OUR TRIP! HONDURAS, EL SALVADOR and GUATEMALA

Well once again I am convinced the best way to let you know of the great trip we had is through photos.

                                                    On our way, first stop Honduras!



  We were super excited when we received an invitation to teach at the YWAM base in Siguatepeque Honduras and that is were we started our trip. Douglas taught inductive bible study and I taught on giftings and passions. It was great to be at the base again and hang out with our friends there.

 The boys had a great week making new friends.




 They spent a lot of there time with there fuzzy friends as the base had two litters of puppies.

 We also managed to do some home school that first week in Honduras. We do confess we did not get much done the other two weeks.

Before leaving Honduras we were blessed to spend a few days in the capital Tegucigalpa with friends that we met our first year in Costa Rica at Language school. It was such a blessing to be with them after not seeing them for more than five years.

After spending more than a week in Honduras It was off to EL Salvador!

I have no pictures of the bus ride do to the fact that we were all trying not to be sick on the very curvy road. All but Gabriel managed to keep breakfast down thanks to Dramamine. By the time we reached El Salvador every one was feeling much better.

 

As neither Douglas or I had ever been to the base in El Salvador it was a real pleasure to get to know the leaders of the base and the rest of the staff. A few of there staff were recently part of YWAM San Jose and it was great to see familiar faces.

 

We went and participated in a kids ministries they do in a very poor neighborhood where most live in houses made of scrap tin and dirt floors. The boys had a great time joining in the fun. The base also is working in this same neighborhood building simple houses for some of the families.  Gabriel jumped in helping around the base shinning the tires on the base truck. 

 

 As some might remember last year I visited El Salvador with some young people at our base in Costa Rica. During that trip I made some connections with a church and had the privilege of meeting the father of the young man traveling with us. So it was great to visit this same church on Sunday morning and have a wonderful evening out with Pablo's dad and step mom.

On to Guatemala!

The bus ride to Guatemala was much more pleasant then the one to El Salvador although it was suppose to last about 5 hours and lasted close to 7! 

We spent the first few days at the YWAM base in Guatemala city where we took an afternoon to have

  some family fun!

As always it was fun to be in Guatemala City and hear all of what is happening at the base there. 

Next we moved on to San Miguel Chicaj which is a small indigenous town about three hours from the city. The exciting thing for us was that we visited this town on an outreach more than 8 years ago. At that time there was no YWAM base there but we went with a lady who has since started a full time base in the community. 

As we were there on good Friday we got to see how they remember this very important holiday for the Catholic Church in Central America. It is very sad to see the emphasis they put on the death of our Savior and then Sunday there is almost no celebration to remember his resurrection. I will never fully understand this part of Latin American culture.

  The picture on the left is of what they call Alfombras or Carpets in English they make them out of flowers, pine needles, colored sawdust and other things. Behind is the procession leading Christ to the cross. On the left is the church in the town and in front you can see a stuffed Judas hanging from the gallows.

Below on the right the typical dress of the women in the community and on the left me and the boys with the staff of the base standing in-front of another Alfombra.

 
After a great few days it was time to move on to our last location, Antigua!

We arrived in Antigua the afternoon before Easter and it was fun to color Eggs with the staff there.

 On Sunday we attended a bilingual Church to celebrate the Resurrection of our Savior and then spent a few hours walking around Antigua seeing the Alfombras that Antigua is famous for. Again there were very few do to the fact that it was the day of the Resurrection and not the day of the Crucifixion. There was a very small procession of about 100 people where on Friday they say you can not move do to the crowds. We headed back to the base where we had a wonderful meal and then a sweet time of worship celebrating The Resurrection of our Savior.

The Base in Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes and they have the most amazing views from the roof.

After a sweet trip it was time to head home.

 Our main purpose and the reason we spend so many hours on buses was to share our heart for unreached peoples with some of the other bases in our region, get to know the base leaders personally and to hear about their ministries and schools so that we can begin to work together more as a whole here in YWAM Central America. We were able to make some great connections with all the base leaders and others who share our same passion.

A huge thanks to all of you who gave so this trip could be possible and to all of you who supported us in prayer. This was a totally new phase in our ministry here in Central American and we could not have done it with out you all.

