Jackie's Journey "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!"

This Day in History:...

 John Adams wrote his wife relating his hopes for the cause they were undertaking:

 “I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction.

 Across the generations, many others have heralded the importance of the Declaration. For example, Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant saw it as one of the many pieces of evidence of God's guidance:

In all these marked stages of national progress, from the Declaration of Independence to the recent amendments of the Constitution, it is impossible not to perceive a providential series and succession of events.”     

 In honor of the lasting truths set forth in the Declaration of Independence, let's celebrate this Independence Day in a way that was recommended by John Adams:

 It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by

solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.

 Do you have a copy of this document?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "What are You Marked By?"

The Princess Parable Series gives little girls the princess they want so desperately to connect with, while pleasing the parents and teaching eternal values.  They are introduced to an enchanting princess they will love and learn that Godly character marks the life of a True Princess.

 A child that has conflicts with his or her parents and is rebellious can usually trace the rebellion back to a violation, neglect or misapplication of one, or more, character deficiencies.  This is the specific red flag we need, as moms, to hone in on our child’s real need for godly character development in that area. 

 Character can be defined as “ the inward motivation to do what is right according to the highest standards of behavior in every situation”.  Understanding character helps explain why things happen to us. 

 “The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” Anne Frank

 While on the mission field, living interior, an event happened that shook us all to the core.  A raging flu epidemic had struck our village with a vengeance and almost, without exception, everyone was running a high fever, having difficulty breathing and experiencing extreme malaise. The babies and mothers with tuberculosis were especially affected, but the entire village was impacted  

 Our partners, Jay and Sue, had gone on furlough, which meant we were alone.  Ralph and I were busy day and night in homes and the medical clinic giving injections and looking for the key to the strain of infection that had taken us captive.  Our medical supplies and our need to replenish the clinics medicine was at an all-time high.

 Just as dawn emerged from weeks of intense activity and challenge, I started running a fever.  I was the last to be affected by the storm, as it made its way through our small Darien family.  My fever surged to 106 degrees and we were two days by boat to the nearest hospital and emergency room. The medicine in the clinic was depleted…what was to happen to me?

 Character transcends culture, race, age, social status, religion, gender and nationality, because it deals with the daily struggles of human nature.  “Adversity doesn’t build character…it reveals it!”   Character is based on universal standards that are time-tested and recognized as being right.  It is written on every person’s heart.  I was confronted with an opportunity to watch God reveal His character to me and for me to respond in harmony with Him and His will regarding my circumstances.

 My true character stood in the doorway of reality and my surrendering to Him would determine my genuine character.  Would I be marked by Godly character or be bound in fear, doubt and unbelief?

 Maybe you are facing  a circumstance in your life that is exposing you to the real you.  It might be a terminal illness or a loss of home or maybe even, loss of a person close to you…whatever struggle stands in your path…

 “Godly character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.

Only through experience of trial and suffering

can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired,

and success achieved.”  Helen Keller

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Words Have Power!"

The Princess Parable Series was penned with intentional “words” to encourage young moms to introduce their little princesses to a parable from the Word of God and give them a tool to teach biblical principle through the five  princesses’ life-lessons.

”Language is the dress of thought”. Samuel Johnson, I have two very precious friends who live in Tucson, Arizona. I don’t get to see them as often as I would like but they are the eternal connection we all hope that we are fortunate enough to find just once in our lifetime of relationships. While on furlough from the mission field these girls were eager to encouragingly nurse me back to health while I was crumpled on their living room sofa. They had just the right words that would lift my spirit and keep me going. Most of all, they offered total and complete acceptance accompanied with a joy of just sensing refuge in their presence. I recently found an encouraging note they sent me shortly after the first of our books in The Princess Parable Series was released. This is the note...

“I loaned your books to a friend, Jackie.   Her granddaughters are named Daity and Caity Belle. This was my friends comment on them:

“Thanks for the loan on the books – they are GREAT!
We had to reenact the Princess Birthday one – we baked a cake and invited the dolls – dressed up – it was quite a production. Daity really liked it
and Caity Belle liked the one about the dog – now when they dress up
they have to be those Princesses.  Sooo… I would say they are a hit!
I love that there is a great theme and then the stories at the end of the book – great illustrations and inspiring and encouraging.’

