Johnson Updates

Seth Danger Johnson! We are grandparents!

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 04:46:11 +0800

David and Leah have officially begun the challenging and rewarding responsibility of parenting. Beckie is in Atlanta to celebrate with them and to help for about four more weeks.

David writes:

Seth was born this morning at 9:27 AM.

He weighed 7 lbs 13.8 oz and was 19.5 inches tall. Bigger than we thought he'd be. Leah started having contractions at 1:45 AM and so had just under an 8 hour labor.

Leah and Seth are both healthy and happy and we want to thank everyone for your prayers. The doctors tell us we'll be in the hospital until Wednesday morning.

I've taken a few pictures so far for all of you wanting to know what he looks like.  He was really cute even moments after he was born.

I posted a few pictures to a gallery page so you can see him:
http://gallery.me.com/davidandleah#100149

Heaven is Brighter Today!

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:20:48 +0800

Aimee Powell died today in a car crash. I can’t describe in the short space here what a wonderful girl Aimee was. Her sparkling eyes and smile brightened the spirit of those around her. (watch the news report)

She grew up here in Taiwan and attended Morrison along with her sister and two brothers. Her oldest brother, Trevor, graduated with David and returned to Taiwan to work with me for a couple of years. Her parents are missionaries with SEND. I have admired the Powell family for all the years I have known them.

She was currently teaching 4th grade at a Christian school in North Carolina.

I just remembered a poem on how to live life. It is called “The Dash” by Linda Ellis. It is worth reading. It talks about how the dash between your birth and death represents your life and how it counted. It ends with “Would you be proud of ... how you spent your dash?”. It is a great poem and it hangs in a frame in our entry. Aimee spent her “dash” very well and she will be missed here by so many people.

Pray for Aimee’s parents, Scott and Leslie, and her brothers and sister, Trevor, Daniel and Allison.

Men of Honor Class Completed for this Year

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:22:39 +0800

Today was the last session for this year of Morrison’s men of honor Bible class. They completed their oral final on Wednesday. It was a great experience for them as they defended the portfolio they created before a panel of three men. The portfolio included the main points and their refection on all the material we covered in class including their philosophy of dating. The idea of the portfolio was for them to create something that would be interesting and useful to their teenage son one day. (Pictures)

The class included:
• Rejecting passivity
• Accepting and taking responsibility
• Leading courageously
• Building a legacy
• Delayed gratification to seek a greater reward
• Sex, Dating, and Relating
• Do Hard Things
• Principals of financial peace

The Gospel With Christmas Cookies

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:02:00 +0800

Our neighbors send their first grade daughter to a chinese public school. We went along to help as they told the Christmas story and shared the gospel using Christmas cookies in two first grade classes. Each student then decorated five cookies to take home along with a gift. The gift included a gospel coloring book and a bilingual explanation of the gospel using the cookies.

We had a great time and so did the kids.
Check out the pictures!

Christmas Project and Nativity Outreach

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:52:09 +0800

We just got back from a new Nativity “Market” Morrison students put together for the Chinese community. They dressed up to be all the Nativity characters. They even had 3 real donkeys. There were a dozen outdoor tents each with something for kids to do like making Christmas cookie’s, cooking chicken and bread dough on a stick over a fire, watching an animated movie of the story of Christmas, making a gospel bracelet, and several others. Check out the pictures!

Typhoons in both the Philippines and Taiwan, brought with them floods displacing hundreds of thousands of people this past year. The Morrison Christmas Project raised over 875,000NT (about $30,000) to serve those victims through two different ministries.

Kids International Ministries (Philippines) serve flood victims in six different locations. The Christmas Project in partnership with the Catholic Dioceses in Taichung raised funds to pack ONE large container with rice, vitamins and other relief aid which is already on its way to Manila.

The Chinese Christian Relief Association, CCRA, is assisting local villages to restore their water supply systems which were destroyed by a typhoon last August. Working together, CCRA and the villagers will be involved in reconstruction planning, identifying new water sources, planning pipeline routes and executing the plan. The Christmas Project is providing the needed funds for the reconstruction of a water system for the Yi-La Tribe in Southern Taiwan, providing its people with clean drinking water for years to come. Check out the pictures from the concluding assembly!