Veracruz

Hey everyone we are back home from our trip. It was a awesome experience and we learned alot. It is great when GOd reminds you how blessed we are. We had not bathrooms, showeres, beds and little options in food. We learned to like hotdog, sleeping on cement floors and using the great outdoors for our bathroom. The girls had a blast! They thought it was great that they could go bathroom out side and that they had lizards sleeping with us. The first day we drove for 15 hours to get to where we needed to be. We didn't get to sleep till about 3:00 am. All you kids did awesome! I was so proud of how they all acted. It was great to be in the presence on many Christians sharing the Love of Jesus. The kids all did a drama and dancing during our ministry outreaches. They taught how Satan hates when we do the right thing and how he is always trying to make people stumble and fall. They showed people how to except the Lord and the parents taught them how to live as a Christian. I was able to paint hours and hours of faces for all the kids. We learned alot of Spanish this trip. Only two people could understand English alittle. We had to learn things fast. Ross's millitary trainning came in handy. The bus broke down and he was able to help with them fixing the problem. You learn how to do things like they did about thirty years ago. It was not advanced in the rural cities like it is in America. It was the best way to spend Easter. Telling others that Jesus loves them and that He died for them to be forgiven of of their sins. The best though is that He didn't just die on the cross but that He rose from the dead and is sitting on the right habd if the Father. Jesus is alive!! We need to shout it from the roof tops. He will also come back for His pure and spotless bride. Praise God! Lets not let this truth only be known by some. Tell everyone that you know. Here is a quote that I read "If God had only wanted to save us. He would have taken us to heaven the moment we believed in Him. Instead, He leaves us on this earth for a reason, to proclaim the good news to all the nations of the world that Jesus is alive and has come to set the captives free! Lets devote all our heart, time and energy to His purpose. Hosanna! Hosanna! Our king is alive! Many blessing to you all. Thanks for helping this all be able to happen. Amanda

This is Ross: I just wanted to say a few things . We have been having a wonderful time here, and God is really working. I was given a quote by a man preaching at Amistad and I have to share it with those around me. It is vitally important to people that are trying to walk a Christian walk, and it has made me stop and think. I have had to put my guard up against things that come into our lives that look inocent but only lead to eternal death. This was said one sunday morning and I think that it is something that we all need to be on the watch for. I had it translated into english so that I understood it correctly, and made sure that it was accurate. Here is what he said, "I consider that the chief dangers that confront this coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without Hell." This is something that will try and creep into every Christians life and I believe that he is 100% accurate as I stand back and look at the Christian church and see how the Christians are being attacked. If we can put up our defences on these fronts, there is nothing in this life that we have to fear.

New website

We have a new website that we are going to try and keep updated. We will be able to keep all our videos, photos, etc. all together and we also will be able to monitor people coming to the website to stop people that could potentially be harmful. You will be required to sign up, but it worth it. It is simple and free to do, just do the couple things and we will be able to put photos on there that we would not be able to otherwise. For the safety of our family we are asking that you use this service for our photos and videos. Thank you very much, and God bless. the address of our new site is http://rossandmandy.hi5.com .We would love to add you as a friend also. Ross

New Video and Photos online

Finally a day that we are able to sit down for a minute and do something necessary. We have uploaded a video or 2 on our youtube account and we also have added pictures of our new (again) apartment. We are so thankful for our new apartment and we love it. God has blesses us so much with a nice place to live, and it is close to the church and school. Because of the good location we are able to teach english, and we are able to have people over to our house to share the love of Christ. People have been asking why we have came here, and it is sinking in that we are here to live. We are able to tell people about the love of Christ, and what he has done for us, and about the love that people back home have shown us. I am starting to realize the importance of faith based missionaries on the field. We can tell people about all of you back home and it adds something to our testamony that is very powerful. When people see the sacrifices that others are making for us, so that we can be here people realize that this is for real. Suddenly this God that is out there somewhere, becomes real and alive. Faith in acttion is the most powerful testamony that we all carry. This is all because of you, and we are genuinely thankful. I will talk more later, but I have to go for now. Talk later, and keep in mind that these pictures and videos are all because of you. Ross J.

video link :
http://www.youtube.com/user/heartformissions

photo link :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rossandmandy

A God Send!!

Hello everyone!! We are just reporting in on how everything is going. We had the Lord bless us with the family up staires from us. Their last name is Lucy. Senor y Senora have five children. One of their kids is at Bethany College of Missions in the states, one lives upstairs from us, one lives at home with them and I am not a hundred percent sure where the other two are. They also have a young lady that is living with them. They have been helping us so much with everything!!!!!!!!! The women are teaching me how to cook real Mexican food! YUM! They are also taking me to the markets with them to buy cheap food and clothing. It is very difficult to not be able to go and buy your own things because you don't understand the writing, directions how to cook, language and directions of the markets(they move). It will all come with time! Them taking me to the markets is a huge blessing becausw then I will not get riped of as often anymore with a local with me. We are able to go to Wal-Mart about two miles away but it much, much, much more expensive to go there. It is a blessing all around. Their two daughters also are very good with English. They have been translating for us for many things. Example when someone call our house phone, you don't change the phone into your name it is in the original owners name. It is because it is so hard to change over. We get many calls for people we do not know and we don't understand them. Itis very hard to understand a foreign language over the phone. They have helped us with many other items also. I could go on and on about their kindness to us but I would be writting all night. I truly mean that. They have adopted us into the family. This is very nice for all of us. THey are alot like my family and they help with missing everyone back home! On a end note please pray for two women and three children that we where able to share the love of Jesus with. Pray that the Holy Spirit would reveive Himself to them and their kids in might ways. GOd is so good. I have come to believe that it is completely impossible for even a single lost person in the world to come to know Jesus unless a great miracle takes place. Lets be in prayer for a miracle for them!!!!! Many blessing Mandy

