May Prayer Letter

Dear Praying Pastors & Friends,                                 

 March found us packing up once again. We had a successful move to Connecticut and are now settled in our “new” home (built in 1911) and busy travelling and scheduling meetings for our new ministry. Our journeys took us to 4 meetings in April. At one of the churches in Ohio, we are rejoicing that their faith promise doubled from last year. Praise the Lord for using us to see 8 saved, 1 baptized, and many at the altar making decisions for world missions! 

Kelly had her first appointment with the oncologist at the VA Hospital here in New Haven. She reiterated that Kelly has a “poor prognosis” and that we are reaching the critical time for recurrence. We have a Great Physician and we ask that you please continue to pray with us for complete healing.  

  

Kelly and I are thankful for our supporting churches which have chosen to continue to partner with us in our new ministry. We are excited to see pastors and churches here in New England already taking an interest in the opportunity to reach the “unreached people groups” of the world through our ministry with FirstBible. Jesus commanded us to, “…Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields;…”  

  

A POINT TO PONDER: What do the following people groups, though some are separated by 1000’s of miles, have in common: Urdu, Rito, Hakha Chin, Farsi, Thadou, Chakma, Zotung, and Boro?  

1. They all are part of the “10/40 Window”, an area of the world that stretches from Western Africa to the Philippines between the 10° and 40° Latitude lines.
2. They are part of the 85% of the world’s languages which DO NOT have a Bible… yet. 
3. These are the current Bible projects underway that we are raising funds for at this time.  

Do you support a missionary in one of these countries? Would you pray and consider adopting one of these language groups to pray for and give financially to that they could have a Bible in their own tongue? God’s people working together can make this happen. We are available to come and present one of these projects to your church. If we do not do something about this great need, who will?

  

Looking at the teeming billions without the Gospel can be a bit overwhelming, I agree, but our Saviour Jesus Christ gave us a command to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” So here is our opportunity to believe our God for what seems impossible.

  

We are rejoicing about the most recent projects finished by FirstBible which include: 

1. Nepali Bible – Was dedicated and presented to the Nepali people on May 2nd by Dr. Keen.
2. Burmese Bible – Type reset of the Judson Bible; 20,000 Bibles, 70,000 New Testaments; one million John & Romans finished.
3. Greek Thessaloniki project – 500 whole Bibles and 100,000 Gospels of John completed. 30,000 Greek New Testaments are being bound at this time. $10,000 is still needed to fund the shipping of this container.
4. For more project details, including those listed here, go to the project section of our website. 

Please pray for continued access to these people groups and the funding for the translation and publishing of Scriptures. Please pray for us as we strive to make this ministry opportunity known here in New England and that more churches will get involved with us in reaching “the uttermost”. Your support of our family is important to us as it enables us to “get the word out”, which by God’s grace will affect potentially billions.

That All May Know Him,

Randy Johnson

New York City

What a wonderful Mother's Day Weekend we had!  My Madrasta, Netta flew into Laguardia on Friday.  Saturday was our Mother/Daughter Luncheon at the church.  On Sunday, we had wonderful preaching by our pastor, Br. Mike Peslak.  My family gave me a beautiful pink jacket and my dear friend Val gave me a shirt and the bling to go with the jacket!!  Monday we were off to see New York City.  I realized that I still don't have the stamina I used to have!  It took me nearly 3 days to recover.

The luncheon was so much fun and Christa and I had a great time entertaining the ladies.  I sang "Senior Favorite Things"; Christa and I sang, "I Saw Jesus In You"; then my darling daughter and I did a fun skit about a Southren Pic-i-nic!  The food was fabulous and prepared by a fantastic lady in our church, Claudia!  She knows how to do a party!  Our pastor's wife, Patty, was the perfect hostess and I loved the presentations she put together of famous missionary wives!  Mrs. Kelly Beck, pastor's wife from Groton was our special speaker.  She spoke on "Attitudes" (ouch!)

What can I say about New York except, BUSY!  I am so blessed that the Lord has not required me to live in a city that is so hectic!  It was fun to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.  We visited Ground Zero and I couldn't help but think as I watched all the people pass by in a hurry to get somewhere, do any of them stop as they walk by and remember the day that was so horrible in our country?  Do they ever stop and think and pray for the many families left behind to grieve?  Do we ever stop to think about those around us that are hurting and grieving everyday?

