Christmas Greetings and Ministry Projections for 2013

Dave and Debbie Johnson

Assemblies of God Missionaries to the Philippines

AGWM Acct. 2256006

www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com

www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com

Winter Newsletter 2012-2013

Dear Friends,

Merry Christmas and

Warm New Year’s Greetings

to all of you

with Joy and Deep Appreciation

for your love,

your prayers,

your sacrifice on our behalf

In the next day or two, we are going to attempt a pictorial newsletter recapping 2011. Since this attempt is at the limits of Dave’s technical capability, we will do it as a separate document…just in case it comes out looking, well, interesting . . .

In this edition, along with our Christmas greetings, we would like to share with you our vision and activities for the coming year. But first, we need to take care of a bit of business.

A Quick Appeal and Thanks to those of you who responded to our latest appeal to help erase our financial deficit.  We are very thankful for this. While the deficit has lowered, it now still stands at about $2,500.00 so if you can help in any way, we would certainly appreciate hearing from you.  Here’s how you can give

·        Online at www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com or

·        By mail to AGWM 1145 Boonville Ave. Springfield MO 65802 USA, designated for Dave and Debbie Johnson, AGWM acct no. 2256006.

To know what you are supporting, please keep reading. To read our past newsletters, please visit www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com.

The New Year in Preview

Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (APTS) (see www.apts.edu)

The first two months will be focused on our teaching and publishing responsibilities at APTS. Debbie will be teaching a block course designed to train those who will teach English as a second language. God is using people in this capacity to share the gospel all over the world. Those who have signed up for Debbie’s course come from several different nations in the Asia Pacific region. She has a masters degree in this field and is getting excited about the course. After teaching the course in February, she will likely have to return a couple of months later to supervise an internship program for these students.

Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies and the APTS Press

While Debbie is doing that Dave will put on his publisher’s hat as the managing editor of the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies and the director of the APTS Press, which publishes academic books. Dave’s second edition of this highly respected journal will be going to press about this time and he also plans to invest time planning future editions. Also, a couple of months before inviting Dave to direct the Press, the APTS leadership accepted Dave’s dissertation for publication, meaning that the first book he will publish as the director of the Press is his own! The book is at the printer now and will be out in early January. We will have a picture of it in the coming pictorial newsletter and it will be available through www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com sometime after the first of the year.

Throughout these publications, Dave is being given the wonderful opportunity to serve the Pentecostal/Charismatic community in the Asia Pacific region and beyond. Please pray that the Lord will anoint Dave to bring God’s a message of wisdom for the harvesters and workers of His kingdom in Asia.

Ministry in the Bicol Region

Much of Debbie’s preparing for APTS teaching and Dave’s publishing responsibilities can be done from our home in metro Legaspi, the capital of the Bicol region, thanks to the Internet. For most of our time in Legaspi, however, we will be focused on our ministry here in the Bicol region.

Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

As we reported in our latest newsletter, we experienced a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit when evangelists Bill and Beth Juoni were with us last August. Our hearts are on fire to see this continue. In November, we held follow up seminar/revival meetings in several of the areas, and God met us in those meetings. We will continue in this type of ministry beginning in March and throughout the year as the Lord leads. For a long time we, especially Debbie, have been praying for revival and God has given us a prophetic word that it is coming. Has it started? We don’t know. Are we ready? We don’t know that either, but we continue to prepare our hearts and prepare our pastors and church leaders. Oh God, let the fire fall!

Training on the gifts of the Spirit during our seminars for pastors and leaders of house churches has been fruitful and we praise God for the outpourings of the Holy Spirit on several of our services lately where a number of people were used in tongues, interpretation and prophecies.  A pastor who had suffered with a neck injury after an automobile accident for over a year reported a sudden instant healing in one of the meetings.  We praise God for what He is doing.

We believe that another part of our response to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit since last August is more writing. Bill Juoni and Dave will be teaming up to write a book for Filipino believers on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, which we hope to have ready by June or so.

Training for Pastors and House Church leaders

We have been blessed to travel around our district during this last year and train pastors and house church leaders in a number of key areas:  personal spiritual disciples, goal setting, love and respect mentoring, and conflict resolution and relationship strengthening.  We continue to also have a burden to further equip pastors for ministry in non formal setting and will be exploring potential opportunities in the months ahead.

Other opportunities

We continue to pray for God’s guidance on our priorities for 2013. Please pray for us that God would give us clear eyesight to see his plan and respond according.

Other opportunities will likely include hosting a couple of teams from the States and other foreign guests as the Lord sends them our way. Dave is also incubating a dream for another book. We will keep you posted if that dream starts becoming a reality.

Prayer Points

·        That we would walk in holiness and purity before God.

·        That we would love well.

·        That we would see God’s vision for our activities clearly and respond in a way pleasing to him.

·        That God would resource the vision

From our hearts to your homes, we wish all of you and your families a Blessed Christmas and healthy and prosperous New Year, trusting always in the Lord who holds the universe and each one of His beloved children in His hands.

