October 8th, 2016
Hello Everyone!
Sorry for the delay in sending out an update. It took us quite a bit to get the basics for the home and then to get internet. It has been a whirlwind of activity and work getting the mission house & its necessary furnishings purchased, bags unpacked, cabinets organized. Here is a link to our Facebook Page where we have a video posted giving an update a few days ago. https://www.facebook.com/Recycled-Lives-112478578816115/
I want to share how blessed we feel and how we see God working and answering prayers. We were supposed to close on the house on Friday Oct 1. There was a problem with the paperwork so the closing was delayed until this Friday Oct 7. At first it was looking like we would be homeless (ok, well, staying at a hotel) all week. We were sad & a bit scared. Outside of the attorney’s office the homeowner told us she trusts God and knows things will work out for the home to be ours for teams and handed us the keys! Praise be to God for her graciousness and trust in God and in us! We began moving in later that day and spent our first night here on Saturday Oct 2. It took us a few days to figure out how to get large jugs of drinking water and gas for the stove (propane) as well as the basic furnishings in order to be self sufficient with cooking & sleeping but we are in business now. The first night we ordered dominoes which got delivered from a town about 20 min away. It came on a motorcylce. Bob exclaimed “this is my first time eating dominoes, and it happened in Guatemala!” we all laughed.
We have been squeezing in some touring with our son Josh and Brad’s parents Robert and Polly to take a break from the work. We took a Peanut growers tour and made our own fresh peanut butter. We also took a coffee tour and roasted our own coffee. Both of these were through a small farmer’s coop where the tours directly benefit the farmer and their family and ended up being right in our very own community!
Yesterday we went to an orphanage and brought 50 happy meals to the children and staff and enjoyed playing with and feeding the kids. Bob exclaimed while eating a happy meal “this is my very first Happy Meal!- we all laughed.
Today we visited the San Gabriel community (community surrounding the garbage dump) and played baseball and took a tour of the community, the homes and clinic that have been constructed and barbecued hotdogs for the community. It was an eye opening experience for my in laws to see the depth of poverty we are working against. Please continue to pray for the lost in this community and the conditions these families experience on a daily basis. To see the excitement on Josh’s face to return to the home he helped build 3 years ago and to visit grandma Marina whom he helped build a door to secure her shelter.
Another praise and answer to prayer is our next door neighbor is a Christian woman who invited us to her church on sunday and offered to help with anything day or night. Saying in spanish “we are sister’s in Christ, anything you need day or night, knock on my door”.
My first day I walked to the market with a friend to buy groceries, as I was returning home and praying for the community a door opened and out walked the woman that helped me start the yarn group last spring! I nearly fell over as she hollered my name in excitement! Two neighbors, friends, sisters in Christ near us!!! God is sooooo Good!
Thank you for praying us through. Things have been in fast forward the past week and as time comes to an end on Josh, Bob & Polly’s visit this coming thursday, I am sure the reality of life here will settle in quite hard and fast. We do have a team coming Oct 25 which has been gracious about checking in with us on what needs we have for us and for the home.
Thanks for all of the words of love and support and all of the prayers! This home & community we are ministering in is amazing and we can’t wait to share it with any of you being called to come!
Blessings and Peace,
🙂 Shawn Johnson
September 27th, 2016
Hello friends, family, prayer warriors,
The past few months have been chock full of busy! Speaking engagements, sharing time with family and friends, our daughter’s wedding, helping her family with a move, selling stuff, storing stuff, packing stuff, giving stuff away….lots of stuff, lots of love, lots of people and lots of prayer! Sunday we said Farewell to many family and friends, yesterday we said a difficult see you later to our daughter, son in law and 3 grandbabes, today we said goodbye to our good and faithful Ford Flex. It’s been a heart squishing 3 days with one more to go before departing Minnesota for long term missionary work in Guatemala. We have done our best to prepare, keep people informed, share our prayer requests and prepare our hearts and minds spiritually and emotionally. In a future of so many uncertains, one thing we are certain of- we are well loved by you and Father God.
