שָׁלוֹם - Shalom - Peace

New Stuff!!

2009-04-23T21:56:00.002+01:00

So I was shown a few days ago of a new blog site that is a lot easier to upload stuff. It's called Tumblr! You can get a lot more simple updates and pictures at http://www.erikj.tumblr.com/

You can always email me at ejohannessohn@yahoo.co.uk I do love emails.

new update!!

2009-04-20T21:06:00.002+01:00

After Kiato, Greece we continued to Thessaloniki, Greece and now are in Limnos, Greece.
In Kiato we had an accident while lowering and raising the topmast. A bolt exploded under tension and the mast fell to the deck. Nobody was hurt but our radar was wrecked. Within 24 hours we had a new radar supplied for us for free and a helping hand coming from Sweden to repair it for us all for free. It was a huge blessing. I was able to celebrate my birthday at Ancient Corinth and had a wonderful day. It was extremely beautiful and amazing to see actual places from the Bible.
In Thessaloniki we picked up an outreach team from Holmsted Manor!! It is amazing talking to everybody from there since it is where I had done my Discipleship Training School. They are a great group and I feel like our time in Bulgaria is going to be super powerful when we reach there. We have been travelling quite a lot in the past few weeks. We have had some pretty intense sails and some nice ones. Travelling from Kiato to Thessaloniki took about 4 days and we had to anchor off half way through because it was too rough. From Thessaloniki we sailed to Limnos, a Greek Island. It was beautiful. We stayed there for three days and continued to Istanbul to get fuel and continue onwards to Bulgaria. I will be staying in Bulgaria for a month while the ship continues on to Ukraine for a medical mission. Two other crewmembers and the DTS outreach as well as myself will stay in Bulgaria and work with the churches there for the first 10 days and then go and live in the Romanian Gypsy villages and serve there. We have been prepping for this for some time. I am really excited about starting this new ministry inside Marine Reach.
I will be in Las Vegas on May 28th and will be staying there for one month to meet up with people. If you would like to go out to coffee with me please email me and let me know!! I am planning on having a report back evening at Canyon Ridge to give an outline on what God has been doing over here. Many blessings to you. Thank you for all of your support. God is good!!!

December.. January.. February!!

2009-02-14T10:56:00.017Z

Welcome to February and happy Valentines Day! I have not been able to log onto Blogspot for some time now and I'm sorry for not updating the past couple of months. The Discipleship Training School outreach from Harpenden, England that I have been coordinating left a week ago. The outreach was extremely blessed and amazing things happened. In the entire two months we barely had to pay for a meal because we had so much food donated to us. The DTS worked with many churches (speaking, preaching, cafe evenings, youth groups, dramas, skits and more) as well as bringing more unity between two church groups that do not get along. We also liberated a little the new Youth With A Mission Italy and brought a good name to the new things that are restarting YWAM Italy. The DTS also worked greatly with homeless and prostitutes near the port and even attended a prayer meeting for the prostitutes. After some conversations with locals there we learned that no evangelists have been in that area for about five years. We saw many breakthroughs both spiritually and non. I'll be telling most of the stories by the pictures I'm putting up along with this entry.

We are currently in Kiato, Greece and are staying here until April. Throughout our time here we will be making contacts with some churches of Corinth and Kiato as well as doing some sail training and then in April we will have another DTS outreach come and sail with us to Thessalonica.

Many blessings to you :)

Above are some weekly updates from the past couple of weeks. Click on the images to view the whole image in detail.

"He didn't save us from the Pirates last week to let us drown this week."

2008-11-28T14:46:00.006Z

This month has been intense. A lot of our travels have not stuck to our schedule due to some crazy storms that have come in as well as some steep prices of some of the ports. We were able to visit the YWAM Portugal base in Lisbon and were able to hang out with the staff and DTS students there for a day. I was able to go to the YWAM Portugal base during my DTS last June and met Next Wave while on that visit. It was awesome to go to a port that I was use to since the next two years will be all new adventures. I was also able to re-walk all the areas that we had prayer walked on the first visit and it was really inspiring feeling the difference in the areas that we had walked before.