Just a reminder, we are planning to be back in Oregon in mid June through the end of July and we would love to see as many of you as possible. We will write more soon updating everyone with details.

Many blessings, 

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah.

Off to Honduras

Hi all!!!

We are super happy to let everyone know that we have received all the donations we need to cover the airfare which is the majority of the cost our trip. At the moment we are packing and cleaning madly. We leave tomorrow morning! I had to renew my passport at the last minute and it totally came 5 days early, just in time for travel.

We still do need some funds for the bus trips, border crossings and room and board for the second two weeks of the trip so you would like to make a donation just click on "Make a Donation" button above for instructions.

We are super excited for this new phase of our ministry here as we start teaching more and focusing on mobilizing more people for missions! Please be praying for us for health, protection, easy border crossings and the last finances that we need for the trip.

Blessings,

Douglas, Karen and the boys!

Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala

Dear friends and family,

We are only a week away from our planned trip to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. As we mentioned in our last blog post we have been invited to teach in Siguatepeque, Honduras (try saying that three times fast). Then we are planning to extend our trip by a couple of weeks and visit the other Youth with a Mission bases in El Salvador and Guatemala using the opportunity to build unity between the bases and also to promote YWAM Central America's new frontier missions committee known as CCAMF. We started the committee in August of 2012 together with members from all the other YWAM bases in Central America who have a desire to see more central American missionaries serving among people groups that have still not been reached with the good new of Jesus Christ. We are excited to see what God will do here in Central America as we come together to work for the same purpose.

We are planning to fly in to Honduras and then bus from there to El Salvador and Guatemala, flying home from Guatemala city the 21st of April. We have felt strongly that our boys need to come with us and participate in the call that God has given us as a family but that obviously increases the financial burden. Apart from the air travel costs which are around $400 per person we are hoping to keep the expenses very low but we estimate that we will need about $2000 above our normal monthly budget to make the trip possible.

We are excited for this new phase in our ministry and we trust that God will make funds available but the truth is that we cannot move forward without people helping. We invite you to prayerfully consider making a donation towards our trip.  I you would like to donate just click on the "make a donation" button above.

Many blessings,

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah

The last month and a half

This last month and a half has been as is normal full of good and challenging things. Definitely the most challenging was the death of one of our YWAM base leaders in Honduras. Carlos and Melissa Urquia along with their 5 children started the base in Siguatepeque 3 years ago and shortly after Carlos was diagnosed with Lymphoma. Two weeks ago after a very hard battle he went home to be with the Lord. Carlos and his widow Melissa have been such an example of people who trust God and live in his peace through all circumstances. Melissa is originally from the states but she will stay in Honduras to continue to lead the base. There oldest son is around 13 and then they have 3 more boys and a baby girl who is two. Please keep Melissa and her children in your prayers as they learn to live without their beloved husband and father. 

Me with Carlos and Melissa back in November.

  As I posted in the last blog in November I Karen had the opportunity of traveling to Honduras and teaching at their base. It was such a privilege to meet Carlos before he went to be with the lord. 
Now Douglas and I have been given an invitation to go back and teach at the base in April. We had already been making plans to take the whole family to Honduras in April to teach but are even more convinced now that this is a door God is opening so we can go and minister to the base and Carlos' family. Douglas was actually able to go to the funeral in Honduras with our base leader and talked to Melissa about some ways we can bless their base when we go.We would also like to visit some of the other bases in Central America while we are traveling. The plan would be to fly to Honduras and then take a bus to El Salvador, another bus to Guatemala and then fly back to Costa Rica from there. The point of visiting the other bases would be to continue to network with other YWAM missionaries in our region, to see continued unity and more collaboration among the bases of Central America.

We also posted in our last blog that we were looking forward to having more of a schedule as we started this year and it has been really great that so far that has been mostly possible. The boys have been doing great with there home school, we have had just a few days off including most of last week as we had an amazing conference at the YWAM base.  As missionaries  most of the time the focus is outward but last week was a time for us to focus on our own lives and marriages. It was such a blessing and God used it to show many of our staff areas in there lives where God wants to do healing and purifying. 