Thanks to every one of you that has shared in this journey, in some way, whether it be to pray with us, for us, provide a monthly sponsorship or a one time gift, purchase supplies we need for the mission house, invite us for dinner or coffee to hear what God is doing in our lives, volunteer at a fundraiser, organize one, send us a card of encouragement, buy stuff we needed to sell to help us raise funds, tell others about what we are doing, pray about coming on a mission team, ask about planning a family or anniversary mission vacation trip, bring us cookies, drop off donations or just ask if there is anything you can do to help us! As I said, we have been cared for and loved on and I thank you so very much for that.
We will be leaving our home at 2am on Thursday sept 29th to head to the airport. Our son Joshua and my in laws will join us for the first 2 weeks to help us get settled into the home we plan to close on Friday morning. We are still praying through what to do with our home here but in the meantime, we have our son and a roommate staying to care for the house. As many of you know, leaving loved ones “behind” is the hardest part for me. We have been trying to squeeze in as much time in as we can with our grandchildren and children over the summer and my heart really aches for the separation to come. Though it is tough I also feel an overwhelming sense of peace when talking to my Father God about this, He comforts and calms and assures me that they and I am in good hands. I am fortunate to also know that we will return for a visit over the holidays (Dec 20th).
We thank you for continuing to lift us all up in prayer to be used in God’s will for His glory and purpose. That though what we are doing may seem crazy and at times too hard to “figure out”…. it really isn’t. God is faithful to those that love Him and desire to serve Him obediently. He may call you to the other side of the globe and He may be calling you to stay put and reach out to that one neighbor or coworker that is needing some love. Where we are doesn’t matter, it is what we are doing to love others like Christ loved, without expectations, without boundaries, without strings attached is what He cares about and blesses beyond our asking and understanding… We, as Jesus followers, are ALL missionaries in a very specially designed mission field. A mission field filled with needs, broken hearts….seeds waiting to be watered. God has it all prepared, we just need to go work the harvest field for His glory and He does it in, through, beyond and despite us. This is freedom, this is love.
Please keep in touch as you can through email or Facebook! We will do our best to keep connected once we establish an internet connection upon arrival in Guatemala.
We love you,
🙂 Shawn Johnson
Founder, Executive Director, Missionary
September 1, 2016
Hello family, friends, prayer warriors,
Wow, anyone else feel like summer was a beautiful blur? I do enjoy summer but Fall is my all time favorite time of year here in Minnesota and I admit I am a bit sad I will be missing the majority of it, including the leaf change & the first snow fall. Unless it decides to do so before September 29th, which is a complete possibility. Right?
I am writing to provide you with an update of what’s going on in our lives, our prayer requests and the mission calling God has us on through Recycled Lives. Many of you are curious where we stand for fundraising, how our family is doing, our home here and the purchase of the mission home in Guatemala, etc. So I thought we would give an update sooner than later!
In July, our oldest grandson Leon was diagnosed with Autism. Though we already “knew” it still felt like a punch in the heart. However, with a formal diagnosis, we have the hope that doors will be opened in obtaining services and care for him that has been next to impossible to receive without it. Our daughter Jordon & son in law Shane, moved this past weekend to the Blaine area to be closer to work for the two of them and hopefully better special education services for Leon. We believe God’s hand is in all of this for His good, and though the thought of not being “here” to help as we do so much, we know God is also working through Jordon & Shane in meeting the needs of a super sweet, smart extraordinary child. Please pray for their family and their marriage as there has been a lot of stress for them over the past month with the move, work & health problems. Please pray for solid Christian friendship connections in their new community & for their 3 young boys to settle into a new home, schedule, care providers and our going away for extended periods of time. This is the hardest piece for us as parents and grandparents.
We leave for Guatemala Sept 29 and as of yesterday, we believe we have worked out the final details in how we will complete the closing on the mission home in Guatemala the day after we arrive there (30th). Please pray for protection in travel and for the details of the mission home purchase to fall into place in accordance to God’s will & design. We will be returning home Dec 20th for the holidays and to perform the year end organizational reports, etc. before returning to Guatemala in January/February for an undetermined length of time.