Dave and Debbie Johnson

Fall 2012 Newsletter

Fall 2012 Newsletter

Assemblies of God Missionary to the Philippines

www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com

www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com

Hello Friends,

First, we want to wish all of you a blessed holiday season. May you know the presence, power and peace of Jesus!

Pentecost in Bicol For the last two weeks of August and the first week of September we hosted our good friends, Bill and Beth Juoni who are American AG evangelists from Wisconsin (junoib@cni-usa.com), for a series of meetings here. Over a three week period we traveled to ten places throughout the Bicol region of the Philippines, where we are based, doing seminars and revival meetings focused on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The aggregate attendance was about 1,200 people and about one half, as best as we could tell, either received the Baptism or refilled with the Spirit during these meetings. It was a wonderful moving of the Holy Spirit. We also loved having the Juonis with us! God has obviously anointed them to lead people into the Baptism and they are really good to work with (that’s missionary parlance for being joyously willing to live and minister in challenging situations that we can’t always control)!

Is this the opening showers of the coming revival that God spoke to Debbie about several years ago?  We don’t know, but we certainly want to be prepared when revival comes.

In response to these meetings we found ourselves praying “Lord, what next?” In other words, what can and should we be doing to help our people continue to walk in the burning fire of the Spirit. To date, God’s response to us has been twofold. One, we are to continue offering seminars and revival meetings to provide an opportunity for people become refreshed in the Spirit. We started the next round of meetings last week and will continue into mid December.

Second, the Holy Spirit has impressed upon Dave the need to do more writing. His newest book, Theology in Context: A Case Study in the Philippines, was in the works before the Juonis came and will be released by APTS Press in January. As a direct result of the Juoni meetings, Bill and Dave will be writing a book under the tentative title, The Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Answering Questions Filipino Ask. We don’t have a publication date yet, but Bill has already done a lot of the work on it and Dave will start soon. Other books will likely follow in due course.

An Appeal for Help We have some wonderful opportunities for ministry, but our account has run dry. Over the last six months we have accrued a deficit of $2,700.00. We cannot continue to do deficit spending. Would you please help us erase the deficit? Here’s how it can be done: (1) One, if you have pledged to support and are not up to date, we would appreciate it you could bring your giving up to date, (2) Perhaps you could increase your giving just a little bit, (3) if you are not currently supporting us, perhaps you would consider doing so or, (4) you could give a one time cash offering in any amount to help us make this up. On our part, we are doing our best to trim expenses. If you are already supporting us, you already know how to send the funds. Otherwise, you can give on our website, www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com, or the Assemblies of God website www.ag.org (just follow the links and look us up), or send your offering designated for us, AGWM account 225600, to 1445 Boonville Ave. Springfield MO 65802.

We would especially like to appeal to our friends and acquaintances outside of America to help at this time. Our American friends are doing their best in difficult economic times. Could you lend a hand as well? Giving through our website is easy.

While we do need to make this appeal because our situation is challenging, we refuse to be negative or defeatist about it! The future is as bright as the promises of God, and we are as excited as ever about what God is doing to bring in the harvest in the Philippines! So, let’s go on to more good news!

A New Edition of the Fire Bible! (See www.lifepublishers.org) We are both passionate about training workers for the harvest. Part of that vision includes making the Fire Bible, aka the Full Life Study Bible, available to as many of our pastors as possible. As far as I know, this is the only study Bible in print together written for Pentecostals. This study tool, with its commentary on much of the Scripture text, 77 articles, cross-referencing system, concordance, and many other features make it an ideal tool, especially for pastors and lay leaders who can’t get to Bible school or afford a large library.

Just a few months ago, in partnership with the Philippine Bible Society, we completed the translation into the Cebuano language of the Philippines. Cebuano is the dominant language of the central and southern part of the country, and we have more than a thousand AG churches in those regions. About two weeks ago, with officials from LIFE Publishers, the publishing arm of AGWM, and the Bible Society in attendance, we presented the Bible to a total of about 468 pastors and church leaders from across the evangelical community in public launches both in Cebu City and Davao. In every respect the launches were highly successful. The Fire Bible is not just an AG Bible; we believe it is for all Christians. The Bible Society is well positioned to make this Bible available across denominational lines and they will market the Bible in stores and at various events throughout the region next year and have asked Dave to travel with them to promote it.

Prayer Points (No particular order of priority. Just let the Spirit guide you!)

• For the financial situation mentioned above.
• For the Holy Spirit to be poured out on our region.
• For more people to be reached for Christ and more churches to be planted.
• For a serious situation in the national church here.
• For our missionary friends from other groups who also labor in this region.
• For God to show us more ways that we can care for the poor.
• For God to reveal ways we can reach out to the Muslims in our local areas.
• For the success of the Cebuano Fire Bible

We are joyfully yours because we are joyfully HIS!!

Dave and Debbie Johnson

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Copyright 2012 Dr. Dave Johnson