Troy & Naomi Johnstone

...for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:26-28

DEAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS,
The verse above has held very deep meaning for us these last few months. As we have sought to trust the Lord in our circumstances, we have gained a deeper appreciation for the Comforter and Interceder the Lord has given us.

BASEMENT PROJECT
As we shared in our last prayer letter, we are hoping to finish a part of our basement to make room for the newest little Johnstone. You responded with great generosity. We are happy to tell you that we’ve had enough funds come in to enable us to complete the first phase (enclosing the base­ment for an office/guest room) of this project. Thank you so much for enabling us in this area. We are hoping to have it com­pleted by the end of November, when a work team from Olds, AB plans to come to assist us.

NAOMI’S PREGNANCY
We also shared with you some serious complications Naomi had encountered in her pregnancy. Considering the risks associated with the pregnancy, we are amazed and excited to tell you that it’s progressing well. Our moms have been such a help, taking turns staying with us to help out with Ellie and around the house. Naomi is now 7 months along, due December 25. When Naomi first had the placental abruption, the haematoma covered an area of 15 cm. This was a huge abruption according to our doctor and the odds of the pregnancy continuing to where it is now were not good. According to the latest ultrasound, the area of the haematoma has shrunk to 2 cm! What a huge answer to prayer! In fact, Naomi was told at her most recent appointment that she can feel free to resume normal levels of activity as she’s able. We are very thankful to the Lord for this and grateful to you who have prayed so faithfully with us.
The next Johnstone

TEACHING FAITHFUL MEN & WOMEN TO TEACH OTHERS ALSO
The Lord has also certainly answered our prayers regarding a good class for this year. We currently have 46 students and they seem eager to learn, grow and minister.

Troy had the opportunity once again to help teach a week of classes to prepare them to clearly share their faith. He and John Cross taught through By This Name, a book GoodSeed is developing to communicate the Gospel in our post-modern era.

[for a full report on this event, please click here]

Troy helping with the teaching.

The group just completed their week of Open Air Evangelism in Toronto and Hamilton. They re­turned with many stories of what they learned and how the Lord enabled them to speak with so many about their faith. More than 35 adults and children expressed a desire to trust Christ as their Savior, for which we thank the Lord.

Last weekend, our students attended our annual Youth Missions Ex­travaganza, a day dedicated to challenging young people to consider what their role may be in reaching others for Christ. Seventeen of our students expressed a desire to be involved in missions in some capacity. We look forward to seeing what the Lord will do in their lives over the coming year!

Naomi & Ellie out for a walk.
Ellie’s Corner: Ellie continues to grow and learn new things daily. We talk to her often about the coming baby and how she’ll be a big sister, however she’s a bit young to understand. Ellie is still a very laid-back, cheerful girl. She loves to find a cloth and “clean” around the house. Mommy hopes this trend continues. She has loved having her grandmas around. She also enjoys being around the students, though she is a bit shy. They seem to enjoy her too—we’ve had many offers to babysit.


Thank you for your prayers and support.

Troy,Naomi, Ellie & ??? Johnstone

[Click here to download PDF version]

Labels: Ministry Update, Prayer Letter

_____________________________________________

This weekend there were a number of large explosions in the woods not far from our house caused by high-grade military explosives. If it hadn't been so cold, you might have thought it was lightning that occasionally caused our windows to rattle.. but it was actually just artillery and mortar fire raining down on the country side.

We are about 11 km (7 miles) from the Meaford Tank Range, and sometimes the weekend warriors are out cruising in their tanks or firing off some artillery shells. Transport aircraft will sometimes fly overhead and drop flares at night over the training area. Not the kind of place you would want to trespass... you never know what you might step on..



Two years ago we had a student who was in the reserves and every few weeks he would have to travel to the base to keep up on his explosive skills. While the guys in the dorm were playing video games about this kind of stuff, he was going and firing the real deal.

So if you are ever visiting us here at Word of Life and you hear a deep rumble, the floor shakes and the windows rattle a bit, don't worry. Either its just me hungry for pizza, or its large explosions nearby.

Labels: ramblings

_____________________________________________

On Thursday and Friday we had our 17th Campus Days at the Word of Life Bible Institute. We had 8 young people come to check out the classes and other activities. On Thursday night we have an introductory meeting, pizza (of course we have pizza, I organize the event!), and some games with our students. I got to pick out the prizes too. Here is Marty holding up his classy prize.. a self-inflating Whoopie Cushion.


Our students were great. They had a lot of fun (and finished the pizza too) and were very welcoming to our guests.

Crystal and Missy showing off their prizes. Crystal was the winner of one game, and Missy was voted the worst at another game, so we gave her a prize too.

After another meeting and getting to sit in our classes and a chapel, four of our visitors filled out applications to come to the BI!

Kara finally gets on the Johnstone Blog

We have three more Campus Days this year. These are great events for young people to get challenged to study God's Word and catch the heartbeat of our Bible Institute.

Labels: Ministry Update

_____________________________________________

Since it has been a while and the aunts are starting to suffer withdrawal symptoms..


