A final update

Aloha Prayer Partners,

Things have been busy since the start of school. We have been searching for a new home. The District Advisory Board voted in September to sell the property of the former Kaimuki Church of the Nazarene. We have been looking for a place to purchase or rent since early August (about the time school started).

We have not been able to find a home in Hawaii that we can purchase and have also been unable to rent anything. After much prayer we have sensed that the doors are closing for our ministry in Hawaii. On Sunday (11/4), Tim and Alex flew back to Kansas City. Debbie will be joining the family at the end of the month.The Lenexa area will be our base of operations for life and ministry. Debbie is able to return to her former job at Noble Prentis Elementary in Kansas City, KS. Alex will be in the same schools that she was in before we moved to Hawaii and there is a job opportunity for Tim with his company in North Kansas City which would greatly cut down on travel.

So for now, we are going to "sign off" on ThePointHawaii blog. This will be our last update since this ministry has come to an end. Thank you for your prayers and support. We have felt God's guidance at every phase of this journey and we trust that God will go with us into the future. Please continue to pray for us and God's direction for that future.

With all of our Aloha,

Tim, Debbie and Alex Johnson

a hui ho (until we meet again)

Back to School

Monday, July 30 was the first day of school for Debbie and Alex at Windward Nazarene Academy. Debbie has 24 students in her class of first graders and Alex is in a class with a total of 9 seventh graders. Debbie has a full-time assistant in her classroom and they are really enjoying working together. Alex has already made some friends at school and has been doing a lot of homework every night.

One of the children in Debbie's classroom has lukemia and is not able to attend school right now. I am including a link to their blog here. Take a look and add this family to your prayers this week.


Yesterday, Tim had an opportunity to preach at The Bridge Church. It was a great service with a focus on worship of God and service to others. As a part of the service, we emphasized participation in the Alabaster Offering. Praise the Lord!!! Every empty Alabaster box that was there was taken home with someone and we are looking forward to a great Alabaster offering at The Bridge Church in the near future.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 7 we will be hosting our first group information meeting for The Point Church in Kaimuki. Please join us in praying that this meeting will be successful as we begin to work on relationships among the people who may be joining us in this ministry and as we plan for the activities and outreach opportunities in the community.

For now, please join us in praying for the following:
* A good first "information" meeting tomorrow
* New relationships with people in the community
* Friends in the neighborhood for Alex
* More people to become a part of our launch team
* People who need to know the Lord in Kaimuki

Thanks for praying!

Where in the World--Day 9 and beyond!

Aloha. I'm sorry that it has taken me two weeks to get this post posted. We woke early on Wednesday, June 6 and went to the airport in Oakland, CA to begin the final leg of our journey to Hawaii. We completed lots of paperwork to allow Fitz to travel and we boarded the flight for the final 5.5 hours of travel.

When we arrived in Honolulu, they paged our name on the airplane and took Fitz away from us. We went to retrieve our luggage and then made our way over to the Animal Quarantine Station. After filling out more paperwork we had Fitz and we were on our way to our new home.


On Thursday, June 7 our Matson container arrived at our house and the Killens (District Superintendent) and the Wongs (Pastor of The Bridge) came and helped us unload. The last two weeks have been busy with unpacking boxes and settling in. Last night we got pictures and artwork hung on the walls so we are feeling just about done with the moving phase. Our little blue car also survived the trip with Matson and we picked it up over at Sand Island on Monday, June 18.

Tim is serving as an Associate Pastor at The Bridge while we are working on the plans for The Point. Debbie is already active with the worship team at The Bridge and Alex is participating in youth group activities. This coming week is VBS for The Bridge. Debbie and Tim will be teaching one group of the kids and Tim and Alex are both doing drama for the week. Pray for the kids who come to VBS that they will experience the love of Jesus as we teach and play with them.

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One final photo for this post. Fitz seems to be enjoying his new home in Hawaii. However, I'm not sure that he enjoys wearing a flower lei around the house.

Thanks for being a part of our Prayer Partners Team and for praying for our journey to Hawaii.

Where in the World--Day 8

Tuesday was another non-travel day...although we did log quite a few miles on the car. We had to drive from our hotel to the aiport to pick-up a rental car and then to Richmond CA to drop the PT Cruiser with Matson for shipment to Hawaii. Here is a picture of our little blue car before we left home in KS. It has sure logged a lot of miles in the past week. I'm going to put a map of our full trip in this post. We have travelled a long way, but it has been a great trip and we have enjoyed seeing God's creation as we've travelled the Western US.

Tonight is a casual night relaxing in the hotel before the flight tomorrow. Alex and Fitz have spent a lot of quality time together in the back seat of the cruiser and on a variety of hotel beds like in this picture.

