Hey there! Well after some hang ups we are “officially” in PNG. We still have one more flight and should be departing in one hour. So far nothing major, we think they might have taken some things out of our bags but won’t know 100% until we get home and go through everything. Yes, we are almost home. We will actually have to wait for a week or so until we get all of our bags in order to better know what got “lost” in transit. Oh well it is just stuff. For those of you who missed what happened, some of our belongings, well actually half, had to be shipped via DHL from Singapore. We will write a post shortly of our full story after we get to our final destination and get all of our stuff (well, whatever didn’t get “lost” or shipped). Thank you all for your prayers! We hope to do everyone a favor and shower and change 🙂 as soon as possible. We will write you asap when we are FINALLY home! Thank you!
~your feet IN PNG,
Seth and Nicole.

Long story short, we had to miss our flight yesterday because United messed up our baggage to Madang, PNG and they don’t have record of us even sending our bags at all. What now? We hope to fly out tonight at 8:40 local time. We have to pay DHL to ship our extra bags.

Please pray that our “new” flight does not get canceled. Sunday and Monday flights were canceled. We were ready for the flight Tuesday (yesterday) but because of United’s mess up while processing our tickets and baggage, we sat from 3p-645p at their desk. Then they informed us the situation at 6:45pm and they basically said if you want on, pay $5000 or else you will miss the flight. By the time we found a phone to call for other options they closed the door on us at 7:20pm and were not allowed to get on that flight. And that is how we are doing…The local company and United airlines closed before 8pm at the airport counters so we couldnt get any help, and now we are trying to get ahold of United from across the world. A little tired, hungry, disoriented (we have been traveling since 2am Sunday), and just a little sick at the dilemma we are approached with. People speak English here in Singapore, but it is not with an american mindset: right words, but missing the point of the conversation, hard to communicate “needs”.

Please pray this mess with United gets compensated. We will try to keep everyone updated.

Your feet to PNG,
-Seth and Nicole.

Hey there! We are at the airport in Singapore, waiting for time to pass until we are permitted to “check-in” for the nest leg of our trip to Port Moresby, PNG. Purchased a Mountain Dew, expecting it to be like the good ole US. But alas, we are no longer there and it tastes nothing like Mountain Dew. Piece by piece we move closer to our final destination with comforts being removed one by one.
Reading some good books on the plane researching the culture of PNG and then another book on discipleship. Make mature believers…What an overwhelming thought, not shunning away from teaching the whole counsel of God, teaching disciples “to observe ALL things, whatsoever I (Christ) have commanded”. That ought to be the goal for all Christians, to teach others ALL things Christ commanded and yet there are pastors who have not done that when they have been in one location for decades. Paul was able to do it in 3 years, it is possible!
Pray we learn how to be “disciple-makers”. The Gospel is not a sentence or something that can be shared in minutes, it takes time, and then we are commanded to teach them to observe ALL things. It’s a big task, that’s why we had to leave; we have to give up comforts, and cry tears as we said good-bye to friends and family. It’s a big task, that will take years, because we have a worthy King to serve and this life is insignificant compared to the weight of glory. Pray that we can get through these last two flights with easy transitions and no problems with our bags, one bin got pretty beat up but all seems to be there. It is held together by tape now. Pray we adjust to the time change. Well, we are basically in the right time zone now, so we will stay up for the next 10 hours so we should be right on track. Thank you for all of your prayers, we are almost there! Know, that we miss you.
Your feet to the unreached of PNG (1 step closer),
Seth and Nicole Stokes

Wheels up in 5! While we were waiting in DC, we were able to video call one of our supporting church’ Sunday school classes and talk to lots of friends. Saying last good-byes! Good-bye America…for a while. Please feel free to write us. We would love to hear from you. Email at: stokingthefires@gmail.com. We will post when we can. Pray for smooth transitions!

Hey everyone!

TODAY is the day! We leave for Papua New Guinea in a few hours. Can’t believe it is finally here. It is all so surreal but exciting. Below is our latest newsletter. Please pray for us as we travel over the next few days. We love and appreciate you all! Thank you for joining us on this journey. We can’t do this without YOU!

Your feet to PNG,

Seth & Nicole Stokes

January-2015 Newsletter

We are off to a place we have never been to before, to be with people we have never met, to a country we do not know the customs, culture, or language first-hand…no more training, no more good-byes, no more “one mores”, we are leaving for PNG!