Class's Beginning

Well, we are starting to get busy now. We are offcially enrolled in UNAM (largest college in the Americas). So much for small town Trenton and Watford City schools. You can imagen what kind of zoo it is trying to get to class every morning. We are offically taking the metro(subway) to class everyday and walking about 4 miles total every day. We are learning a lot. We were able to meet some neat Christians that are here in Mexico City doing the same thing that we are doing, preaching the gospel to the Mexican People. There are no other Americans in our classes and everyone else can barely speak english, so it makes it interresting. The other students in our class are litterly from every land continunt in the world. We are also starting to teach english. We have someone coming up to our apartement in the afternoon after we get down with our school. Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare for the missions trip to Veracrus next week. We have just recently found out that school after 9th grade is not required and students are not forced to obey the rules like they are in America. If a child is in school it is because they want to be there and they want to better there lives. It is an excellent ministry opportunity and it also gets us involved in local one on one ministry. We also are praying about assisting in starting up what we in America call youth group for the church. We recently found out that the youth group in the church in actually not a youth group but a young people group for people 18 to 30 years old. We had been praying about working with the youth but every day that we tried something happened and we were not able to make it. There were things that just happened that were unavoidable. We now know that there is nothing for the 12 to 18 year olds, however, there have been people praying that something would be started for them. We have been in contact with local people that have a heart for youth and that also have wanted to start something. We are just praying now for a little while to make sure that this would be the right thing. We do not want to try and start something without God's hand in it and also by ourselves. We are willing to put all our effort into trying to help start something as long as the locals are BESIDE us not BEHIND us. We have some experience but we are not the sole leaders. We believe that in order for it to effective it must be run by locals. Plese join us in prayer as we seek the face of God for the next steps in our lives. We hope everyone has a great Easter in celebrating our Lords resurrection. We will be in Veracruz during this holiday, this very special holy week. Please be in prayer for open hearts for many to hear the TRUTH and saftey of our whole team. May the Lord lead your prayers. Many Blessings to you and your families. Ross and Amanda Johnston

Fun weekend planned

Hello again, we have a busy weekend ahead of us. Friday we are going to the markets to find a clay vase. Last Sunday the Lord gave me (Amanda) a vision during worship. He showed me how I used to be and how He fixed all the broken pieces in my life. He showed this to me through a clay vase that had butterflies on it and He gave we words to write on it. I will put a picture on this blog account soon. Also I have a womens conference Friday night. This will be all in Spanish so I hope to understand some of it and am able to minister and to minister to others also. Saturday we are having a large group of people over to our apartment to have lunch and hang out. Sunday we get to go to church, it is so wonderful. Even thought we can`t understand all of it, the Holy Spirit is so heavy and present that we always get minister to in some way. He has been teaching us thankfulness. We have much to be thankful for. We have also been blessed to start to teach one of our good friends English on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have also been asked to teach English to high school students at our home. What a AMAZING ministry opportunity. Please be in prayer with us that this ministry will flourish. We are also still in prayer about something that the Lord has put in both of our lives. We will be talking with the right connections within about a 3 week time span. Please lift our family up in prayer when you think of us. We are so amazingly thankful for the prayer and finacial support you have given us. Please email us is you are not on our mailing list and also we don`t have any emails so we need to have you email us so we can send monthly emails to you and your families. Have to run, O bye the ways we start UNAM University on Moday for our spanish classes. Later Amanda P.S. I have the most AWESOME husband in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!

We are moved in!

We are into our new and final apartment. We tried to go to a girl in Alyssa class's birthday this weekend but MAndy and Zoe got very, very car sick. We drove 4 miles with another parent and it took about three hours to get home the traffic was so bad. We ended up having to turn around and not got to the party because we where both so sick. This was wicked crazy traffic. I hope to never be in again. We are very excited to have a home again. God has been so graces to us. The girls have a room they share now and are loving it. We also have beds for three extra people in our apartment so if anyone wants to come and visit us we have room. To help with this decistion for you the food is amazing down here. We are going to be a little larger than when we left. WE are meeting so many new wonderful friends. We already are having friends over we hang out and play games and visit with each other. We feel so at home. We also have a lawer in the church that specialies in immigration working on getting us to be able to stay here a year without leaving the country every 6 months. If God wills maybe to live here longer. Please be in prayer for us. We feel the Lord birthing somethings in our hearts about why we are here. Please pray that we would hear His voice clearly and that we would not add anything that the Lord doesn't want us to. This is His ministry not ours. The girls are doing very well they feel very at home. It really helps having a home of our own. Better go, we should be getting internet in out apartment by Friday. We will be able to keep up more often. Please send us your email addresses so we can send a bi-monthly newsletter by email to you. Send it to rossandmandy@yahoo.com Blessings Amanda