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

The seasons are changing, the leaves are turning, and we are about to start our 15 states in 8-week tour. It is crazy to think that this will be our last fall for many years. Papua New Guinea pretty much stays green all year with mud everywhere. We will not miss the cold 🙂 but we will miss the autumn skyline as the sun sets, the serenity of the snow before anyone walks on it, and the effervescence of spring as the flowers begin to bloom.

The Lord has been gracious and has provided us with over 55% or our required monthly support in just about a year. Yes, we have been doing this phase of life for about a year. We plan on leaving in January; we need just 20% more to get the official green light. We sent off our paper work this week and we started compiling all of our possession and labeling them. We started researching items we still need to purchase and the start-up costs for everything next year. It is quite a bit but we know God is Faithful and will provide. We are trusting in Gods timing and pray that we can leave and answer the call of those who are lost and dying, going to a Christ-less eternity.

Tentatively, we are planning on leaving January 20^th 2015 if we get the green light, we will keep everyone posted. If so, we plan to have a commissioning/ordination service at Harvest Baptist Church, PA on January 11^th, and we will plan to also have a “send-off” service on January 4^th in New Jersey. All of this is a tentative thing and we are waiting to get the official “go-ahead”, but we wanted to get the dates out there for you so you can plan.

Please pray as we present in many different contexts in the next couple of weeks. We will be presenting our ministry to several churches, teach the importance of literacy to an English class, preach on several topics like: missions, unity, sending, perspective on giving, and much more. So pray we can be effective and communicate clearly, while showing the need and enlightening more people into missions in unreached people groups. Pray for our safety while traveling and also pray for the remainder of our support. Thank you, we covet your prayers.

~Love, Seth and Nicole Stokes (your feet).

P.S. We posted a video on our site under the “Video” tab, it is a 4-minute video that is intended to give new people a sketch of who we are and where God is leading us. It is also a tool for people to share with others about ministry. Enjoy!

Physical for Work Permits

Packing for the Crate

Paperwork!

Hello everyone!

It is FINALLY finished! After lots of work editing and clipping the many hours of footage, and a friend writing and compiling a song, we can now let you all see the finished product! It is our first video so bear with it not being a perfect video. But it is a great visual and turned out great! Thank you to all who played a part of this trip happening.  Enjoy!

Here is the link:
http://youtu.be/MTpu56CNG8A

Let me know if the link doesn’t work

82: Beds

16: States (we are about to add 4 new states in the upcoming weeks)

2: Countries (plus Seth’s trip 🙂 )

200K: Miles on our Car

50+: Churches Spoke at/Visited

52%: Monthly Financial Goal

Our Little Red Rocket

Deuteronomy 29:5

“And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot”.

Our car is only a 2003, but we feel at times God has preserved our possessions (much like the wandering Israelites) so that we did not have to fix or purchase unnecessary items. From our car to our clothes we had since high school, we see God being gracious to us in many ways. Another statistic that we cannot keep track of, are the lives God impacted through us and people He used to impact us. We have story after story of how men, women, pastors, missionaries, and kids have come up to us and thanking us…saying things like “we have never looked at missions like this”…“how come I have missed something so big?”… “I feel like God is leading me into missions”…“I am not involved enough in missions”. This is humbling; we are not eloquent speakers by any means, and yet God sees fit to use us in His work. We are no more than servants (Luke 17:10), serving our God.

Please continue to pray for us in our travels, and that we would be able to raise our support quick enough to get to the field. We covet your prayers and support.

Your feet to the unreached, Seth and Nicole.

Support Chart-9/5/14

No we are not having a raffle :), but we are able to say that by God’s mercy and grace we are at 50% of our monthly financial goal in just under 50 weeks! This is so exciting, the reality of being in PNG this January is looking more and more real. God has been too good to us, when we started this journey we were praying to be at 75% of our financial goal in 16 months. Many people thought that it would be impossible, several people in disbelief, but we keep praying and know God will work everything out according to His timing. 3 ladies in particular have told us in the past week or so that they have been praying that we get to the field fully supported, wow that is a big prayer and we are humbled by the faith of these 3 dear friends in what God can do. It is humbling to know that people are praying even bigger prayers than you are, with more confidence and expectation in God. We know that whatever the outcome, God is Sovereign and everything will work out according to HIS timing and will. It is encouraging to know we have these (and many other) people making intercession for us in all aspects of our ministry.