Where in the World--Day 7

Monday was our shortest travel day of the trip. We left Sacramento at 10:30 and we arrived in Oakland at 3pm. However, we made a few stops along the way. We discovered that the Jelly Belly factory is located in Fairfield CA and it was less than a mile off I-80. We had to stop. We had a 40 minute tour of the factory and then spent another 40 minutes in the gift shop where they give out free samples and sell the rejected jelly beans. They call them "belly flops".





When we left the factory, we decided that we were hungry. We took a wrong turn trying to get to a restaurant that we saw off the highway and we ended up on the Napa Valley. We got to see the grapes growing along the road and we were able to eat a California legend at In-N-Out Burger.






















We found our way back to the highway and passed the Matson shipping center in the Oakland area. Our goods went through Long Beach, but it was neat to see all the containers stacked up and the loading cranes like the ones that loaded our stuff.

After we arrived at the hotel, we found a place to get the car cleaned for its journey on the Matson ship. We drop it off on Tuesday and hopefully we'll have it in Hawaii in a couple of weeks.

Tuesday will be a busy day of errands picking up the rental car, dropping the Cruiser and doing internet check-in for our flight.

Where in the World--Day 6

Today was a non-travel day in Sacramento. We attended a church plant (The Crossing Church) in West Sacramento. It was a nice service and the folks were very friendly to us. We enjoyed lunch and a relaxing day at the hotel pool.

Where in the World--Day 5

We left Salt Lake City at 7:30am this morning and drove 644 miles and arrived in Sacramento at 5:30pm. This was the longest day of driving for our whole trip, but we survived.


We are going to have a nice dinner and Alex has plans to try out the first outdoor pool of this trip. Weather was great all day long and we especially enjoyed a quick stop at the salt flats west of Salt Lake City. Check back tomorrow to find out how we spent Sunday in Sacramento.

Where in the World--Day 4

Today was another non-travel day. We enjoyed a day of beautiful weather seeing some of the sights of Salt Lake City. We spent a couple of hours touring Temple Square (the home of the Mormon Church). We were lucky enough to arrive right before an organ recital began in the Tabernacle. That is an amazing musical instrument and facility. Pictured below is one of the temple spires and a photo of the organ inside the tabernacle.

We are gearing up for a lengthy travel day tomorrow. We will be traveling to Sacramento. We have been blessed with good weather and even better swimming pools (this information from Alex!)

Update for Yesterday

I was so tired last night I forgot to include the map for our days travel. We left Golden Colorado via Grand Junction Colorado and arrived at Sandy Utah only 507 miles later.


I just got off the phone with Matson and our household goods are already sailing on the Pacific Ocean. They are on the ship Manukai and are scheduled to arrive in Honolulu on Sunday, June 3. We don't even get there until the 6th. Thankfully, they will hold it for us until we arrive. Thanks for praying. Things are going very well for this journey.

Where in the World--Day 3

Today was another travel day. We left Denver around 8am and drove to Grand Junction for lunch and to get gas in the car. We then started on the stretch of road with no services. We only saw one gas station for about 200 miles...but the scenery was great. Tonight we are staying in Sandy, Utah just south of Salt Lake City. We got here about 6:00 pm.

We are very tired and looking forward to a day with very little driving tomorrow. We've never been in Salt Lake City so we are hoping to go and see some of the sights. One of my favorite "sights" from today was the speed limit sign. On most of the drive in Colorado and Utah the speed limit was 75 mph. We don't ever get to drive that fast in Hawaii (or in Kansas, either).

Snow covered mountains as we were leaving Denver












We followed the Colorado River for miles












Alex and Fitz at a scenic canyon overlook in Utah











Tim's favorite "sight" of the day

Where in the World--Day 2

So, today was a casual day to relax from the travel yesterday. Scattered thunderstorms were forecast for Denver so we decided to spend the day at Colorado Mills Mall. We walked the entire mall to give our legs a good stretch after the car ride yesterday.

Tonight we are going to relax in the hotel pool and get to bed early so we can hit the road again tomorrow. We are planning to drive to Salt Lake City via I-70 through the mountains tomorrow. Our AAA triptik says that we have a 276 mile stretch with no gas or services at any of the exits. That should be a fun drive!

Here's a photo of the girls and Fitz relaxing in the hotel. Have a good evening! I'll post another update tomorrow...hopefully from SLC, Utah.

Where in the world is the Johnson Family?

OK...I'll admit it. I'm a big fan of NBC's Today Show. I watch part of the show almost every morning. Recently Matt Lauer did his 7th or 8th Around the World trip. The Johnson Family isn't going all the way around the world, but we began a major road trip today. I'm going to try to post a daily update on our travels from Kansas City to Honolulu. The trip began this morning at 6:50 am as we left the home of our friends The Casler's. After a quick pit stop at the Vet for Fitz to have his final health exam to allow him to enter the state of Hawaii we were off.