Here are a couple of pictures of Ellie from Thanksgiving weekend, when it was much warmer than it is now.

Ellie playing in her sand box.

Grandma J showing Ellie a praying mantis. Yes, my mom is actually holding the mantis in her hand!

Labels: Ellie

_____________________________________________

Close up photos of bees collecting nectar, mantids looking for prey, and a spider that found some.
(22 images added October 2006)

Labels: Photography

_____________________________________________

We have pets. About thirty-six of them. Thankfully they don't shed, don't disturb the neighbors, or get into your garbage. So far nobody has been allergic to them. They have been proven to lower blood pressure. And, with an automatic feeder, you can leave them alone for a couple of weeks. But the very best thing of all is that you can stare at them while your wife watches a chick flick.

I have had fish as pets since I was about seven, and at one point I actually had 7 fish tanks. Geeky? Maybe, but what was a 14 year old to do when the only video game out there is Pong? Well, besides reading comic books that is..

Anyway, I really enjoy my wet pets, and Ellie likes the "ish" too. They are quite relaxing to watch as they swim around. Even the variety and beauty of fish that God created amazes me.

I keep my fish in a 35 gallon tank I received as a teenager. The rule of thumb is one inch of fish for every gallon of water. We have:

12 Neon Tetras (the small bright blue and red ones)
7 Fancy Guppies (the rabbits of the seas. Will breed like crazy if you let them)
4 Cherry Barbs
2 Rosy Barbs (the cows)
2 Angel Fish (1 black and 1 white. With a black background you usually only see one)
2 Tri-colour Sharks (large silvery fish, biggest cowards of the tank.)
2 Black Tetras (these guys were among the first I bought when we moved here. They are 5 years old!)
2 Gold Barbs
1 Plecostomus (sucker fish - biggest and weirdest looking one in the tank)
1 Skunk Loach (named Freedie by B-rad. Hardly ever see him as he is always hiding. Eats snails)

So.. that is a total of 35 fish.. probably about 54 total inches of fish.. way over the limit. Hope the Games Warden doesn't come by..

[Click a thumbnail to see a larger image]

Labels: ramblings

_____________________________________________

Dear Friends and Family,

We want to give you a long overdue update of the happenings with Naomi's pregnancy, as well as the status of our Basement Project.

Naomi's pregnancy is moving along well. She's almost to the 32-week mark, a major milestone in this pregnancy. We are so thankful to the Lord. Her obstetrician told her that when the abruption initially occurred, the size of the haematoma was 15 cm (a "huge abruption", according to her). Now, it covers about 2 cm. What an amazing answer to prayer! Naomi is now able to be back under the full care of the midwife we had originally hoped could oversee this pregnancy and delivery. Naomi's midwife feels that Naomi can be free to go back to more normal levels of activity - a huge blessing! At this point, Naomi's stamina and energy levels are pretty low from so many months of limited activity, so we'd appreciate your prayers as she tries to increase her activity level in keeping with what her body is able to do.

We are also very encouraged with the status of our Basement Project. We have sufficient funds to go ahead on Phase One of the renovation. Many thanks to those of you who gave generously to us for the completion of this project. We are pulling together all the details for a work team to come from Olds, AB, and at this point, hope to have the project completed by the end of November. We're very excited about this and look forward to seeing it completed.

Once again, thank you all for your continued prayers and support. We trust you are as encouraged by these answers to prayer as we are!

Naomi, for us all.

Labels: Ministry Update

_____________________________________________

Ellie's Concise Dictionary has been expanded to include some new terms.

Duck duck - anything with feathers
circle - circle
bawby - baby
boo - Winnie the Pooh
igga - Pooh's friend Piglet
Googo - Google (!)
Waa waa - either in a glass, the tub, or a picture of the ocean
papa - grandpa, Naomi's dad
wow! - wow!
oooooh - moment of comprehension (as in "It's bath time!" "Oooh!" then running for the tub)

Other Sounds:
bzzzzzzzzz - bugs of all types
*sqweek* - Sound made whenever Ellie sees the Cheat
ROAWR - lions, tigers, and Care-Bears, oh my!
wheoeoo - elephant
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh - monkeys
smacking of her lips for a rabbit

Labels: Ellie

_____________________________________________

An old chimney.

Reflections

Labels: Photography

_____________________________________________

This week the Word of Life Hockey league started the regular season. Competition is expected to be especially fierce as there are only two teams in the league. The Word of Life Warriors squared off against the Bible Institute Bullies for the first match. Prior to the game, a special ceremony was conducted to retire the jersey of Troy Johnstone, number 42.
Johnstone's 1979 rookie photo

Johnstone, retired from hockey in '79, was on hand to commemorate the event as his jersey was hoisted and the players recognized his contributions to (minor) hockey.





Also on hand were the ladies of Bible Institute vocal group, Testify, to sing the national anthem.


With the help of his walker, Johnstone was able to make to make it to center "ice" for the ceremonial dropping of the "puck".