Thought you would like to hear another review. Keep up the Lord’s work on your writing. Love, Jane”

There are many ways we express ourselves, but, as women, we are exceptionally prone to WORDS...all kinds of words... lots of words...soothing words...volatile words...we love words... “The power of life and death are in the tongue.” Proverbs 18:21

Do you speak LIFE with your tongue... or DEATH?

“Speech is the index of the mind”. We have a nanosecond before every choice we make each time we entertain a thought...should I say this or should I not???  Often, we disregard the warning at that point of decision and blurt out exactly what should have been kept in the “box of better timing” or not at all!

For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks...” Lu. 6:45

And too many meaningless words mark you as a fool! Ecc. 5:3

In Proverbs 15 there are 21 references to words in only 33 verses!!! There are cutting words, crude words, slanderous words, piercing words, biting words, poisonous words, burning words envious words, healing words, deceitful words, wise words, mocking words, cheerful words, timely words, prayerful words and....you fill in the blank!

Being a person of many words, I used to think if you isolate me in a remote jungle village with people who speak a different language, then the tongue would be much less of a problem.  How much damage could I do...I couldn’t speak the Kuna language...?

How many times have you been “ensnared by the words of your mouth”? Proverbs 6:2

“IF ANYONE CONSIDERS HIMSELF RELIGIOUS AND YET DOES NOT KEEP A TIGHT REIN ON HIS TONGUE, HE DECEIVES HIMSELF AND HIS RELIGION IS WORTHLESS”! Jas. 1: 26

This week, let’s be careful to:

Watch our thoughts, they become Words.                                                                                

Watch our Words, they become actions.
Watch our Actions, they become habits.
Watch our Habits, they become character.
Watch your Character, for it becomes your Destiny.

Watch how your circumstances change, when you change the way you speak!

“The power of LIFE and DEATH are in the tongue”!

Proverbs 18:21

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "I Am Not a Fan!"

In the story of “Princess Grace and the Little Lost Kitten”, we see her faith tested in ways that resonate deeply with us as mothers.  Opening “my box “ to share from my own journey of faith, reminded me of the life-lesson from Grace’s story.

 As a former tribal missionary, I faced many challenging seasons in my life.  As a mother of two young princesses, balancing “off the grid” survival skills, home-schooling, linguistics, language learning (Kuna), evangelism, running the small medical clinic, delivering babies, washing clothes in the river and cooking food I had never seen before, etc….I found myself overwhelmed!  

Oh, and then…there is the matter of the creeping, crawling reptiles…

 I have never been a fan of reptiles…

 Panama is the home to some of the most frightening snakes on the planet.  Our corner of the dense Darien jungle was full of boa constrictors, pit vipers, fer-de-lance (this snake bears 60 live babies at a time!), etc.  We were cautious not to poke under rocks or fallen branches, always scanning for any slithering menaces.  Behind our house there was a massive tree that extended its immense roots out into the river shoreline where the girls and I bathed and swam.  The thick mangrove swamp harbored snakes that would lie in the hollow places of the trunk of that tree. 

 More than once I cried out Psalm 16:1

 “Keep me safe, Oh Lord, for in you I take refuge.”

 Fear is no stranger to me.  I am habitually challenged to walk through the door of fear.   I was told during missionary training that courage was not the absence of fear, but the conquest of it.

 “The highway of fear is the shortest route to defeat”.  William L. Brownell

 My husband had built a screened-in back porch to the house.  It became home for our gasoline-run wringer washing machine.  The Indians thought the machine was the most ridiculous apparatus they had ever seen!  It was noisy, the water had to be carried from the river (or in rainy season, we could utilize the convenience of the roof rain barrels).   The agitator was a mystery (why would you jerk clothes around in dirty cold water when the river is running and clear!) however; the wringer was another story…it worked really well.  Hand wrung clothes could not match that wringer!  I had to agree with them on all counts! 

While I washed, Kim would play on a blanket or crawl around the porch.  The floor was slightly elevated, lined with wooden planks roughly cut and loosely fit together.  It was not quite finished and as I leaned over the machine, I saw Kim crawling toward something moving under the floorboard.   I turned off the deafening machine, snatched Kim up into my arms and “yelled” for Ralph!  Writhing back and forth, only a few inches away, was a 5’ venomous snake! He had quite possibly been a houseguest for “who knows how long” before we noticed him! Let me repeat…

I am not a fan and I intensely dislike reptiles!

