Creator!

These classes have taught us a greater balance of worshipping the Creator and being humbled by the magnitude and wisdom in which He created ALL things. We very well may need to claim ignorance and seek out wisdom in order to learn practical ways to help ourselves, and others when on the field.

We feel overwhelmed with knowledge, Pray that we can retain as much knowledge as we can during this training (only 2 days left). Also, pray for us, we still have several thousand miles to travel in the next 4 weeks, and we meet with a handful of new churches and reconnect with other churches during that time. Pray God provides more partners! We are so close to the required support we need and the window of time for us to leave is approaching.

                                                Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth & Nicole

Injections

Charlene-Our Suturing Teacher

Visiting Some Friends

How do you get to Ohio from Michigan? Sometimes because of scheduling and dates of conferences you have to travel out of the way, to get to where you are going. We had to go from Michigan to Pennsylvania, and then head to Ohio for another conference. Praise God! We have been well received everywhere we go and several new churches are interested in partnering with us. We are getting so close to our goal it is exciting and yet nerve racking. We have to be at our goal of 75% (minimum) support in order to be permitted into the country, and the window of time to meet this goal is drawing more and more near. As we reflect upon the places we have been, we realized that if only 8 of the churches that said they were interested in partnering with us followed through with their interest, and if we were able to pick up about 4 more churches during this tour, we would be good to go! It is crazy to think that it is within our grasp, and yet we cannot reach out and attain it until our Lord moves, from the beginning to the end of this journey He wants to show off His glory.

All of the mission’s conferences so far have gone really well, we have had several opportunities to preach and teach, young, old, and anywhere in-between. The opportunities are not what we are gauging in regards to “doing well”, we have seen several people impacted by our messages, people coming to the realization that there are so many people without the Gospel in their own language, and have had several opportunities to deal with young people and their response to possibly go into missions. So yes, God is good and things are going well!

We leave Ohio Sunday morning and head to North Carolina; we will be there for about 2 weeks and go through a medical intensive training course. This will be a very profitable tool to have so that we can preserve the people we will work with in PNG long enough, so they can hear the Gospel. We are thankful for the privilege in taking this training.

Specific prayer request: Please pray we can get the remainder of our minimum support in time, so that we can leave for PNG in January. We only need 12 churches @ $100/mo. to finish our minimum goal (like we said earlier, we know that over half of that support is there, we are just waiting for people to follow through with their commitment). Pray God continues to bless us with safety in our travels. Pray we can get all the necessary paperwork done in time so that we can leave in January.

Most importantly! Please pray for our dear friends Jon and Adie Leedahl, Jon is a pilot with NTM in PNG and he was in a serious motorcycle accident, he was “rushed” to Australia (which took almost a day) for medical treatment. His left foot was crushed and he had a compound fracture in his right leg. He was given blood transfusion(s) because he had lost so much blood; the tourniquet was on for almost a day. He made it to Australia and had his first surgery, which was basically to stop the bleeding. Tomorrow/soon they will go back into surgery and assess the damage to the muscles and ligaments, words like “amputating” have been thrown out there, so PLEASE PRAY that is not the case! Nicole will keep everyone updated on her Facebook. Jon’s wife Adie went with him, and they left their 3 little boys at the mission base with some friends. Please ask our Heavenly Father for Mercy and Grace to be poured out onto this family during this time. Thank you.

Before we could post this we received more up to date information… Jon is on the operating table RIGHT now (2:21am 10/17/14) and the decision has been made to amputate his leg, above the knee. Pray that there are no complications. The left leg and foot are severely damaged and will need to have surgery later. The 3 boys are under way on getting paperwork done to fly to Australia to be with the parents. Please pray.

Leedahl Family

A Day in The Life of a Pilot

Hello Everyone!

We hope this fall season is treating you well. Below is the link to our latest newsletter. If you or anyone you know is interested in learning more about our ministry, go to our Videos tab on our site and watch our Stokes Mission video. The Video about Seth’s trip this summer will also give you a better glimpse at what we will be doing in the not too distant future. Contact us for more information. Thank you!

Newsletter: August-September