The BI Bullies went on to beat the WOL Warriors 8 to 4 in the season opener, but the Warriors came back in the next night and won with an impressive lead. The final score of that game was 9-3.

_____________________________________________

Good ol' Woodford never fails to disappoint. If there is a slight chance of flurries in the area, it is a definite for here. Today marks our first snowfall of the Fall. I could hear students outside getting excited about it and running around after classes were over.


Of course my little sister calls us up to tell us that it is 18 C down in balmy New Brunswick..

_____________________________________________

We have been blessed a couple of nice warm fall days over the Thanksgiving weekend. We went for a walk and Naomi got a rare photo of me in front of the lens. And with Ellie!

[Click an image to see a larger one, move your mouse over it to click next or previous]

Labels: Ellie

_____________________________________________

I don't know why I can't seem to sleep in anymore. The days that my alarm is set I can hit the snooze button five times before getting up. On days that I don't have to get up I wake up about 10 minutes before my alarm would normally go off.. and I am wide awake! Irony is annoying.

Anyway.. I didn't sleep in on Saturday morning of Thanksgivings Day weekend, and I decided that I would take off for a few hours to see some of the sights of a cold Fall morning in Ontario.


The fall colours this year are not very vibrant. I think it is because it has been warmer and we only had our first frost two nights ago. It is still beautiful, but we don't see as many reds as in previous years.

Ever wonder why leaves change colour?

Labels: Photography

_____________________________________________

This morning I found myself in the shower with no soap. All I could find was this bottle of Secret Cottage: Sweet Summer Aloe & Cucumber Moisturizing Body Wash [Shampooing Hydratant]. My wife happened by and when I explained that there was no soap, she handed me a bottle of Mango Splash [with Moisturizing Cocoa Butter] Hydrating Body Wash.

Neither of these are soap. It is something called a "body wash" (which I think is marketing speak for things that used to be soap). Why is everything now some type of salad soap? If I wanted to smell like fruits or vegetables, I'd go and roll around in the produce aisle at the store.

And when you are in the shower, do you really need to be hydrated or made more moist?

Can you really get clean with this stuff? Can't I just get a good ol' industrial human degreaser? Whatever happened to soap?

Labels: ramblings

_____________________________________________

A facinating map showing 5,000 years of history ofwar and land domination in the Middle East. Just about every major empire has overrun and occupied Israel at some point, yet the people, their culture, their identity, their religion remain.





He  makes the nations great, then destroys them;
He  enlarges the nations, then leads them away.

Job 12:23

Courtesy Maps of War

_____________________________________________

While Naomi's parents were here we had an early thanksgiving this past weekend. Missy, a friend from Alberta who is here as a student this year, joined our family.

Ellie was so hungry she was sucking the stains of previous meals from her bib as an appetizer. I tried that with the table cloth, but Naomi told me not to do that with company present.

_____________________________________________

Last week Typhoon Xangsane passed over the Philippines and caused lots of damage across the country. One of the areas hit was the Word of Life Philippines camp and Bible Institute in the northern part of the country. Along with the high winds came lots of rain, causing a local river to overflow more than 30 feet and flooded much of the campus, including several homes. Thankfully, none of the staff or the 95 campers there that week were hurt.
Flood damage in a classroom

This is a very busy campus with a Bible school and a camp that has over 20,000 young people a year! That is a lot of kids getting the opportunity to have fun and hear the Gospel. Please pray for the staff as they start the massive project of cleaning up and rebuilding.

More info and pictures can be found on the WOL International web site as well as a way to make donations online.

_____________________________________________

The nice weather during the day gave way to some small but intense thunder storms in the evening. The lights flickered many times and finally went out at 9:00 PM.

This gave us a very quiet time for our last night together. We sat in the dark for awhile watching the storm go by (and me trying to take pictures through the rain streaked window) and then chatted for a another hour or so. We had a good time talking in the candle light.

The electricity finally came on again at 4:30 AM.

_____________________________________________

Naomi's parents will be leaving on Tuesday. Grandma has been here for the last six weeks, and "Papa" (as Ellie calls him) has been with us 2.5 weeks. We have had many good times together and Ellie is going to be quite sad when they leave.. but probably not as sad as her grandparents are at leaving!

The weather was really nice today and they took Ellie out for a walk after lunch.

Labels: Ellie

_____________________________________________

Tonight I found an interesting slideshow that shows the relative size of the earth and other planets to progressively larger objects.

When you think of the Earth, it just seems incredibly huge, yet it as nothing compared to the Sun, yet that is as nothing compared to a giant star like Rigel, yet that is as nothing compared to a supergiant star like Antares, yet that is as nothing compared to VV Cephei, yet that is as nothing compared to our Milky Way Galaxy, yet that is as nothing compared to a cluster or supercluster of galaxies, yet that is as nothing compared to the Universe, yet that is nothing compared to God!

View the slideshow

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. Psalms 19:1,2

You are small Part I

Labels: astronomy, ramblings

_____________________________________________