Dear Friends and Family,
We apologize for the long silence since our last Ministry Update. It’s not because we’ve been snoozing on the job, that’s for sure!

We’d like to ask prayer for a very important retreat taking place this weekend.

Beginning Friday, we will be helping at a retreat called No Ordinary Weekend. This evangelistic event is organized by local businessmen and women who have a desire to see people they know come to a clear understanding of the gospel.

For the second year in a row they have sponsored friends, family members, employees and business associates to attend a camp with their families, enjoying lots of fun activities and having some time away and, most importantly, to hear the Bible taught clearly so that by the time they leave, they understand the central message of the Bible. Last year we had about 90-100 adults. This year we are expecting around 65 adults. The children (roughly 50 of them) will be in a separate program during the teaching time and will be taught through GoodSeed’s childrens’ book, The Lamb.

Helping with the teaching is where Troy and I are involved. I will be a reader for the Scripture verses and Troy will be looking after sound/powerpoint/etc.

We’re very excited to see what the Lord will do through the lives of the attendees. Many who are coming are not believers; some who are coming are very shaky in their faith; others desire to simply understand a clear gospel.

Troy and I know several individuals who are coming whose salvation we’ve been praying about for many years. Will you pray that many will come to know the Lord? That the Holy Spirit will convict and illuminate the Scriptures for those who are in spiritual darkness? And that many others will be strengthened and equipped in their faith?

As a family and a ministry, we have increasingly felt the invisible spiritual battle going on. We have rarely had more “go wrong” in a short space of time than it has in the last several weeks. Here’s a few examples:

• The house where all the books for this coming weekend were stored had a water leak right over top of the boxes of materials, destroying a good percentage of them. Thankfully, we’ve been able to get the materials replaced, though the damage to the basement has been distraction and concern.
• Personally, we’ve had unexpected repairs we’ve been doing to our main bathroom throughout January. Then we became aware that our fridge is failing. Then our furnace died, right in the middle of the -30C (-22F) cold snap we’re having. (We’re so thankful for a fireplace to keep us warm!)
• Our heating system in our GoodSeed office also went on the fritz for over a week due to some design problems, during the same cold snap. Up till a couple days ago, we were sitting in there working with winter coats on and space heaters at our feet.
• We’ve had sickness, appointments, etc which are tiring and distracting.
• We’ve had vehicle issues.

All these things have the potential of discouraging us, distracting us from our ministry, causing us to focus more on these temporal things, than on praying about and working towards eternal things. While we don’t feel discouraged, we have felt distracted!
Would you pray for us? We sure feel like we need it!

Thank you for standing with us and partnering with us in many ways, including prayer!

Naomi Johnstone, for the whole family