Today's journey was 616 miles and would have taken about 9 hour had we driven straight through. Of course, we decided to stop for a nice lunch at Quizno's and with Fitz along we had to make regular doggy walking stops. Here is a map of today's journey.


We had a nice drive until the last hour or so when we drove into thunderstorms. They had hail storms earlier in the day in Denver. We thought it was snow on the side of the road, but found out later that it was an accumulation of hail.

Tomorrow we are either going to the zoo, the aquarium or the Colorado Mills mall. It all depends on the weather. During this week of travel, we request that you pray for our safety on the roads and in the air. Also pray that our "stuff" is making the journey successfully. It left our home last Friday and is scheduled to arrive in Honolulu sometime in June. We are scheduled to arrive on June 6.

Here are some pictures of the move from Overland Park.

The Empty House













The Container holding our stuff












A full container load.


Even though the container looked full, we managed to "squeeze" several boxes of books in for a friend who is moving back to Hawaii. It should be fun to open the container upon its arrival in Honolulu.

Our house is sold!

Praise the Lord! We sold our house yesterday. Now we can start packing for the arrival of the Matson container on May 23. Thanks for praying.

District Assembly Report

Tim and Debbie had an amazing, whirlwind trip to Honolulu for District Assembly. For any non-Nazarenes reading the blog, District Assembly is a yearly gathering of delegates from all of the churches on the district/state. There are business meetings and conventions throughout the day with worship services each night. We arrived late on Tuesday, April 10. We had to get up early on Wednesday morning to go through Honolulu traffic for Tim to interview with the Ministerial Credentials board. Debbie had a job interview with the public schools that morning as well. Both meeting went well. Thank you for praying for us.

At lunchtime on Wednesday, Debbie had another interview with the Principal and Pastor for Windward Nazarene Academy. It went really well and she was offered a job teaching either 1st or 2nd grade next year. We are really praising God for this. After a brief tour of the campus on Friday the 13th, Debbie accepted this job. We are planning for Alex to be tested for admission to Windward Nazarene as well. It would really be great if they could both be at the same school. Please pray for Alex as she doesn't really enjoy these middle school admission tests.

On Wednesday evening, the District Superintendent gave his annual report to the district. It was an inspirational call to "change the climate" on the district and to "equip churches for health". At the conclusion of his report, one of the folks on the district read the history of the Kaimuki Church of the Nazarene. They had many good years of ministry in the neighborhood where we will be starting a church. Gordon Wong then briefly told the story of his connection to Kaimuki and church planting and told how I was called by God to be a pastor during a weekend of services at The Bridge Church. I then spoke to the Assembly briefly and told them of my call, preparation for ministry during these past 3 years at NTS, and our plans and dreams for the new church called The Point.

Our good friend Gary Wong then came forward to dance a hula to the song "Thank you for giving to the Lord". That song is used all the time at the close of missions services, but until you've seen a strong guy dancing a hula in praise to God you've never really heard that song sung. While Brother Gary was dancing, they took an offering to help with our moving expenses. PRAISE GOD--over half of the money that will be needed was given that night. Debbie and I were unsure how we were going to afford the move, but we knew that God would provide. We just didn't know that He would provide so much all at once.

On Friday night we were able to attend a Bible study with a couple of families from The Bridge that live in East Honolulu and Kaimuki. It was great to have the opportunity to share the vision about the church and what God is doing so far.

The week ended with Tim doing some work at the parsonage painting Alex's new bedroom. That pastor who interviewed Debbie on Wednesday was even so kind as to come and help and bring painting supplies. Thank the Lord for Kevin Kaya! Sunday was a great day of worship as Tim drove out to Ewa Beach to preach for that congregation and share the plans for the new church. They sent in an offering to help with the moving expenses. Tim was also able to see friends at The Bridge on Sunday morning and even attended the other new church on the District, Living Waters.

It was an amazing week and we were both overwhelmed by a sense of peace from God that He is taking care of all the details for us. The people of the district expressed such love for us throughout the week. There is a great sense of excitement on the district for The Point to begin.

At this point, Graduation day is just weeks away. The container will be delivered in less than three weeks for us to move. We will be leaving Kansas City driving to Oakland on May 29 and on June 6 we will be on a plane to our new home and future in Honolulu.

Other than the request for Alex and her schooling, our only prayer request for this week is to Thank God for his provision for us. Please spend some time in prayer thanking God for what he has done and is doing for us and The Point.

Thanks for praying!


To see older posts, visit the former blogsite (http://newhawaiichurch.blogspot.com)