Greetings this month from me – Andrea. As we send this out we’re reminded of how thankful we are for your prayers and support!
Tim had a great trip to Minnesota last month, visiting 8 different churches (2 in Sioux Falls, SD and 1 in northwest Iowa). The shot below shows him in Foley, MN with the Maywood Covenant Church youth gathering on a Wednesday night. They are doing a great job reaching out to needy youth in their community through a storefront youth center called the ROC. Go Pastors Al and Zach! There’s no time to tell you about so many other great connections on his trip – but thanks for praying…
I was privileged to be able to speak at the RJC (Reaching Japanese for Christ) conference last month in Bellevue, WA. What a great chance it was to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones that all share one vision – reaching Japanese more effectively with the good news about Jesus Christ. Here I am pictured with Kristen, Michael, and Richard – all fellow missionaries from Japan who now find themselves serving out of the greater Seattle area.
Another great ministry of RJC – some excellent online classes about Japan and Japanese culture that could train us to better reach out to Japanese. Maybe you’d be interested in checking it out? Or passing the info on to someone else? Are you hosting a Japanese exchange student in your home? This would be a GREAT resource: RJC Academy – online courses
Thanks for praying with us about the following:
- Andrea’s trip to Minnesota & Wisconsin – I’ll be visiting 5 of our supporting churches in Minnesota and Wisconsin from April 18th – May 4th. Here’s the outline:
- Roseville Covenant Church (St. Paul) – 4/19
- United Covenant Church (Clear Lake, WI) – 4/22-24
- Faith Covenant Church (Burnsville, MN) – 4/25-26
- Anoka Covenant Church (Anoka, MN) – 4/29-30
- First Covenant Church (River Falls, WI) – 5/1-4
And then there will be visits with individual supporters and partners during those days as well. We are so grateful for these team members.
2. Additional financial support – thanks for praying with us about our need to add new financial partners to our support team. We remain at about 75% of needed financial support. If you or others that you are aware of would be interested in joining us we encourage you to check out our website, particularly the “support” page: Support Andrea & Tim Johnson
3. My Dissertation Topic – as many of you know, I’ve begun a study program through George Fox Seminary last year in the area of leadership and spiritual formation and I will soon need to narrow my focus of study in choosing a dissertation topic. Please pray with me for just the right area and focus for this research.
And finally…. news of a change in our plans…
In recent weeks we have requested and received permission to extend our home assignment. We had been planning to return to Japan this summer. Now it appears likely that it will be summer of 2016. My mom and stepmom are both in their 80s and we feel the need to spend some more time with them now. Sky continues to experience some special needs and challenges that we feel can be best resourced and managed here in the US for the short haul. The need to shore up our financial support (as mentioned above) as well as several other issues all seem to be coming together to make this decision seem pretty obvious. Honestly, there is quite a bit of disorientation that we feel…. but we also have a sense of peace. Our mission team in Japan, as well as our national partners are aware of this decision and are standing with us in prayer. Thank you for praying with us in all of this. We’ll keep you informed as we move forward.