 

As part of our schedule we have signed the boys up for Karate! Douglas and I also signed up for a class at the gym that is at the same time as the boys class. It has been great to go as a family and have some time to get healthy. We really wanted the boys to have interaction with kids during the week as they are either at the base or home all week with mom and dad. They are doing super great and love it.


The last exciting piece of news we would like to share is that we are definitely planning to be home this summer for about 5 weeks. The plan is to come home the middle of June and stay till the end of July as I have my 20th high school reunion that last week of July, which is very hard for me to believe! We will let you know final dates as soon as we know.

We will need financial help to make both trips a reality. The one to the states as well as the one to Honduras, El Salvador and  Guatemala. If you would like to give toward either trip just click on the make a donation button above for instructions.

We are so grateful to every one that takes the time to read about our lives here in CR it makes us feel remembered and loved.
The Johnstons, Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah

3 months in Photos

Hello every one and a Happy New Year! When I started this blog it said Merry Christmas and here I am finally sitting down to finish it almost a month later. I hope you all had a great holiday season ours was wonderful as we got to share it with my parents who were here for a nice long visit.


 

We know that we have a lot to catch you up on as it has been about three or four months since our last post so I figured the best way to do that is through pictures. So here is a little picture diary reviewing all the wonderful things God has done for us over the last few months.

The biggest blessing was that my mom came and home schooled the boys from the beginning of  October through the middle of December. Then my Dad joined her and they stayed another month to celebrate the holidays with us. the boys loved having Grandma as their teacher. We  were told many times she is a lot more fun than Mom and Dad.






Also in October I got to go to Honduras and teach in a DTS at the YWAM base there. It was such an amazing experience especially since I taught in Spanish the whole week. It was a great challenge and I believe it went well.







 Then just a few short weeks later I also got to teach in the DTS at our base in San Jose. It is so fun that God is opening the door for me to teach. I teach on giftings and Gods call in peoples life and I love it. I am hopping for more opportunities to teach this coming year.

In November Douglas' parents came for a week so Douglas' dad could teach in the BCC. It was so great to have them with us. We got to go on a few fun outings with them the weekends they were here.



The boys loved seeing all the animals at the La Paz Waterfall Gardens.


We also went Hiking in the rain with the BCC students it felt just
 like we were hiking in Oregon.

Just  one week after Douglas' parents left we had Pastor Peter from Country Side Community Church come. He also came to teach in the BCC and to bless us. It was such a pleasure to have him here with us.



He brought us an amazing care suitcase from our family at Countryside. It was so much fun to open, just like Christmas. Thank you to every one who donated to that and a special thanks to those that donated towards a new computer for us. Our old one was pretty old and the new one is such a blessing. It was amazing how everything that was sent was just what we needed.

As has become tradition I was in charge of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the YWAM San Jose family and there guests . This year we had around 130 people which is about the same as last year. It was a lot of work but I had great help including my mom and even Peter pitched in to carve turkeys.

not sure what is up with the matching shirts but it makes a great photo.

One of the great things about having visitors is
that we take time out to show them the beautiful things that are here in Costa Rica. This is us at Volcan Irazu just out side of San Jose. We took Peter to see it and when we first got there it was completely clouded in so we waited in the car and praise God it cleared up and was beautiful. Cold but beautiful.

Every year at the beginning of December we have a National retreat for the three YWAM bases in Costa Rica. It is held at the base in Guanacaste CR. The boys always have a blast with all the other YWAM kids. We spend one day at the beach the kids get to ride horses and we women sit around and do our nails:) Oh yea and they have huge bugs,

We even took the dog!

 On December 13th Douglas graduated his 6th Biblical Core Course (BCC). As always it was a great time of celebration.

 After the School ended we were in desperate need of some time off and time to hang out with my Parents so we headed off to Panama to do some snorkeling and we even got to see Dolphins. But the best part of the trip was that Gabriel got Baptized! 

The day after we returned from Panama I hosted the Christmas dinner at the YWAM base. I made a traditional Costa Rican dish called Chifrijo for about 80 people. I was super nervous to make a traditional dish but it came off well and every one seemed to enjoy it.


