Our Late March Update

Greetings to all our dear praying friends & family. It has been a while since some of you have heard from us. Sorry about that.

The month of March has been quite busy for us. With a week to recover from the previous seminar and conference we headed up north to Lake Victoria (11-hr. drive) to visit two fairly new churches in the city of Mwanza. The believers there had been begging us to come, so we finally scheduled it in and made the long trip, coming back 7 days later. They were so appreciative of Luke's teaching and also eagerly bought the Bibles we had brought at a discounted price.

Our week back home had us all feeling sick and worn out. Esther and Gina were recovering from food poisoning, Luke got malaria, then bilharzia, and we all got stomach bugs. Later on Esther got malaria too. It took us a while to get back to normal, but we thank the Lord we are all well now.

The US Embassy paid us a visit to our corner of Tanzania and we were able to renew Esther's expired passport and Luke's soon-to-be-expired-passport. So thankful we don't have to make a trip to the big city, on the other side of the country!

The weekend of March 24-25 we drove to the village of Bukuba for a special meeting recognizing a new elder for the assembly. Well, that was the weekend the rains decided to finally come, and it made the trip exciting. We are very thankful for God's protection on the road.

On Saturday March 31, a dear friend and fellow missionary got married. Our daughter Esther was one of the girls who took part in the ceremony. She enjoyed walking down the aisle in front of the bride & groom.

Next week there will be an outreach by some of the church leaders in a village where the church is struggling. Please pray for fruit from these efforts and growth for the believers.

After working on our taxes we are now getting ready for yet another trip. On April 21 we will be leaving for the town of Moshi (near Mt. Kilimanjaro), where we will first have our missionary Annual General Meeting (AGM), and then Luke will be teaching Romans at Berea Bible College for 3 weeks.

Items for prayer:

- Our trip to Moshi, a 3 day drive (safety & that the car would run well)

- Our annual missionary meeting

- Luke teaching Romans

- Outreach in village church next week

We thank you for your continued prayers for our family and the work.

In His service,

Luke, Gina, Esther & Emily Johnson

The bride with her 6 "bridesmaids".