 Arturo, our nearest neighbor had heard me scream and came running, He quickly surveyed our predicament, raised his machete and removed the head of that reptile with one swift blow.  He held it up like a prized Marlin…its length was above his head and its tail draped to the muddy ground!

 This story could have had a much different ending, were it not for our Sovereign God, His plan and the life-lessons He was busy teaching me!  School is always in session if we have eyes to see it. The need to grow and mature will never end on this side of eternity. Fear has been my friend and biggest challenge.  I am to fear the consequence of sin, not snakes.  Easy concept until put to the test!

 “Be strong and of a good courage, Fear not, nor be afraid of them (in this case…snakes);

for the Lord your God, He it is that does go with me, He will not fail me nor forsake me.” 

Deuteronomy 31: 16

 “I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears.”

Psalm 34:4 

 What do you do with your fear?

 This week take note of areas in your life where  you feel overwhelmed.

Like Princess Grace, walk through your fear and rest in God’s sovereignty.

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "War-Torn and Battle-Scarred!"

My daughters, Kim and Christina today

On May 14, 1989 my two, then, teen-age daughters gave me an NAS monogrammed black Bible for Mother’s Day, that I have loved and protected, as a dear friend for over almost 40 years.  It carries within its once blank pages a wealth of notes as God spoke to my heart and taught me life-long lessons.  I am a prolific note-taker and this Bible is packed with names, stars, highlighting, hearts and steps of action searing its pages. I read the Bible through each year so you can imagine what it looks like!

Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat.  They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they opened a hole through the roof above his head.  Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. (Mark 2:3-4)   The note I have in the margin…” Who will you carry, Jackie?”  A simple reminder of a given responsibility. 

J.B. Philips (my favorite Bible that carried me through college) wrote, “The danger to professing Christians lies not in more glaring and grosser temptations and sins, but in a slow deterioration of vision, a slow death to daring courage and willingness to adventure with God.”  If I have lost sight of my responsibility…. I have a definable loss of vision…calling me into accountability.

Whether you are single woman, a mom or grandmother, we each carry responsibility for the short life we live here. Life is simple…a stewardship, not an ownership; a trust and not a gift.  With a gift you can do as you please, but with a trust…you must give an account. (Eph. 2:10)

As I slowly bend the pages of this war-torn Bible, I am reminded of the privilege we have been given to yield to HIS purpose and will in this life and how HE has given us everything we need to live a life that pleases HIM. (II Peter 1:2-3) No excuses for loss of vision or misuse of HIS gift.  His Word is the path through this maize called life.  The other choice…chaos and loss.

What is your choice?

“…every mouth will be silenced and the whole world

held accountable to God.”  Romans 3: 19 NIV

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "The Battle Field!"

Memorial Day is an annual celebration of our Patriotism.  This  is the day we set aside to unmistakably demonstrate love, appreciation, devotion and pride for one’s country and the “counting of the cost” that was paid to secure our freedom  to live here.

 “Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for us…

 Jesus Christ and The American Soldier

 One died for our eternal soul and the other for our freedom.”

Franklin Graham

Operation Heal Our Patriots

 Let’s take time, today, and stop to honor the military men who have served, been wounded or have given their very life for our freedom… Let’s show them our love, devotion and pride…

 “IF my people, which are called by my Name,

will humble themselves, and pray, THEN will I hear from heaven,

and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

II Chronicles 7: 14

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "The Clock is Ticking"

Precious Princesses

 Are you a mother?  Do you hope to be a mom one day? There is no time to waste.  The few short formative years we have with our children calls for an imperative response.  C.S. Lewis said, ”Children are not a distraction from the more important work.  They are the most important work!” 

 After all is said and done, the legacy that matters will not be the assets we leave behind or the company that we have built, or the tidy house we leave…but what we have believed God to build into the life of our child.  Do they feel safe, seen and loved when in our presence? Do they sense the love of God in us?

 Our heritage is all that goes on after we are gone.  That should be a welcomed responsibility and priority that we embrace whole-heartedly; not a frustrating burden that is viewed through subverted thinking.  How connected to the heart of your child are you? 

