Greetings from London!

Last night we finished up our London TERM seminar where we had between 30 and 45 people in attendance. Some people were not able to be at all the sessions so the numbers fluctuated somewhat over the three days and 20+ hours of teaching. In addition to people from the hosting church, there were around 20 missionaries with a couple different mission agencies who had come for the Gospel training. All told, there were people from every continent except Antarctica here at this particular conference. We are very encouraged by the response and testimonies about the impact of the teaching. Stay tuned: I was able to get video testimonies from a number of people that I will be putting up on the GoodSeed website in the near future.

We also had a very profitable time in Edinburgh, Scotland, last weekend. While there we were able to interview a family that used The Lamb to help teach their children when they were younger. The children and the parents all shared about how this little picture book was a blessing to both the children and the parents. This video too will be up on the website in the weeks to come.

Our team will now be splitting up. The rest of the team travels to Cork, Ireland where they will be conducting another seminar. I was not scheduled to go on that part of the trip, so instead of flying home today I will be taking a few days vacation and ‘hiring’ (renting) a car to tour southwest England. I’m looking forward to having a few days to cruise around and do some photography, but I do wish they didn’t drive on the left side of the road here.

Naomi and the girls are doing well at home. Naomi has been trying to keep things busy in my absence and we are looking forward to May 14 when we are all back together as a family

Please pray for:
Safety for me and the team as we travel
Opportunities to share the Gospel with people I meet
The TERM seminar being taught next week
Naomi and the girls while I am away.

Thanks and God Bless.

Troy

P.S. Check our blog and my photography page for photos from London and other parts of the United Kingdom.

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April and May are very busy months for us around GoodSeed. This past weekend I was involved in representing GoodSeed at a home school conference in Red Deer and had many opportunities to share about our resources for clearly communicating the Gospel. Other events coming up:

April 17-19 :: TERM Seminar – These seminars are for teaching others how to use GS resources in their own ministries. We often have pastors, missionaries, and lay leaders from churches come to learn more about how to share the Gospel. I will be involved in the teaching and helping set up the sessions. This is the first of four that I will be helping with this year. More info: www.goodseed.com/seminar.aspx

April 25-26 :: Last Days Bible Conference – John Cross will be discussing evangelism as one of the three speakers at this two-day Bible conference in Calgary. I have been heavily involved in the creation of the presentations with photography to help communicate Biblical truths. During the conference, I will also be helping video tape the sessions and it will eventually be made into one of our GoodSeed DVDs.

April 27-May 14 :: UK trip – Along with some coworkers, I will be traveling to the UK to help teach another TERM seminar in London. I will also be going up to Edinburgh, Scotland, where I will be interviewing a few people on video. We will be capturing their stories of how they are using GoodSeed resources to share the Gospel and eventually publishing these videos to our website. After these two events, I will be taking a few days vacation to cruise around southern UK. I have never been over there so I am looking forward to getting some photography of some different areas.

Please pray for

• our safety and spiritual impact during all these events
• Naomi and the kids during my time away

It’s amazing how good you feel when you’re miserable, when you were just recently really miserable.

I have had a rather miserable week, physically at least. Last Tuesday I started to have a slight cough, which overnight turned into a high fever and headache that lasted for another six days. Ellie came down with it too after a few days so we went to the walk-in clinic to see a doctor. She didn’t think it was anything serious, but 5:00AM Sunday morning Ellie’s temperature was 40C (105F) and she was diagnosed with strep throat at the emergency ward. I went in later and was diagnosed too. Adelaine came down with it later that day and we are all now on penicillin. Now I am just dealing with a cold that I picked up as a result of not getting much sleep for a week.. but that feels much better relative to how I was a few days ago. Very thankful to be feeling better and see the girls doing better too.

In other news, we have changed our housing plans in the last few days. We had made arrangements for an apartment here in town and were to take possession of it this week. It was going to be a small, middle apartment in a complex without a yard for the kids. However, the Lord has provided a much better solution for us. A local family has made us a generous offer to use an old house of theirs. This is still a temporary solution for up to two years that will give us more time to save up and look for our own house. This will also give the girls an opportunity to have a yard to play in outside and some horses to watch! So with this change we now plan to move in June. The Lord continues to provide for and watch over us.

Ellie’s third birthday is tomorrow, March 12. We had planned to have a big shared birthday with friends whose son is also turning three this week, but the sickness in our household forced us to cancel that. So instead we will just have a small family party. We are so thankful for our two wonderful daughters!

Dear friends,
I recently returned from a one week retreat for our Creative Management Team as we brainstormed and created new tools for the ministry. We focused on creating materials for our One in Sixty partnership development program, including an informational brochure, web site, and videos explaining what it means to partner with a GoodSeed missionary. You can see some of the results of our efforts at www.OneInSixty.com

Operating one of the cameras during a video shoot

Part of my role was helping with the shooting and editing of the videos one the site. I am trying to learn more about this as I will be producing many more videos like the ones on the site in a few months.

We have also defined some more roles for me at GoodSeed. In addition to creating teaching videos, I will be serving as Canadian Marketing Coordinator and Conference Coordinator. Please pray for continued wisdom as we try to share our ministry with people across the country.

Christmas is fast approaching and we are looking forward to spending time together as a family. May God bless you and yours this Christmas!

Troy & Naomi Johnstone

PS: Adelaine turns one year old on December 28. We are so thankful for our wonderful little girl whom the doctors told us would likely not even be born.

I am currently in Radium, BC for six days of meetings with a number of my GoodSeed coworkers from Canada and the US. Why Radium? It is is the mid-way point (four hours drive) from both of our offices. A friend of the ministry donates the accommodations for us and we are able to get together for meetings.

For the meetings we have pulled together the members of the creative team to brainstorm and set some direction and create some new tools for the ministry. We are focusing this week on our partnership development program and are creating the tools needed to communicate the needs to our partners. Please pray for wisdom and creativity as we work on these projects that will help the ministry of GoodSeed.

Troy

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