Update - Newsletter

Your Servants At Work -
The Johnston’s Family Update

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, who will go for us, and whom will I send? Then I said, “Here am I send me” and He said, “GO” Isaiah 6:8-9a

Well I am sure that you all have been wondering what we have been doing here at Bethany College of Missions. We have been diving into the Word of God like never before. God has been pushing us, teaching us and growing our relationship daily. We couldn’t go a day without the Holy Spirits leading, guidance and protection. We have really been praying about what the next steps in our lives are, and we have had a specific call from God placed on us for the First Nations Natives of Ontario, Canada. We were blessed to be able to go spend a week up in Thunder Bay working on the streets with an Eagles Cry Ministry. God had been pushing us to go work with the First Nations Natives before our time spent working up there. We had been really pursuing God about what His plan was for our lives, and where He wanted us to go. Then He opened the door for us to go up to the Bay.

God had given us both the idea of starting a life skills center. Where we would teach people the basics of life and also about the Lord. We had been praying for some sort of building, and opportunity for this to be accomplished. Sky and Angie Hedrick, who is the head of An Eagles Cry Ministry, was also praying for a church to reach out to the broken and abused people of this area. Since we have left the Bay in November there has been a building donated to the ministry.

God gave our ministry this building, and now He is preparing us for some of what we are about to step into. Thunder Bay is an area of Canada that has the highest unemployment rate and the highest Aids and Hepatitis cases in the entire country of Canada. There is a large amount of drug use, prostitution, child abuse, spousal abuse, and everything else that surrounds that whole evil scene. Our vision is to go and help people to learn the basics of life. The things most of us learn from family living. We will teach them how to cook and clean, how to take care of their children and how to balance a checkbook plus more. We want to help get parents out of drug houses, off the streets, and back into society as upstanding citizens. As someone that can hold their head up high, not by handouts but by an honest hard working living. “A hand up not a hand out”

Most of these people were taken from their families at a very young age to go to boarding schools that showed them nothing but hurt and shame. We want to show them the restoration that God can give them, and also restore their dignity. Also we want to give them an idea of what a Christian family can look like. (Please be in prayer with us so that we can fulfill this calling). We need most of all to show them the love of a Savior that died so that they no longer have to live in a lifestyle of substance, physical and mental abuse.

On the second floor of the building that was given to the ministry are apartments that we are praying to the Lord, as a ministry team, to see the use He has for them. We are excited to get to Thunder Bay, and will keep you all updated as things come closer to us finishing our year at Bethany College of Missions.

We also have applied to International Ministerial Fellowship (www.i-m-f.org), and we are awaiting an answer from them. Once we are accepted we will have a more definite timeline to work with.

If you would like to partner with us in anyway please contact us at:
rossandmandy@yahoo.com
Ross and Mandy Johnston
P.O. Box 1323
Williston, ND 58801
701-570-3253.

We are also online at http://rossandmandy.blogspot.com