God has totally protected us so far. One of the days when we got into a port in Spain at 2am I was told of what happened two hours earlier.. Around 12am our radar suddenly was telling us that we were on collision course which means there is a boat RIGHT next to us. But it just popped up out of nowhere and so the guys on watch stepped outside with our spotlight and saw a black zodiac dingy with an out-boarder and no lights alongside us less than 30 feet away towards the rear coming up to our boat. Our guys shot the spot light at them and there were 8 guys in it with black wetsuits and looked startled when we shot the light at them. Then they were saying some stuff in Spanish real fast, circled our boat and raced away. I was asleep and only found out when I woke up for docking the boat. When the boat was around, the guys on watch checked the radios and all, ALL of them were jammed. Our captain was trying to find the country code for Spain and whatnot but they were gone by then. We almost got boarded by pirates!!!! It's crazy! Scares me to death even still thinking about a boat being that close to us, to our home! "Put all your trust in the Lord" eh? For sure! God was totally on our side.

We have continued our attempts at trying to get our creative arts evangelism going. We just got fire poi (balls of fire attached to string that twirl around you) and have been looking for a certain fuel that we need for it. God keeps leading us to circus's wherever we go. We were heading for Ibiza, Spain on our last trip, but a huge storm came in with 40+mph winds and 20 foot swells so we headed for shore. The only port that would take us is Alicante. The next morning we walked out of the port and in order to et out, we have to walk alongside a circus that is just setting up. Last night, Thanksgiving evenging, I was out getting some ice cream for our dessert and started talking to a man who is in the circus. In broken spanish we continued along for about a mile or so comunicating mostly in hand gestures. I was invited to come back today and have a look around.

We have started an evangelism team!! Myself and two others are on it, coming up with ideas and scheduling for our evangelism time. This is the single greatest reason why I have come to join this boat. To help start an evangelism team and really get the fire started throughout our crew to always evangelize. The last port we stayed at was more of a retirement town than anything else. We had an "open boat" and baked cookies which we went out and gave away. It was awesome.

We sail to Italy next. In December we are going to pick up a Discipleship Training School's outreach and host them for two months. We are also going to be in Sicily for a month or two. Then again, we always change locations and what we are doing because of the weather.

::In the photos from top down::
- The Portugal base hosting a wonderful lunch for us.
- Myself sitting on the crows nest during a sail
- Street evangelism, playing free music and drawing in a wonderful crowd. I'm playing the drum.
- Sorry there are not more photos, I'm still uploading more when I have better internet.

::Prayer Requests::
- I need more financial aid. Prayer would be wonderful.
- I've been put in some pretty large positions in preparing for the DTS outreach. I'm organizing nearly everything. I'm praying that God will just let everything flow smoothly.

Two and a half weeks of Next Wave

2008-10-26T11:41:00.012Z

Hello everybody! The past few weeks have been filled with incredible adventures and experiences. We were in the Isle of Man, a small island between Ireland and England in dry dock painting and doing a lot of touch ups for our boat. I was doing a lot of carpentry work making shelves and painting the hull of our boat and lately I’ve been climbing up the rigging all the way to the top and replacing cables. From there we sailed down to Plymouth, England where we have been connecting with the local churches and are doing some fund raising before we leave for the Mediterranean. We have gone to six different churches and have spoken in front of the congregations explaining the Next Wave and our ministry as well as having a few days for open ship allowing anybody to come have a tour through our ship.

During October 20-24 four of my crew mates and myself have been training in Sea Survival, Extinguishers, Fire Fighting, and First Aid. It has been an intensive five days which have been spent in lectures in the morning and then practical in the afternoon where we always come home soaked from sweat from the fires and working so hard. We have been doing scenarios where a ship is on fire so we dress in full fire fighting uniform and breathing apparatus’s then go in and search for causalities then go back in and put out the fire. The training has given me certificates in Personal Survival Techniques, Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities, Fire Prevention and Firefighting, and Elementary First Aid. These will all benefit me for my future and will be the starting point of my sail training.

We have realized that we have the beginning of a little circus on board. A girl on board does aerial silks, I slackline (tight rope walking), we have a few jugglers, and our captain can spit fire. We have wanted to test it out and see if we can use all of our unique interests for an evangelism tool. Last night we set up the silks and the slackline on the ship just to test out how well it draws people in and I ended up staying up until 1am talking with different individuals. It was perfect! It totally works and allows for great conversations about God and what our ministry is doing!

On November 3rd we will be leaving for Douarnenez, France and staying there for a day. Then we head down the coast stopping by Spain and Portugal until we go into the Mediterranean and continue on. I’ll post our schedule on the left hand side of this page. They are ALL subject to change. We are already thinking that we won’t leave here until the 5th.