I enjoyed the journey the Lord had for me this week.  What about you?  Are you missing the journey trying to get to your destination?  Maybe you are enjoying the journey so much that you fail to think about the TRUE fact that there is a final destination coming.  Are we ready for that destination?  I believe Jesus is coming soon!!  Here is a link that will explain more.

http://www.whiteoakbc.org/death.html 

Enjoy the pictures!

Our Pastor's Wife

Christa, Netta, Kelly



Skit

Singing

Ms. Beck and daughters

New York City



Netta, Val, Christian, Kelly, Christa

Lady Liberty from Empire SB

Family





Dearest Val and I

Where's the Christmas Tree??

Ground Zero and the new Freedom Tower

Times Square

The LOVE of my life!!!



Downsizing

Whoever thinks that moving gets easier each time has never walked in my shoes!!!  This will the 28th move in my short 51 1/2 years!  The older I get, the more exhausting it seems.  It is a wonderful time to get rid of things that you don't use anymore.  We took 3 loads over to the Salvation Army this week.  There was no trash in what we took and all of it was usable.  The problem is that I have too much "stuff"!  God has blessed me so much and I have want of no material possession, no matter what the media ads try to tell me. 

Downsizing my physical possessions got me to thinking and pondering about my emotional, mental, and spiritual "stuff" I need to clean out.  In my time with the Lord today, He identified a few things that I need to leave in the trash bin when we move.  I mean there is no sense in taking these to the Salvation Army!  Nobody else should have these either.  On my list are hurt feelings, sadness, a defeated spirit, and fear.  Everyone's list is probably different, but I have a feeling that most of us struggle with the same things:

Colossians 3:8  But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.

Even the Colossians in Paul's day struggled with these things!  In the verses before this one, Paul talks about what we call "BIG" sins!  Many Christians get stuck on those and think, "Well, nothing I have to worry about," and ignore verse 8.  Verse 8 lists things that you can hide from others, but the Lord still knows and so do you!

Different than my physical world which really lacks nothing, this passage in Colossians tell us things that we need more of:

Colossians 3:12-14  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.  And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

Wow!  This is a huge list and sometimes, much harder to accomplish.  In my own life, I work at putting on the things in vs. 12-14, and the things in vs 8 become easier to put off! 

Well, back to my packing, downsizing, and putting on!!!

Our Love Story

Three Decades!

Taken this last week.

Dr. Evans, our college president, always used to say, "Men aren't measured in years, but in decades."  What did over 3 decades bring to our lives?:

1st Decade:

Before we were married 5 years, we had buried my mother, my husbands grandparents, and adopted our son.  The next five years were relatively quiet.  During that time we adopted Christa, moved to Michigan, back to Florida, then we moved to Maine where we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  I thought, "Smooth sailing from here.  Randy has a good career in the Navy, we have our children.  What else is there to do?" 

2nd Decade:

Hmph!  My husband was called to the mission field.  By the time we celebrated our 15th anniversay, we had gotten out of the Navy, moved to Indiana, graduated Bible college, and started missionary deputation!  What a fun whirlwind that was!! 

3rd Decade:

We celebrated our 20th anniversary in London for one night on the way back to our home in Portugal following our beloved pastor's Heaven going.  Just one month later, Randy was diagnosed with thyroid cancer that had spread to his lymph glands.  Randy had two surgeries and radioactive iodine treatment.  In 2001, Randy was treated for cancer, my father had a massive coronary and survived, and I was diagnosed with a benign bone tumor!  I was so glad when that year was over!  We enjoyed our 25th anniversary on the Big Island of Hawaii.  The 5 years prior had seen heartache and joy once again.  I had saliva gland tumor surgery, our son had gone to Heaven, and we had moved 15000 miles to Okinawa, Japan.  December 2009 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Surgery, chemo, and a move back to the States mark the years since that December.  My dear sweetheart cared for me, loved me, made me laugh, and sacrificed his "vision" for my health. 

4th Decade:

Wow!  I can't even imagine that!!  4 decades with my husband!!!!  The Lord has given my husband a new "vision", me healing, and a new place for us to serve!!  Not sure what this decade will hold, but if it is like the last three, we will have joy, heartache, mountain tops, and valleys.  I know the LORD will carry us through the times when it is too difficult to stand or walk.

Happy 31 Years of marriage, Randy!!! I can honestly say that I love you more today than I did when we first began. Only the LORD knew what would happen in those 31 years. Thank you for honoring the vows you took standing in front of your parent's fireplace in 1981.  It is a wonderful journey!!