Spring Trip to Papau New Guinea

I (David) have been blessed with an amazing opportunity to travel to Papau New Guinea February 19 - March 14, 2014.  Details of this trip are found below and I am asking you to please keep this trip covered in prayer. I need to raise the funding for this trip in a short amount of time and ask you to please consider partnering with me to help meet the financial need for this trip as I go to train indigenous pastors and spend time in solo village living there. Thank you for your prayers and financial support.

Greetings from the Tex-Mex border!

We hope this update finds you doing well and we thank God for your partnership in our mission work.  The past few weeks have been filled with learning more about church planting using the 7 commands of Christ, creating multiplication strategies with a focus on everything we do being able to be reproduced in the culture we are serving and a focus on what it would be like to serve in a "closed" country with emphasis on how we would be the church in that culture and remain faithful to the commands of Christ in that environment.



In October, David was blessed to serve in a different village in Mexico.  He went a little further down into Mexico and served in a different "Village M".  They had the opportunity to share the gospel with several different people in the village, held a praise and worship session and learned of a need for bilingual Bibles.  One of the men even gave David a Mexican riding crop to bring home! 

Several of you have asked about things we could use in our ministry and for our family.  We have added a list of items that would be helpful to our ministry as well as personal and fun items for our family.  You can view the list on our partnership page. 

We are also looking forward to being back in Alabama for the Christmas holidays from Dec. 20 - Jan. 3.  We hope to see many of you during our time there and look forward to sharing more about what God is doing in our lives.

We thank you for your continued partnership in our mission work and for keeping us lifted up to the Lord in your daily prayers.  We are currently at 26% support and if you would like to partner with us financially and help us reach our goal of 100%, click here for more information. 

September 2013 Update

Our 1st month of school is already behind us!  The picture above is our required reading books for this year.  As you can see, this is going to be a very busy school year for us.  This month we've been learning more about Exposition in Missions.  We had some training in this last year but will be doing much more of it this year.  Our focal books for this particular study were Matthew and Acts.  We also had a week of instruction on "Biblical Theology of the Heart" which was very beneficial not only for life on the mission field but so much of it could be applied to our everyday lives as well.  This has also been an exciting time as we are getting to know the new missionary families on campus and making new friends from all over the US & Canada.  Of course, it was good to see all of our friends from last year again and we are enjoying sweet fellowship and building relationships with everyone through our mentor groups, classtime, chapel and Ekklesia.  

Hurricane Ingrid decided to make landfall in Mexico the same exact time our teams were scheduled to be in Mexico.  Due to the unknown impact of the hurricane, we delayed departure by one day.  Despite heavy rains and some areas of flooding, our team was able to make it into "Village M" for their trip.  They reconnected with the believers there and also had the opportunity to share the gospel with 3 people they had never shared with before in this village.  They also are continuing discipleship efforts with the believers in this village.  As always, God is good to us and our team and God's hand of protection was most certainly upon our team on this particular trip.  Please continue to pray for "Village M", for the Christians in this village, for our team and for To Every Tribe staff as they make decisions concerning the advancement of the gospel in this area.  

We had our annual To Every Tribe "Ladies Day" last week and it was such a blessing. We spent the day at Chachalaca Bend (our new campus) and enjoyed an encouraging and fun day together. The theme of our day was "Let's Get Real".   Mrs. Jane spoke to us about the "reality" of life on the field as a missionary/wife/mother, I led 2 sessions of praise & worship that focused on the realities of who God is and what He has done for us, we enjoyed a delicious lunch and fellowship time, we played a fun "icebreaker" game, we made a scripture craft and we spent time in small groups for prayer.  While we all love our husbands and kids immensely, it is certainly a treat and such a special time to just be with other ladies and spend time together away from the everyday routine of life.  

For God to give us clear direction as we move forward in this last year of training

For "Village M" and the advancement of the gospel there

That in the midst of super busy schedules, we still find ways for "family time". 

For the Lord to raise up more monthly supporters on our behalf.

We are currently at 30% of our monthly support need. 

Click here to support our family while we serve with To Every Tribe.

Choose our name (Johns, David & Gretta) under Gift Designation

A Huge Praise!

It is with much joy, thankfulness and excitement that we share a HUGE praise in the lives of our family.  Last week, we received a large donation from someone who owns a business back home in Alabama and the amount they gave us was designated to pay-off our tuition AND cover the cost of our school books for this last year of training!  God is so faithful to provide for His children in His timing!!  We have been praying daily for the Lord to financially provide in 2 very specific ways:  1)  that we could get our tuition paid off before we graduate in May and 2)  that we would reach 100% support by the end of May.  We give Him all the praise and glory for answering one of our very specific prayer requests. (We're continuing to pray over the 2nd one).  Prayer works dear friends!  A Bible verse also came to mind when we read the letter that accompanied the donation and those verses read:

"For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.  Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."  ~ Mark 11:23- 24

We are also excited to share with you that our monthly support level has increased to 30%!  That means we are just 70% away from being fully supported financially. To think that we started out at just 3% last July and to see how God has been faithful, continually provides, touches peoples heart's to want to partner with us, and how He is still working as we continue toward 100% is totally amazing!  If you would like to join our financial partnership team and become a monthly supporter, you may do so by clicking here.  Simply choose our name:  (Johns, David & Gretta) under Gift Designation.  No amount is too small and each monthly donation helps us get closer to our goal of full support.