We also would like to ask prayer for safe travel mercies, do not pray for a hedge of protection around our car, but instead a 3 foot concrete wall with steel plating :). We will be traveling to 16 states in about 10 weeks starting this weekend, and we go back and forth between a couple of them more than once. States like; PA, NJ, VA, NC, SC, MO, KS, IN, OH, FL, MD, DC, TN, KY, NY and MI, that takes us up to Thanksgiving week. We have several churches we are speaking at, re-connecting with other churches and individuals, and much more in between. So hold on, we are about to drive some serious miles quickly. Seth’s mother knew we were going to drive quite a bit in a short time, so like a great mother, she has offered to switch cars with us during that time since our car will be over 200k by then. Yet another blessing from God, He always uses people to bless others, and this time it is Seth’s mother.

Thank you all for your support and constant prayers, we deeply covet your intercession, partnership, and friendship.

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

This past Labor Day weekend was a blur; we were able to connect with some good friends and have great fellowship, present our ministry at a church, re-connect with supporters, and connect with 7 pastors/missions coordinators. In less than 4 days we traveled about 1,500 miles to make those connections, all the while God really continued to show He is God and the provider for His children. He continues to amaze us and show us that missions is Who He Is; it is His work and He is the builder of His church. He also shows that He is the Provider (Jehovah-Jireh) and providential orchestrator of our support. We can speak at as many churches we see fit, we can present a powerful ministry, but God is still the One Who continues to show-off and raise our finances and support team. We went to New York to present our ministry to one church, talk with one pastor, and enjoy fellowship with our friends. We left overwhelmed with opportunities and possibilities of God taking care of our financial requirement right then and there. We continually are humbled by those who would consider partnering with us. We are left in awe of our God in how He is raising our support.

We left this weekend super encouraged, not merely because of the possibility of new partners…but because every appointment was Divinely orchestrated; a heart for missions was expressed, fellowship occurred, and we know God was brought glory in our time and conversation. We will continue to speak at churches to raise awareness of missions for the untold millions of unreached people groups across the world without a Bible. We surrender every aspect of our support-raising phase to God and we will sit back as if in an audience applauding His work being done, and being amazed by Him.

Last week we were able to get another big thing off our list and we are now officially CPR, AED, and FIRST AID certified! God orchestrated this as well and connected us with the right people; we were able to get it done relatively conveniently and at a significantly cheaper cost. What an amazing God!

Praise God for taking care of us and protecting us as we travel. Pray for our upcoming meetings; we have several of them in September and October. Pray that those who have already expressed interest in partnering with us would follow through so that we could get to our financial goal. Pray for those we just met and will be meeting with soon that they might partner with us and speedily so that we can get to the field of PNG this January. Pray that we would continue to learn more about God and His grace and trust Him more in our every day life.

~Your feet to the unreached, Seth & Nicole

We are Certified!

Connecting Across the Globe

There are times in your life when you are able to look back and see the hand of God in how He orchestrated events to make things work out (big or small) for His children, and other times He allows you in the moment to see that His grace is present. This Wednesday our car officially “broke-down” for the first time, unable to putter to the next destination. By God’s grace we were not traveling around from state-to-state like we did a few days before and are doing again today, as we hear to New York. We had plenty of time, AAA came in 20mins, and the auto part store had the part we needed (the last one by the way!). Thankfully we were able to get our car fixed and back to us within hours…God’s grace is everywhere, yes!? But there is so much more! God provided a paying job for Seth that day, but because of the delay he wasn’t able to get to work until 1pm and didn’t finish it till 3am that day, but it more than covered the cost for the repair. God is too good to us! All that to say, please still pray for us in our travels and for our car to last. We do not want to pour money into something when we are leaving, Lord willing in January, our car is getting close to the 200k mark. So our car was dead for a moment, but then we were able get the car-starter changed within hours and now our Little Red Rocket is running strong.

