February 2024 Newsletter (Ethan)

Greetings from Ethan Johnston, a servant of the LORD Jesus, to all who might receive this letter, may you live the abundant life Jesus promises. 

I was last in Jeffrey’s Bay when you heard from me, leading team Alabaster and serving in a school with young kids. In the month of February I had the opportunity to lead team Shekinah and serve in a garden. 

Leading team Shekinah was incredible, I saw the LORD moving and working. They were going through some hard things individually and as a team. The LORD always shows up though! I can confidently say they continued to grow in love for our LORD Jesus and for those around them. 

The garden is a place on the campus of our ministry host, which will soon be a place where one can encounter the Holy Spirit. The vision is to recreate the garden of Eden as a way to invite people from the community to come and find rest. Now obviously we don’t know exactly how the garden of Eden looked but the vision is to create a place of prayer, intercession and worship. However, in these early stages a lot of that had to do with moving big rocks to create paths, planting over 75 trees, and watering… a lot of watering. It was a ton of fun to get to be part of laying the groundwork for something that will only be done in a few years. 

In the garden we worked alongside a man named Brightwell. He is a man who knew scripture incredibly well and asked a lot of questions. It seemed as though he picked every controversial topic you could find in the Bible and always played the opposite side. He often would say “I’m not yet a Christian but I’m wanting to be one”. When asked the question “are you a believer” he responds “yes I am a believer, but I’m not yet a Christian”. At first I was confused as to why he knew so much and yet always asked the questions that he seemed he knew he would find opposition. Day after day Brightwell and I would discuss scripture back and forth. Things such as if John the Baptist was Elijah or not, things like who is greater angels or Jesus. Even to things such as if Adam and Eve were the only people alive at the time of Eden. The last day I was there I was saying goodbye to him and he thanked me for so relentlessly debating scripture with him. He also said “the Holy Spirit gave me a word for you and I’m praying it over you”. For the first time it felt like I was talking to the real Brightwell. I walked away and thought about this conversation the rest of the day and finally it hit me. This was his version of discipleship, he would pick at people and really get them to tell him exactly what they believed about a lot of different scripture as a way for them to grow in the faith. Then I self analyzed and realized I had been researching more scripture than I had been before. I thanked the LORD for my time with Brightwell and prayed a blessing over him. 

An update on my new friend Heart from my last newsletter: I got to see him just a few more times and was able to pray for him again. I also shared that we have peace because of our relationship with God. We didn’t see his salvation but we definitely helped in planting seed after seed, God WILL bring the increase. He also downloaded social media to keep up with our team so I pray that he can continue to see Christ in us. 

Our time in South Africa came to an end and we had what was one of my longest travel days ever to Guatemala. This 50 hour travel day saw us in 5 different airports and 4 different flights. In my time here I will be back with team Israel and working with an incredibly established missions organization. I’m eager for what the LORD is going to do in and through me in my time here. 

Also, my incredible girlfriend Baylee surprised me here in Guatemala! She was  here for about a week and we even got to go on a date:) She also convinced two of my closest friends to come along too! 

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