We praise God for each and every one of you who are faithful prayer warriors on our behalf and those who are on our financial partnership team too.  To God be the glory!

 

Our final year of training has begun!

We spent the last week in "Orientation" for our final year of training here at To Every Tribe.  This year's orientation was quite different from last year but we found that it was really fun, kept us on our toes and was family-friendly too. Not only did we cover most of our 41 page training manual in great detail but they also had some really fun activities planned each day too. We will give you a little recap of our fun week.

We are typically in a "drought" condition most of the time here in south Texas.  It rarely rains and when it does the ground is so dry it just soaks it up quickly. However, last week it rained a ton and I mean....hard, flooding rains!  We desperately needed it and we are thankful for it but it made for yucky weather for orientation week.  Each day they had a "team building" activity in the afternoons.  On Monday, they sent us outside to play frisbee golf.  The catch was that we were going to be playing in knee-high grass, it had rained all morning, they didn't let us see a map of the course or show us our targets and we were going to be blindfolded when it was our turn to throw.  We had to rely solely on our teammates to direct us which direction to throw, how hard to throw, how to find the frisbee after we threw it, etc.  It was lots of fun and quite challenging.  By the time we were done, we were all eat up with mosquito bites, soaking wet and yet all still smiling and laughing.  

Tuesday afternoon, they sent us to the beach and we had a time of praise and worship and a discussion on Christian conduct.  Then they gave us our team assignment which was to build a Mayan temple in the sand that was 2 feet at the base and had steps leading up to the top.  The catch was....we had no sand tools or anything to use to design it with. We had to scavenge the beach to find items we could use to build it.  Our team built a pretty good one considering our lack of tools and we even included a head that had rolled down the stairs from one of the sacrifices (we buried Wyatt in the sand so all you could see was his head....and he loved it!)  We were pushing for all the creativity points we could get!  

The entire day Wednesday was spent in financial training so there was no team activity that day.  Thursday, they sent us on a scavenger hunt but the catch was that all our clues were written in coordinates so we had to use "geocaching" skills to figure out where to go.  They sent us all over Los Fresnos and Brownsville to 6 different locations.  Each stop had a task or tasks you had to complete in order to get your next clue.  We had to act out a story from the Old Testament at the local park, figure out what 2 people were saying who were speaking nothing but the Flemish language at the zoo, find a pirate statue in the local tourist gift shop, come up with the most creative basketball shot at the sports park, complete 3 tasks in the local library and figure out how to negotiate and handle being extorted (which is a common issue in foreign countries) at a local gas station.  

Our new calendar for this year's training is posted on the "Calendar" tab if you want to see some of the main courses we will be taking.  We are excited about some new changes in the training this year.  We will be in "Mentoring Groups" this year and we are looking forward to learning and growing from our mentor.  They have also implemented 2 new things for women:  a monthly missions practicum day designed specifically for ladies and things we may encounter on the field and the ladies will have a monthly Exposition in Missions class to learn the method of TNT Training (Training National Trainers).  Our "Village M" team added a new family from Colorado and we have a new translator who is a single girl from Flordia.  We are looking forward to getting to know these people better and serving in "Village M" together.  

As you can see, we are very excited about this last year of training!  We are still working to reach our need for 100% support.  If you would like to partner with us, you may do so here.  Simply choose our name (Johns, David & Gretta) in the Gift Designation box.  Thank you for continuing to keep our family in your prayers and please continue to pray for the people in "Village M" as well.  

We've Been on the Move!

We were blessed with a wonderful trip back to "sweet home Alabama".  We were able to spend 5 weeks visiting family and friends and sharing about our mission work and all the Lord has done in our lives the past year.  It was a privilege to be able to speak at 3 churches and also share with a youth group and a children's ministry program during our time in Alabama too. We made some great memories with family and friends and are thankful for every opportunity we were given to share and visit.   

It was good to get back home to Los Fresnos though and settle back into our lives and ministry here.  We have a huge praise to share with you too.  Our church here in Texas has a "missionary home" (much like a church parsonage) and they have very graciously offered to let our family live in their missionary home for the next year! The house sits right across the street from the church and is only about 5 minutes from To Every Tribe's new campus at Chachalaca Bend.  They are allowing us to stay here rent/utilities free which is a huge financial blessing and helps us out tremendously.  

The main entrance to our new house!

The very next day after we arrived back in Los Fresnos, we began packing up our campus apartment and moving into our new house. We spent several days packing, moving and then deep cleaning our campus apartment. We are very thankful for the year we had of living on campus with all our fellow missionaries and their families and we will miss the "community" atmosphere but we are also very excited to have a home again too.  The kids are enjoying a fenced in backyard to play in and we are all enjoying having a lot more space to call home.  