We had a great Christmas and New Year but unfortunately I took no pictures with my camera they are all on my parents camera. : (  I will have to get those from them.

I have to say thanks to my dad for all the dishes he did the sink was empty the whole time he was here.









To start out the new year Douglas got to go to San Fran to officiate the wedding of a young couple from the base here in CR. It was a super short trip but he had a great time seeing family and hanging out with a bunch of friends that all gathered for the wedding. I was hoping to go too but tickets were over $800.00.












That makes 3 trips to the states in the last 6 months for Douglas and none for me or the boys (not that I'm counting :) so we are talking of a trip this summer. We will keep you updated and ask you to pray for provision for a trip.



The last two weeks we kicked off the new year at the base with a bang. I put together a small staff bar-b-q while Douglas was in Cali. my parents helped out a lot.  We were sad to say good buy to mom and dad a day after Douglas returned. Our final event was the quarter kick off dinner on Saturday. Now we are looking forward to getting into a new routine for the year.  Next week we will start back with home school and we are hoping to get the boys into Karate classes.

   

Fall highlights

Time is flying and all the Christmas decorations are already in the stores here in Costa Rica. Actually they have been up since the end of August. I love Christmas but there is still so much of the year to experience before we get there!!!

The last month and half has been pretty packed with various activities.

In the second week of August I (Douglas) had the privilege of traveling to Washington DC to teach in the first ever Discipleship Training School focused specifically on the deaf community in the US. The US deaf community as a whole is only about 1% Christian and most deaf children born to believing parents never come to Jesus. The whole experience was a real adventure and a huge challenge. Many of my basic teaching methods had to change completely. I am used to putting up a powerpoint and then continuing to talk while the students take notes. But the deaf students, as soon as the powerpoint is up, take their eyes off the translator and all communication has to stop I spent a lot of time standing there in silence waiting for them to finish before communication could continue. There was a beautiful park near the base and one afternoon while taking a walk I was struck by the beautiful sounds of the wind in the trees. Then I was equally struck that my students could not hear any of it. How much there must be about God and creation that I cannot yet even imagine! ( I also got to go to New York for a day. it was my first time there and we had a great time,)

 A couple of weeks later I was blessed to be able to travel to Tijuana, Mexico for an international YWAM gathering. 750 missionaries from over 50 nations gathered to talk about what God is doing around the world and to get extra training in their areas of ministry. It was an inspirational time and a great opportunity to network with others who share our passion for unreached people groups. However, when it was all done it was so good to come home again to my family after a couple of weeks on the road


As soon as I got back from Mexico Karen and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. It has been a crazy last ten years, most of it spent outside the US working in missions here in Costa Rica. We were able to spend a couple of wonderful days on the coast and got extremely sunburned. You would think that after almost 7 years in central America I would learn but apparently not.


In the midst of our other activities we have been steadily getting ready to kickoff yet another Bible school  which we celebrated last Saturday. This time we have a majority of Spanish speakers , and all of our students have done their discipleship training school here with us in Costa Rica. We are currently in the middle of week 2 studying the Inductive Bible study methods and the book of Acts. They are a great group, very interactive with lots of questions. I taught last week, this week, and a part of the next week so you can pray for our family! We will fill you in on more details as the school progresses.

 As you may remember Karen has been transitioning out of the personnel department and is now our community life coordinator so she was able to plan and run our fall quarter kick off. Along with the Bible School we also have 16 new DTS students from around the globe who will be with us here for the next 5 1/2 months.

On Sunday we gathered all the YWAM kids and a couple of visitors from a DTS outreach to celebrate Gabriel's 9th birthday. A few of you may remember that when Gabriel was just 9 months old we first came to Costa Rica to do our own DTS. He learned to walk here in Costa Rica, traveled with us all through Central America and has been such a source of joy and life to us along the way. Gabriel was very excited to receive his first pocketknife for his birthday and we are anticipating the next trip to the ER.