::In the photos from top down::
- The panoramic is of our ship (on the right) when we were at dry dock painting the bottom.
- Myself at the fire fighting station feeding hose to the first team putting the first fire out.
- Randi, one of our crew on the aerial silks.

::Prayer Requests::
- We need one of our crew to pass his yacht master training in order for us to sail. The tests are being taken on a smaller boat that he is not use to.
- The time we are going through into the Med is when the seas are extremely rough so a safe passage would be awesome.
- Getting along with the crew hasn’t been a problem at all but I would still like to get deeper relationships with all of them (time will prove for this one).
- Support is always needed!

Next Wave Is Here!!

2008-09-27T21:14:00.013+01:00

On October 6th I am leaving Las Vegas to join a sailboat ministry called The Next Wave, which will sail around the Mediterranean Sea visiting many ports and a Discipleship Training School (DTS) will be held on board. The picture is the exact ship I will be on. On the ship I will be heavily involved in the street evangelism going on at each port as well as helping out the DTS and getting qualifications in sailing. The evangelism will be my ministry that I am going to take ownership over.

I need help though because I can't do this alone. I need prayer warriors that will keep me in prayer often as well as monthly financial supporters. If you would like to support this ministry I urge you to pray on it and then contact me. My prayer needs change frequently and I will be posting them on this blog. Giving financial support is quite easy. If you would like to support me, please make checks payable to Canyon Ridge Christian Church with Erik Johannessohn listed in the memo line. Mail to:

Canyon Ridge Christian Church
6200 W. Lone Mountain
Las Vegas, NV 89130
Attn: Missions

The next two years are going to be an adventure. We are sailing around the Balearic Islands and down to Sicily then following Paul's missionary route from the Bible. I look forward to teaching the Discipleship Training School students on the many different ways to do evangelizing and continue my walk all the while.

Back from Indonesia!

2008-09-05T12:17:00.006+01:00

I got back to Holmsted today from Indonesia. It is great being back and I am starting to unpack and being able to email and start having connections with people again. During our trip we went to two very different islands. Java Island was a Muslim island and so we did a lot of teaching English, playing with kids, prayer walking, learning about the Quran and Islam, and really diving into the culture while staying in Muslim houses. It was more of relational evangelism and was a good transition from doing street evangelism in Brighton or London. The second month we were there was spent on Borneo Island. Most of this island is Christian so we were able to do house visits to the congregation and pray for the families, hold church services, preach, dramas, teach at small groups and many more ministries. The entire time we were very well taken care of by our translators and contacts. The trip was amazing and really taught me a lot about relying on God and trusting in Him and identifying and knowing His character. If you would like to know more of what I did and learned please email me at ejohannessohn@yahoo.co.uk. Many many blessings :)

About the photos from top down: (1) playing with the little Muslim kids, showing them little songs such as head, shoulders, knees and toes. (2) During one of our house visits I was asked to clean and bandage a badly infected thumb. (3) Teaching a lesson in front of the many kids at a church we were staying at.

Prayer Requests:
- Over the next few weeks I need to raise support for my upcoming ministry. I need prayer warriors and monthly financial support.
- I am only home for a few weeks and I am hoping to spend a lot of time with the family and also friends. I'm hoping that there will be enough time so that I can get the support going as well as spending time with everybody.

Indonesia!

2008-08-02T02:31:00.002+01:00

Hello everybody! It has been an amazing month with wonderful experiences. My internet has been very limited here and the connection is extremely poor. Sorry for not uploading any pictures from here as it takes hours to upload anything and we only have a short time to use the computers. We have been teaching a lot of English here as well as teaching about health care and going to orphanages. We've hiked a volcano that the locals worship and have been taught how to speak to Indonesian Muslims from an elderly man high in the mountains. It has been amazing connecting with the other guys my age by playing futsal (which is like indoor soccer) and watching football games at night in different houses that have small TV's while speaking broken Indonesian and making a lot of hand signals. We are soon to approach our half way point for our trip and are heading for our second island within the week. Well that is all for now. I'll be sure to add all the details as soon as I get back.

Blessings

Off to Indonesia

2008-07-08T23:30:00.005+01:00

I'm off to Indonesia at 5 in the morning tomorrow and just wanted to give you more of an update on what I'll be doing there. Below is a list of places I'll be and what we may be doing at each. We've have recently taken a few class photo's which I have added. Thank you for all of your prayers and support.