Continue seeking Christ, pursue Him with all you can, “be attached to the Great Commission” in every way you can…this life is short, and all that is therein on this earth is meaningless. Only souls and what you do for our Lord will last for eternity. As we were packing up this week, many people were so focused on the “game”, so many people arguing about ball pressure, so many forgot about the march-for-life in Washington DC (pray for that by the way, decisions are being made in congress), so many people will miss out on fellowships in church; to go to someone’s house and wear a sports jersey, to eat potato salad, and watch commercials. Keep the perspective! America has so many things that can steal your attention away from what really matters. Do not forget your first love, do not forget we have a worthy God who deserves our everything. Not just our Sunday mornings, and Bible study times, but our decisions in what job to have, relationships, interacting with co-workers and family, how much time I invest in entertainment vs. things of God, He deserves our very lives of every day. Our God is not mystical, He is very practical, and we are striving to understand the imminence of God (His closeness).

Please pray that it does not snow in the next 12 hours…we fly from Pittsburgh to DC (@6am), once we leave DC we are in the air until Tokyo (we leave @12:20pm with United for those of you who want to know). Please pray all our bags get checked through smoothly and we can get them ALL in PNG, 🙂 Thank you all very much, we love you all. And we are off…

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

We might not be leaving in a rocket, but in less than 42 hours we start our 4 day journey. We feel overwhelmed with emotions as we say good-bye to great friends and family. We spoke to our church Sunday night and said, “this might be the last time we see several of you on this side of eternity. Make sure that your life is attached to the Great Commission, or else it is meaningless”. It is humbling to think we may not see some of the people we love ever again until we are with the Father, but His message is worth it, He is worthy of all things, even our short lives.

Thank you to all of you who partner with us financially and or prayerfully. We could not be where we are at without each and everyone one of you. We are leaving not only at 95% support, and having our initial needs met, but we are leaving knowing we are loved, prayed for, and with a great support team behind us. Please stay connected, we will communicate as much as possible.

From snowmen to sweat stains, we are changing everything about our lives: weather from under 20 degrees with snow, to hot humid tropical weather, from the comforts of TV, food, knowing the language, to a foreign language, markets, and a land where everything is new. We are heading into a BIG change; we are as ready as anyone can be. We will be going straight to language learning the day we get there or the day after, please pray we acclimate well. We have just a few things left to do: our taxes, turn off our phone plans, and a handful of other things. We are spending the last 2 days with Seth’s parents and trying to take it easy. We are packed for the most part, bags are weighed, and we are almost just waiting for our departure time. We appreciate you all!

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

Well, the time is FINALLY here! We received our visas on Wednesday, we filled out a bunch of paperwork and tied up various loose ends with our board Thursday, come Friday morning we were given the official green light to buy our plane tickets. So the tickets and visas are in our hands! DONE.

We will still have to to finish a few loose ends like banking, visiting family, and pack just a little more, but for the most part, we are done! We leave Pittsburgh, PA very early Sunday morning (in 8 days). We fly to Washington, DC and then catch a connecting flight starting at noon to head to our home in PNG. Yes, our home. We have a place already for us, we have our crate packed up and ready to move, and we will be taking what we need with us until our crate arrives, leaving no real attachments in the USA (possession-wise).

Yes, we have basically packed for moving overseas in about a week, it has felt a little rushed but this is the path in which God is taking us on. For all of those who are wondering, “how long it will take to get there”; we leave our house at 2 am Sunday morning, and arrive in the city of our destination at 10:25 am Wednesday morning. Yes, Sunday to Wednesday. We go ahead in time 15 hours, we have a 19-hour layover in Singapore, and we spend over a day in the air, actually close to 40 hours.

Tomorrow will be our last American church service for years (Lord willing); we will enjoy that time “one last time”. We are trying to finish any and all “things” we need to do by Wednesday, so we can have some “down time” for the last 3 days, before we start our world tour and get thrown into language and culture study. We basically start right up the day we get there/the next day 🙂

Thank you for all of your prayers with support, visas, paperwork, and our traveling. Thank you for everything! Your prayers made all of this possible.

