Dear friends,
Thank you for your faithful prayers and support. The last 2 months have been filled with up’s and down’s and many turns in the road. We had several local meetings in May which gave us the opportunity to spend some time with family at home. During that time, we were able to load our shipping container and send it off to Brazil. The container arrived in Brazil at the end of June and we are working on getting it released from port. This has been a long process requiring several different forms, payments, signatures, and even a visit to the Brazilian consulate in Chicago. We have a Brazilian lawyer working very hard to mitigate cost and get our shipment out of port as quickly as possible. He has been a huge help in this whole process. Pray that we can finish that process quickly and that the extra expenses will be minimal.
After our time at home, we had our last few meetings for deputation. We had a wonderful, week-long missions conference in Florida followed by our final meeting, which was in Canada. Praise the Lord for inexpensive airfare so that we did not have to drive all the way to Florida and back for one meeting! The day before driving to our last meeting, someone hit us as we merged onto the highway. Praise the Lord no one was injured, but our car was not so fortunate. We are still in the process of dealing with the insurance, but we believe the car will be totaled. We had already committed to give the car to someone, but God had a different plan. Perhaps this is His way of providing the funds for a car in Brazil. Only He knows.
During that whole time, I had been working on completing all of the necessary paperwork for Lily’s visa. There were several bumps in the road. One of those bumps was having to send in the same notarized papers twice to the Indiana Secretary of State for an apostille, which I had never heard of before, due to a missing phrase. I can now tell you that an apostille is basically a paper that says that the paper with the notary stamp is real. Because of this delay and others, we thought it wise to push back our departure date to July 19. Because of the delay, we were able to spend a whole extra week with Lily’s family. We are currently spending two weeks with my family. It is wonderful to have more time to say goodbyes.
After all of that, Lily’s visa finally came in! It arrived at our house in Indiana on June 27, the original day we were supposed to fly out. In mid June we were able to have our exit interview with our mission board and have everything lined up and ready for our departure at the end of this month. We also have raised all of our needed support! With that and Lily’s visa, we have everything we need to head to the field. Please pray for a safe trip to New Jersey on the 15th, and for a safe flight to Brazil out of New York on the 19th. We are so excited to get there and start helping my parents in their church. We will also have a lot of new things to figure out such as banking, renting a house, buying a car, and much more. Pray for wisdom.
My parents have been having difficulty with the banks in Brazil as they are trying to transfer the funds for the new building. They did finally hear that the bank rejected the transfer and so they are attempting a different route. Pray that God would open the door for the money to come through before the realtor decides not to wait any longer. We are excited to be able to help with the renovations and move into the new building as soon as it is possible. In other news, a wonderful family in our sending church has decided to adopt our dog. It is a great relief to both of us to know that Yogi will have somewhere to live, with an amazing family that will love him. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support. We look forward to sending our next report in September from Brazil.
David and Lily Johnson
Missionaries to Brazil
Psalm 139:14