Looking forward over the next few weeks most of our time is going to be taken up with the Bible school  and getting ready for Karen's Mom to come for a three month visit. Then toward the end of Oct. we also have been invited to teach for a week at a new base in Siguatepeque, Honduras. I will be teaching Inductive Bible study methods and Karen will be teaching on personal giftings and God's call on your life. The base is pretty small and is only a couple of years old. They have asked if we would be able to cover the cost of our flight to Honduras which will cost about $300 a piece. We would like to ask you to pray about helping us to be able to bless this base with a donation towards our travel costs. We are going to be setting up a separate account just for this type of ministry travel. There are many bases here in Central America and around the globe that are needing teachers to come for a week but they have very limited resources. We would love to be able to bless them and if you would like to participate in this part of our ministry please write us and we will make sure your donation gets set aside.

Many blessings and thank you for your prayers and gifts as we move forward in the ministry that God has called us to.

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah

 P.S.  Also to let you all know our lap top died on us a few weeks back. We had some money we were setting aside to help buy a new one but as is usual when one thing happens others are usually close to follow. Last week Karen was in a very minor fender bender and the money we were planning to use for a new lap top went to pay for repairs on the other drivers brand new truck. och! so we are also looking for help to purchase a new but cheap lap top. Karen's Dad will also be coming to visit the first week of Dec. and we would like to have him bring one to us.

New Home, New Season

¡Buenos dias a todos! We hope that you all are enjoying your summer. We have been very busy in these last few weeks and we would love to share with you all.

     Our last update we wrote that we had finally found a home near the YWAM base. We started moving in right at the start of July and celebrated Zachariah's 7th birthday on the 4th of July at our new place. Karen found a fireworks stand and we celebrated his birthday in patriotic style. We have had to be very creative with the storage in the new place but things are starting to come together. We found that we have a lumber distributor just down the road and we have been taking advantage of it to build some new furniture. We have a ways to go yet but our new place is starting to feel like home. The best part by far has been the convenience of being so close to the base. We have been walking some mornings and the ability to come home at any time has been great for home schooling. We have already been able to have several people over and we are finally able to use our home as we have dreamed of.

 Along with our new home we finally bit the bullet and got a dog. The boys have been asking for one since forever and our new home had just enough room. Her name is Sparky and she is from a local rescue shelter. Right now we are working on her not doing her business in the house. Some days are better than others.

Moving on to ministry stuff, those of you who have been with us for a while know that Karen and I have a heart to see Latinos serving with unreached peoples. Our first step towards making this dream a reality was the Bible school that we started thee years ago. This last year we have seen a couple of major breakthroughs. Last year in August we met with leaders from every nation in Central America, minus Belize, and together we laid a foundation for a cooperative training program utilizing YWAM facilities throughout Central America. We were able to meet again in mid June and are planning another meeting for March, possibly in Turkey, a gateway nation to the part of the world were we would like to focus our energies. We cant provide a lot of detail due to security concerns but things are moving forward.

Back at the YWAM base, I (Douglas) have been working hard coordinating our Training department, overseeing our 4 annual Discipleship Training School (DTS) as well as our several second level schools. Right now our April DTS is serving in Israel, the July school is in their 3 month lecture phase and is preparing to head to Romania, and we are getting ready for the next school that starts in September. Also our School of Worship in currently ministering in churches in Germany and we have the Bible school and a School of Christian Worldview that both start in September. Way too much work for just me which is why I am currently assembling a training team to help spread out the load!

Preaching on missions in a local church

Karen has had some exciting changes in her job here at the base. She has been handling the personnel department, processing new incoming missionaries as well as placing our current missionaries into their areas so that the base community can function well. She as been wanting to transition out of this for some time and we are finally starting to see it happen. The personnel job is being taken bit by bit by a couple of others and Karen is moving into the Community Life coordinator. We are a super diverse multinational missionary community with people working in a half dozen different schools or ministries and Karen's job is to help ensure that we maintain that sense of family, working together with the same common goals and values.

A cool part of all that has been happening is that Karen and I have started receiving invitations to teach. I am headed to Washington DC on Saturday to teach in a DTS for deaf students and we are both heading to Honduras in October to teach in a new YWAM facility that was planted just two years ago.

We are super excited for the new adventures that God has been bringing in the new season and it is wonderful to be able to share it with you all. We very much value your prayers and support.

Blessings in Christ,

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah.