Spring in Full Swing - March Update!

 Hello friends, family, brothers and sisters in the faith, may the God of all glory grant you grace, peace and all the more increasing joy. We hope this letter finds you well!

    The past month has absolutely flown by for us! Spring is in full swing, which, for us, means that the World Race is entering its busiest administrative season, and just as spring always tends to breathe some fresh life into our physical bodies, we’re focusing more intentionally on the things that bring us spiritual life as well! In light of this, we each took a short trip to visit dear friends, Ethan heading to Nicaragua to spend time with his mentor, and Baylee traveling north to see her friend in Michigan! In this last month in particular, we’ve sensed the Lord turning our focus outward - whether that be creating or joining new spaces for friendships in our community and church, deeper involvement in our various programs at World Race, and even to the greater global work of Christ as we prepare for our busiest seasons of mobilizing missionaries, some of whom are dear friends of ours. We are deeply touched by each of your choices to be involved in our lives, and we pray you’re blessed by this small snippet of our last month!

    Ethan’s trip to Nicaragua started in a rather strange way during his layover at the Miami airport. While waiting to board, 50 people had been turned away from the flight after a “suspicious bag” had been discovered on his end of the airport. He was among the last 5 people who could be reassigned a flight to Nicaragua - praising God for His protection in getting Ethan there safely! His time in Nicaragua was a blessing in many ways, as he was able to get poured into by his mentor, who will soon be leaving the US to do long term missions in the Middle East. They spent their time together playing soccer with local kids, and they, through the Holy Spirit, had the opportunity to talk to the kids about the gospel & his mentor gave them Spanish copies of the gospel of John! They also visited a ministry in Granada that we spent 3 months with in 2022! To Ethan’s surprise, all of the members of the ministry remembered him by name, and they were so encouraged to see that God had healed his arm since the last time they had seen him! We would ask that you take a moment to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are staffing this ministry, as they are grieving the recent loss of one of their closest team members. 

    One of the highlights of Ethan’s trip was a conversation he had with a gentleman on his flight back home. A conversation was sparked almost immediately, and as they shared about their lives, Ethan shared that he was visiting his mentor, and that he’s a missionary. The man was so curious about Christianity, and as Ethan shared more of his testimony and the Gospel with him, he exclaimed, “what kind of Christianity is this?!”. Ethan replied, “it’s the kind where we follow Jesus - doing what He did!”. We pray that this man will remain curious and will ultimately come to know Christ personally as his Lord and Father! 

    Back in Gainesville at Adventures in Missions, Baylee had the opportunity to teach our discipleship students on our campus on prayer and intercession! By the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, the students were activated in praying through the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:7-14. They were stretched in their boldness, being encouraged to intercede for their roommates, community, the US, and the world! She is also currently preparing missionaries to be mobilized internationally over the summer to Spain and Guatemala!

This past month, God has been reminding and teaching me (Baylee) about the value and comfort found in friendship, particularly in friendship with Him, but also in friendship with others. Though earthly friendships can mirror the kind of friendship we have available to us in Christ, no other friendship is quite like His. John 15:16 tells us that “[we] did not choose [Him], but [He] chose us” - what a wonderful foundation for a friendship to be built upon! This verse as well as the narrative of the cross communicates to us that Jesus would go to any length, even to death, to show how deeply He longs for real, intimate relationship and friendship with us. When I think about my most precious earthly friendships, I’m reminded that building friendship takes time, risk, and trust. At some point in the process of building a friendship, both parties take a risk - whether it involves emotional vulnerability, enduring a tough circumstance together, or telling each other hard news. Through taking those risks, we build trust over time, and eventually, the risks don’t feel nearly as scary because we’ve grown to love one another. Recently, the Lord has been reminding me of these things as I seek to build deeper friendship with Him. He has already chosen us - will we choose Him in return? Will we take risks for the sake of building trust with Him? Will we allow ourselves to be vulnerable in the challenges and delights of building a new friendship? We have all of eternity to grow in friendship with Jesus - is anything else more worthwhile?

In light of all of this, we’d love to request some specific prayer!

• Pray that we would grow in our devotion to seeking first the Kingdom of God & His righteousness!

• Ethan will have the opportunity to teach our students in our discipleship program next week - prayer for clear direction from the Holy Spirit & for open hearts to receive what God is speaking!

• Pray for our teams coming to train & be sent out this summer & for our staff as we prepare for them! We’re praying that they would arrive with soft hearts, a hunger to know the Lord more deeply, and that they’d be ready to grow in boldness in making disciples of all nations!

• We’re feeling God leading us to invest more deeply in our church community, & we would love prayer for that process to continue as we build roots in Gainesville!

    We love you all so very much & are truly so grateful for your investment in us!!! God is so gracious! If you feel led to intentionally support us through prayer or financially, please reach out to us at ethanandbayleejohnston@gmail.com! We’d love to talk through what that could look like! We’re praising God for all of the people who commit to pray for us when we send specific requests and for all those who pray when they think of us!! The Lord has been so gracious to us in providing faithful and generous partners to financially support us as well - we are currently 67% of the way to our monthly support goal!! Thank you Lord & thank you to our incredible support team!!!!

Please feel free to send us your prayer requests, we’d love to pray for you as well! Love you all so much!

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” - 1 Peter 2:9-10

Much love, 

Ethan & Baylee