On lighter news, God has provided 2 churches to visit/speak at, meetings with several pastors from other churches, connect with some supporters, and catch up with good friends all this weekend. That is what our Saturday-Wednesday looks like, just constantly connecting and re-connecting with people in order to: raise our financial support (currently 45-46%), and to raise the awareness of God’s heart for the unreached in the world. Pray we can get to our required goal of 75% by January, and that we can take people with us as fellow missionaries to the white and ready harvest fields of the unreached people groups throughout the world.

We also purchased most of our power (cordless) tools that we would need to take with us to the field. We want to say thank you to our good friends (O’Briens) 🙂 who purchased them for us, thank you! We got a reliable brand (we will be gone for several years at a time) and on discount during this holiday weekend. Another step in making preparations towards PNG, and proof that our God is not only good to us, but lavishes His love upon His children.

The Little Red Rocket

We Have Power…Tools!

Dem Kids

The father of modern missions William Carey said these famous words (above), he was an unlikely candidate compared to the likes of Adoniram Judson. But God is never interested in what we bring to the table; because He is the One Who does all the work in and through His vessels. He is the Lord of the Harvest, He said HE will build His church, He is the supplier, He gives us the words to speak and the power to be bold when we speak, every facet of ministry and reaching the lost is done through His mighty hands…it is a privilege to be His vessel and be used by Him.

We in and of ourselves are nothing “special”, but we serve a God Who IS faithful, powerful, and worthy to be served. We have many expectations from God throughout our lives, and we know God desires for us to walk by faith. So with that in mind, and with trying to figure out how to practically live out our expectation that God will answer our (and your) prayer(s) and allow us to leave for PNG by January. We have begun to gather our possessions, make some “big” purchases, and started the paperwork process to enter into the field of PNG. We bought our first bed! That is exciting; God provided lots of work for both of us this summer. We have begun to stage our possessions at our home church in PGH, and we are enjoying filling out the paperwork to get into the country. 🙂

This past weekend was very encouraging for us, we had another opportunity to share at a new church, the moment we walked in we were immediately greeted and the Pastor was already talking about partnering with us. If any of you have ever raised support or know of someone who has, that is a BIG thing. The remainder of our time there we felt at home, the church was not big in numbers but their heart was BIG. The congregation asked question after question, took many prayer cards, and seemed very interested in God’s ministry through us in PNG.

Seth has been back in the country for only a couple of weeks and we have already had several churches very interested in partnering with us, praise God! Continue to pray we would get more God ordained meetings; this past Sunday’s meeting came through friends who advocated to their pastor on our behalf, and that has been a pretty consistent pattern. Most of our support has come through people advocating for us, whether to a pastor at a church or a small group, this is where we have seen the most fruit in regards to financial partners. Please pray to our Lord and ask Him if you have any connections (churches or small groups) in which you could connect us with, be our advocate! Every connection leads to a potential partner that enables us to get to that required 75% (currently at 45.5%) before we are permitted to leave for PNG, and get the Gospel into the hands of a people who have NEVER heard of their Creator.

Let us finish this blog with a quote from a famous author A.W. Tozer,

““Where there is no such expectation, there is no true belief in God.”
So often when we pray, we don’t expect God to answer – and this inhibits us from stepping out in faith and “attempting great things for God.””

Tendi-Seth’s Buddy

We hope you all are enjoying your summers and are getting to enjoy the beautiful weather! Attached is our latest newsletter and re-cap from Seth’s trip to Indonesia. Please take a moment to read; this newsletter is not just a mere update, but we pray that is serves as an encouragement to pray for others and for us in the task of tribal missions.

Newsletter-June-July

Seth hard at work!