Blessings

This past week has been crazy!

2008-07-02T15:23:00.004+01:00

Brent Manke came and taught our class (June 24-28) on the Bible and we did an overview of the entire Bible as well as a word study (using Greek and Hebrew references) and a passage study in Acts 14. We did a study on the preaching that Paul did and the different methods he used (prescriptive vs. descriptive etc.) which brought us to talk about testimonies and how to incorporate them into our speaking/preaching/evangelizing. I was really pushed by James 1:22-24 which can be summed up into "Don't just be hearers, be doers." This week we have Connie Taylor speaking to us on the Holy Spirit. Monday (July 1st) we gave our testimonies which was great to put them into words in preparation for outreach.

There are only 7 days until I leave for Indonesia and I have started organizing everything I will need for the two months. It's amazing to see how much stuff (or lack of stuff) I actually need. I have finished my application for Next Wave and will be sending it off tomorrow.

Prayer Requests:
- Our team combined still needs over 3,000 pounds (6,000 US Dollars) for outreach. Please pray that we get the funds that my team needs.
- Three of our team's passports (including mine) only had visiting stamps and not resident stamps. We need them to have resident stamps in order to get Visa's for Indonesia. Two have gotten the stamp, but one is still needing it. Pray that everything goes through and we are able to get all the Visa's for Indonesia.
- We are starting to learn Indonesian and I ask for prayer for a good transition into the Indonesian cultural.

Thank you all and God Bless.

Portugal and the past two weeks

2008-06-21T07:55:00.001+01:00

Hello all!! I have had the best two weeks so far. My lecture phase. So much stuff has happened lately that I'll just write you about this past week.

On Tuesday (the 10th) we did evangelism in Brighton and talked with two people taking a smoke break. One was gay and he didn't have any feelings whatsoever about religion and the other was Church of England and was really good in her walk. It created a nice conversation between the two friends since they had a difference in views on their faith. We also ran into a few New Age believers that also believed in ancient Mayan beliefs. The next night I prayed healing for Fabiana, a fellow student who has something going on in her foot that none of the doctors know what it is. It was a huge leap of faith for our group and myself. She wasn't healed but it was an amazing stepping-stone in our group of unity for each other. On Thursday (12th) twelve people including myself arrived in Lisbon, Portugal to evangelize. The next day we grouped up and prayed for each other's bases (the Portugal team prayed for us and vice versa) followed by worship. Proceeding that we continued to do evangelism at a touristy part of the town and one person give their life to Christ. That night we heard that Next Wave, (a 42meter sailboat that does DTS's on it) was docked in Portugal as well. We spent the evening with them and I ended up talking to a girl doing her DTS about how I almost applied to the ship before I did to Holmsted and how I could easily see myself on the ship. She replied by saying "unless you have a picture of yourself on a sailboat sailing to Egypt" then it may not be for you. The God part is last week's lecture topic was Destiny, and we were told to draw a quick sketch of our future and mine was of myself sailing on a sailboat to Egypt! It was a total God time. For them to be in that port on that day while I was in Portugal on the same day and for that to happen was astounding. I talked with the Captain and his wife and was told that there is a definite need for me to be on the ship and a space available for me. They are going to be in Liverpool when I get back from outreach to Indonesia (mid September) and are leaving for the Mediterranean in early October. I also heard on the boat more about the revival going on in Florida and that 16 people have been raised from the dead and that people are getting saved through the TV by the Holy Spirit. That is crazy! Anyways, the rest of the trip to Portugal was amazing. We did worship on the beach and much more evangelism along the coast and our team prayed for two healings (an elderly lady's throat and a blind man begging money) and another person gave their life to Christ. We are one of the first YWAM groups to do an outreach to Portugal (it is YWAM Europe's focus country for the next two years) and there is potential for so much more.

Sean and Sarah are back from China and are doing great. A few nights ago (the 18th) my friend Pete's arm was healed. For over four years he hasn't been able to rotate it normally and can't play bar chords correctly. He is the most musicly tallented person I know for his age. If you could pray for our team since we are leaving to Indonesia in three weeks and will be there for two months. Pray for financial, unity, and producing fruit in Indonesia since it is the most populated Muslim country on Earth.