I will begin homeschooling the kids on August 19th. We have a 7th grader, a 5th grader and a 3rd grader this year and they are looking forward to a new school year.  Last year was a hard year for us in homeschool because we were all adjusting to a new place, new schedule and the fact that David & I were both going to school too! We are anticipating a better homeschool year this time as we all know more about what to expect, we feel comfortable here now and we've learned to all "school" together sometimes!  

Our last year of missions training will begin on August 26th.  We are excited to see what all God has in store for us as we complete this last year of training and as we continue to work in Mexico each month too.  There are lots of new families coming to campus within the next few weeks to join To Every Tribe and the end of August will be an exciting time of year for us as we begin our last year of training and make new friends too.  

One year ago last week, we sold most of what we owned, left behind everyone and everything that we knew to be "home", packed up and moved to south Texas.  We never visited Texas or To Every Tribe before our move.  We just stepped out on complete and total faith that this was the direction the Lord was leading us and the door He had opened for our family and we wanted to be in His will.  We left Alabama with just 3% support (and a lot of people thought we were crazy!) but the Lord was so faithful to us this past year and He sustained us in every way so that we were able to stay here despite our low support. We are excited to also share with you that within the past year we have gone from 3% to 25% support! While we still have a long way to go (100% is our goal!) we continue to trust the Lord to raise up faithful financial partners on behalf of our family.  If you would like to partner with us financially, you may do so online by clicking here (choose Johns, David & Gretta for your gift designation) or email us your address and we will mail you a support form.  

Thank you for praying for our family as we continue training, working in Mexico and serving the Lord. Please continue to pray for our Christian brothers and sisters and the people in "Village M" in Mexico and for the seeds that have been sown there. We will be returning there in September. Pray for the Lord to raise up more workers willing to go into His harvest also.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.  

"And they sang a new song, saying: You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.'" (Rev. 5:9)

May Update & Summer Plans

 

And here we are....10 months later and it's official....we are done with our 1st year of missionary training and we are now officially "2nd year students" meaning we only have one more year left before we will move into a foreign country to serve!  We look back over this last year and stand in awe of what God has done in our lives.  The way He so faithfully provided, the ways He sustained us, cared for us, comforted us and His amazing love. We've been blessed by the work that we are able to be a part of in Mexico and the way we have watched God go before us and move in hearts there. 

In the past year, the people here on campus (who are from all over the US & Canada) quickly became dear friends and "family" to us and we have formed lifelong friendships with them.  We have laughed together, cried together, prayed together, studied together, served in Mexico together and even played a few pranks on each other throughout this past year.  

Our kids were blessed as well because they made many new friends this past year too and they never lacked for a playmate! The picture above shows all the "MK's" (missionary kids) who were here on campus this year.  The kids were really fun this year and very entertaining.  We had a lot of fun spending time with them and having them in our home for play dates and spend the nights throughout the year too.  

May 30th, To Every Tribe held their official graduation ceremony.  This year there were 4 graduates this year and they will be moving into 3 different countries to spearhead the gospel in these regions.  The Cooney family is going to Indonesia, the Giordano family is going to Mexico and Matt Taylor and the Sanders Family are going to Papau New Guinea.  While we will miss them all very much, we are excited as they begin this new journey in their lives.  Please join us in praying for them and their ministries in these countries too.  

Since the year is officially over that means we spent about 10 days saying lots of good-byes.  Goodbyes are never easy but we have quickly learned that as missionaries goodbyes are going to be something we do often. We prefer to call them "see-you-later's" rather than goodbyes because even if we never see them again this side of heaven, as Christians we do have the hope of seeing them again in heaven!  

SO WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS SUMMER?!

We are currently still in Los Fresnos.  We stayed around to help with our church's Vacation Bible School (which started Monday, June 10).  David & I are leading the "Imagination Station" center which is where we do science experiments each night with the kids but they teach a Biblical concept. We will be doing VBS every night this week.  We are blessed to have a great church family here in Texas that has been a huge blessing to our family and our mission work throughout this past year too.  We are thankful for opportunities to serve alongside them in children's and youth ministry activities.  

We are headed back home to Alabama next week though and we will be in Alabama from June 18 - July 19th.  We cannot wait to get back and spend time with our family and friends!  We look forward to sharing with everyone about what the Lord has done in our lives this past year and about our future plans too. 

After our month in Alabama, we plan to come back to Texas and prepare for classes to start again in August.  Lord willing, we will be able to take the kids and go down to "Village M" for a visit as well before training starts again in August.  

We must a huge "THANK YOU" as well for each one of you that are monthly supporters of our family and our mission work and for those of you who are faithful prayer warriors on our behalf and keep us lifted up to the Father. We could not be here today doing what we are doing if it were not for each of you.  We still have a long way to go in raising the 100% support we need so if you would like to partner with us as a monthly supporter, simply click here and choose our name (Johns, David & Gretta) for the gift designation.  If you would like to support us monthly, choose "repeating donation".