We have been reading many autobiographies from Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and John G. Patton. These men are heroes of our faith. Judson suffered a lot for Christ, and we have not yet had that privilege, but we might in the not too distant future. We desire to have our faith in God and resolve in His will so that when we do face trials and suffering, we can say this,

“If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived…”and then as Judson was getting older and young missionaries were coming to the field, he gave them this encouraging statement,

“bear in mind, that a large proportion of those who come out on a mission to the East die within five years (in modern days case, leave the field and go back home) after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore; death is narrowly watching your steps”. And one Theologian added, “The question is not whether we will die, but whether we will die in a way that bears much fruit”. John 12:24

~Your feet to the unreached people in Papua New Guinea,

Seth & Nicole Stokes

Very soon we will be in another culture, language and worldview. We will see, hear, and experience things that will make us say “how do we say…this/that?” But we have already experienced searching for words in our mother-tongue language (English) this past Wednesday. Wednesday was a day we will remember forever, it was one of those days that we will look back on and reflect upon for years to come. Seth was ordained and we were commissioned by our home church in Pennsylvania. Seth sat down with several Pastors for almost two hours as they examined his theology/doctrine, and his philosophy of ministry. After they were done, they all came to a consensus and ordained Seth. Shortly after the ordination we had the commissioning service, the auditorium was full, and God was gracious and spoke to us all that night. It was such a special event! THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO WAS A PART OF THIS SPECIAL DAY!

What happened during the commissioning service:

First, It all started off with a charge to us by the man who encouraged Seth to first come to Harvest, Pastor Seth Leeman. He gave us a challenging thought to live a life and have an “attitude worthy of the Gospel”. Next, Pastor Greg Stine from our co-sending church in Kansas gave the church a charge to take responsibility of us, keep track of us, send us, and to partner with us. What else occurred that night, Pastor Skelly orchestrated the service seamlessly, Seth’s grandfather gave the dedicatory prayer, the young kids of Harvest sang a beautiful song (and they were all soooo cute!), the church provided an opportunity for people to mingle at the end of the service over cupcakes and lots of hugs and tears. So what made you at a loss for words? Two things: 1. The church gave us an overwhelming love offering that stunned us. We tried to say thank you, but we were overwhelmed with emotions and in shock of how much people sacrificed for us. 2. The service ended by everyone lining up and saying good-bye and giving us hugs… THIS LASTED FOR CLOSE TO TWO HOURS!!!! Many tears were shed, hugs were given, good-byes were said, and to see a line of 100’s of people wanting to say good-bye to us was overwhelming. We want to say THANK YOU to our church body at Harvest Baptist Church, Pastoral Staff, other participating staff, family, and friends! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Other thank you’s (which we still see as an inadequate word) that we want to say and express our deep appreciation for:

• Journey, in Rochester, NY
• Canatella family, in Rosedale, MD
• Evans family, in Kiski area, PA
• Humble family, in Mansfield, OH
• Edgar family, in Natrona Heights, PA

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SACRIFICES! Your over and abundant love and sacrificial giving humbles us and makes us at a loss for words. Thank you for being used by God to bless us.

Update: We are at an approximate 91% of our monthly support.

-We are still waiting for our visa, we had another hang-up in the process but we are not worried. We have been in communication with both the consulate in Washington DC, and our leadership in Papua New Guinea. We “might” get our visa Thursday or Friday or anytime really, only God knows. On the plus side! We were informed by leadership that since we are a part of a small group coming we can assimilate into our language study class anytime we get there…whether the end of January or the beginning of February. We were encouraged to keep pressing on and expect to get to Papua New Guinea ASAP, whenever God allows. Be encouraged prayer warriors, we will get there in God’s timing. But please keep praying, so that we can get to PNG (Lord willing) by the end of next week or the beginning of the following week (1/29-2/2).

Thank you prayer warriors, thank you for reading this post, thank you to all those special families and churches mentioned above, thank you Pastor Leeman and Pastor Stine for bringing your families, representing your churches we love, and challenging us, thank you Harvest Baptist Church, thank you to our adult Sunday School class, thank you to both of our parents for being there and always being supportive, thank you to all of you who came Wednesday night from the Pittsburgh area, Beaver Falls area, Rochester NY, and New Jersey. Thank you, thank you, thank you! From the bottom of our hearts.

Because He said Go,

Your Feet To The Unreached in PNG,

Seth & Nicole Stokes

“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Phil. 4:6-7

Today is the day for Seth’s ordination and also for our commissioning/send-off service at our home church. We just wanted to remind you that everyone is welcome to come to this special event. Seth’s ordination is from 3pm-5pm in the Chapel at Harvest Baptist Church (224 Harvest Lane, Natrona Heights, PA 15065. Phone: (724) 295-0607). Our commissioning/send-off service is at 7pm in the Auditorium, a cupcake fellowship to follow. We would love for you to join us for this special occasion! Please PRAY for Seth as he answers many questions for his ordination. PRAY he has a clear mind and has the energy needed for this big day.