We are so blessed to have Brad’s parents, Robert & Paulette, joining us for the first 2 weeks of our move. Recently our son Joshua decided he will be joining them/us as well for those 2 weeks! This is going to be a big help for us emotionally as well as with getting things situated in the new home for our first mission team from Immanuel Lutheran Church in Tower MN. They will minister from October 25 through Nov 5. This team of 6 will be led by my dear friend and the Recycled Lives’ Board of Directors’ Chairperson, Pastor Liz Cheney. We are so very excited for the plans God has with this team to minister in the San Gabriel community where we have been called to serve right now! Please pray for the Immanuel team as they prepare to serve and for the people we will minister to.
Brad & I strongly desire to host & lead couples, families and small teams for mission work, vacations with a purpose, prayer retreats, ministry retreats, etc. at the new mission home. For 2017 we are completely open! Please contact us at Recycled Lives to receive information about a stay! Guatemala is a beautiful country to see and the people are so gracious and loving. It is a wonderful place to both relax a bit for vacation if you desire as well as to serve. Many families make their living on tourism and we are happy to help in that way as well through tours learning about coffee, chocolate, textiles, cooking lessons! It’s amazing!
Another aspect of ministry that we can now provide on an ongoing basis is home construction when individuals or groups raise funds to do so! Not only does this family receive a home but Brad & I can minister directly with the family and community/neighbors while doing so, to share the love of Christ and connect sponsors here in the US with a family in Guatemala! We are excited to have our first home building challenge starting up soon by a local woman that is putting out a fundraising challenge to her coworkers to raise the funds needed for Brad & I to build a home for a family for Christmas!!! Please pray for this group of persons that have decided to do this and for more people/groups to desire to sponsor homes for construction!
Speaking of homes, currently we have decided not to sell our MN home. We have sold enough things and saved enough to pay for the first half of the $107,000 home. We will have until October 2017 to pay for the other half, this is where perhaps selling our home in the future here will come in. For now, we will be renting our home to our son Josh and a friend. We are praying for God’s discernment in what the future shall be in either renting our MN home or selling. We are taking things step by step until God tells us to leap.
In regards to missionary support fund raising, I are about 65% funded of what we expect to need each month in missionary support pledged funds. We need to raise another $1,500/month to reach our missionary sponsorship goal to have the funds we need to minister in a way we are being led by God to do so. If you haven’t done so already, and are being led to help, please consider pledging a monthly amount. Crunch time is on, but we are confident God is at work in the hearts of persons out there to help. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions or to tell others about what we are doing. I would love to set aside time to chat over the phone or meet in person.
Giving monthly can be done easily through our website www.Recycledlives.org and clicking any of the “Donate” buttons. You will be given the option their to check a box that says “Make this recurring (Monthly)”. You enter your basic contact information, a credit or debit card number and you are set! Another way can be to manually mail a check each month to our PO Box (see address below) or to sign up through your own bank to do “automatic bill pay” to Recycled Lives and they mail a check for you to our PO Box each month. If giving each month doesn’t work for you and you still wish to support us or any of the work being done through Recycled Lives, please consider sending a one time gift in and we will apply the funds to the work being done.
We are so grateful and thankful to see the hand of God moving in ways our human minds seem to think is impossible. My brain says this is crazy and doesn’t make sense and just can’t work out, yet my heart and spirit keep saying trust, trust, trust, God knows fully what He is doing (especially when I don’t so I can’t control it…right??) We covet your prayers as we prepare to leave in a few short weeks. We thank you for your love, support & prayers.
Trusting in God for all.
Love,
Brad & Shawn Johnson
Hola!
Who turned on the cold? We came home fully expecting to experience the beautiful spring weather we were hearing about…instead I am in my winter coat and scarf, thermal PJ’s and actually contemplating wearing socks to bed (gross!). Ok, I am being dramatic and perhaps my tolerance for cold has been tweaked a bit by the warmth of Guatemala. I have to admit though that I am feeling seasonally disoriented since coming home. Unless I think a moment, my body and mind are convinced it is fall. You know, the feeling you get when you are convinced it is Friday, only to realize or be reminded that it is actually Thursday or, worse yet, Wednesday? This is the daily battle in my head…reminding myself of the month and the season, not just because of the weather but my seasonal clock is off or something….it is strange. I feel like I was in a time warp.
We have been back for a little over a week. We are thankful for having some time to enjoy our adult children and grandchildren and visiting our parents and siblings when their busy schedules allow. We enjoyed my grandmother’s 82nd birthday celebration this weekend where we were able to visit with a lot of family members we haven’t seen for quite a while!
Each time I come back from Guatemala, I tend to purge the closets and cupboards of “unneeded” items and experience a greater desire to “live simply so that others may simply live”. As many of you know, I dislike shopping of any sort because it involves spending money and wasting time trying to decide if I really “NEED” the item. I am “cheap”, as some call it, when it comes to purchasing “possessions”. I call it resourceful and responsible…hahahaha! In general I try to keep items to a minimum and use them for a long long time until they wear out, no longer work or do not fit (or smell real bad in the case of footwear). When it comes to being generous with spending time or money on others, many view me as a little “crazy and overly generous”. I call it trusting and faithful, it’s God’s money & time, not mine. This time as I begin the purge process, assessing all items as being essential or not has taken on a whole new perspective. The purge will have to take on the process of:
Step 1. it must go.
Move to Step 2 only if the item is absolutely necessary
Step 2: Is it light and will it fit in a suitcase?
if No, proceed back to step 1.
Do you see where I am going with this?
For a few years Brad & I have been discussing, praying and mulling over the call to spend extended periods of time ministering in Guatemala (i am avoiding the words “move to”). I have been increasing my (and Brad’s) time & frequency in Guatemala to try meeting the call & vision we have had placed in our hearts by God. This travel/ministry set up has been working in the past, however over the last year it has become clear to Brad and I that God is calling us to do more than can be accomplished in a 4 or 6 week trip a few times a year. He is also calling us to be ministering more together as a couple through Recycled Lives.
This past trip, as we prepared to serve, we went with the specific plan to pray and listen for God’s clear will on what to do with our future and ministry together. We began the trip together with Kelly and Dave by attending a couple’s intercessional prayer retreat to assist us through prayerfully seeking God’s will and in listening for His voice among the often times deafening earthly pulls on our hearts. Following this retreat we spent the next 4 weeks continuing to pray and seeking God’s guidance (and I admit I also spent a bit of that time wrestling with God and Brad over what we were hearing). Brad and I came to the decision the last week of being in Guatemala that we should take a look at a few pieces of property that would perhaps fit the vision we were given for living & ministering in Guatemala. After just a few houses we walked into what we believe will be our new home (away from home). A complete sense of peace was felt and the Holy Spirit was clearly there. With every step of the process, from talking to the owner about financing us, our financial limitations, our need to wait to buy, etc….nothing was a problem! The owner even began to cry when we explained to her afterward that our purpose for the home would be for serving God and His glory. She obviously has been praying not just to simply sell this home that she clearly built with love but that it would be sold to the perfect persons that would love it just the same and that it would serve a beautiful purpose. The home will allow us the ability to live simplistically while also having the space and set up to host mission teams. It will allow us the ability to minister in a variety of different ways outside of mission teams including housing/hosting families on vacations with a mission, prayer groups, small group bible studies and perhaps even students. We are excited for the possibilities to serve God with this home!
Brad and I will be spending the next few months preparing for this big transition by selling possessions and doing fundraising to help acquire the funds needed to complete the purchase and furnish the home for our first mission team that is scheduled to arrive less than 3 weeks after we purchase it! We are looking forward to spending time with family and friends before we leave to complete the purchase in October. We are asking that you would please continue to lift us up in prayer in all the needs that come with taking this step of faith. Further details will come in regards to the any help our family needs in making this transition. We are laying it all at God’s feet and trusting Him no matter what (easier said than done of course!) Please contact us if God lays it on your heart to assist us in any certain way. As always, your words of encouragement are wonderful to hear!
Praising God for your answered prayers! Thanks for all of your love and support. We will keep you posted!
~Shawn Johnson
Founder and Executive Director of Recycled Lives
The following will take you to a video of Shawn giving more information about her call to become a full time missionary in Guatemala.
Helping Hearts Home 