 Do they think to tell Mom first when life gets sticky or do they run to their friends?  Cultivated relationships don’t just happen…they take time and nurturing.  Are you an intentional mother with your little prince and princess?  Are you intentional with yourself and your life patterns and with God in your time with him?

 We only have one shot at this “important work”…

 What would it take to make us mother’s that are violently driven toward the heart of God and His clear instruction book?  The vast majority of God’s will for our life and the life of our child has already been revealed in the Bible; not in what social media serves up or what other mothers are doing, but in mothers obsessed with a passion for God’s Word and His will for themselves and their children? 

 The clock is ticking…

 “Our greatest danger in life is in permitting the urgent things to crowd out the important.”  Charles E. Hummel

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "The Pulse of Sacrifice"

I love you, sweet Mama…“Love is not a passion.  It is the pulse of sacrifice”.

 For seventy-eight years my mother taught me about genuine love and Motherhood.  I watched her as she maneuvered life.  She had an iron will, was strong and courageous, especially in her later years without Daddy.  She faced life with grace each day accepting God’s Hand and timing.  She had no fear of old age which is the assumption that we still have many years of life ahead of us. “The length of our days is seventy years or eighty, IF we have the strength; yet this span is but trouble and sorrow and passes quickly and then we fly away! (Psalm 90:10)  My mother flew away four years ago and I miss her every day.

 She learned to be “satisfied in the morning with His unfailing love.  She did not sing for joy out loud but she was glad for every day.”  And she still looked forward to any, or all, of us coming and visiting with her.  She was a good listener and I can remember my high school friends coming home with me… to talk and be with her! 

 She was a wise, precious 101-year-old Mama.  She taught me, by example, “to number my days, to be deliberate with my heritage, to think generations and to see how short and quickly life passes.  I am still paying attention.  So, you see, Mom…your job has been well done.

 Thank you for leading the way, leaving a print for me to step into

and showing me the pulse of sacrificial love…

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Jungle Ants!"

We love spring because it means new life….everywhere!   The snow melts, rivers fill up, flowers bloom, newborns of every kind appear round about us…including ants! Warmer weather means beach days, planting gardens, picnics and B-B Q’s. The Princess Parable Series has a seasonal book called “A Royal Easter Story”  and it takes our five princesses into the woods for a Princess Tea Picnic with all the beauty of spring and an opportunity to rescue a lost little girl…

 “A solitary ant, afield, cannot be considered to have much of anything on its mind, indeed, with only a few neurons strung together by fibers, he can’t  be imagined to have a mind at all, much less a thought.  He is more like a ganglion on legs with a lot of initiative.  Four ants together or ten, encircling a dead moth on a path, begin to look more like an idea.  They fumble and shove, gradually moving the food toward the hill, but as though by blind chance.

 It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating.  It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits!” An ant could never be thought of as idle…they never stop moving …aggressively!

While living in the Darien, my husband had no fear of snakes, scorpions, spiders …BUT … the ant…he had great respect and trepidation.  Our youngest daughter, only two, took some cookies to bed with her one night. We heard her moaning in her sleep.  A swarm of army ants had gotten under the mosquito netting and a foot  wide swarm of huge black ants had come up from under the wooden floor and they were after the cookie crumbs and attacking Kim!  Ralph, in one fell swoop, grabbed our daughter and tossed her into my arms. The next few moments were ear-shattering, as he crunched and sprayed the mass of teeming ants, re-directing their onslaught!

 When the dust settled, we realized there was a life-lesson to be learned and it was more than just NOT taking food to bed!  The thinking phase of initiative is to plan, calculate, invent and imagine. The opposite of initiative is to be idle!  We are to study the ant because God calls us to  the take initiative and be actively moving toward His mind and heart daily.  Amy Carmichael wrote, “Satan is much more earnest than we are…he buys up the opportunity while we are wondering how much it will cost us.”

Let’s be busy this week carrying out the will of God

by enthusiastically and assertively keeping in tune with

God’s heart and His leading.

 “Go to the ant,  you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!  It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” Proverbs 6: 6-8

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Darien Endurance!"

Life has a way of introducing us to the realities and expectations we have of ourselves and those that others put on us.  As parents, we tend to translate these into the lives of our children, if we are not open to instruction and correction.  When we are thrown into the floodgates of pursuits, we learn to bend, not break. We, with intentionality,  pursue excellence and put everything we have into every venture.

 One day in the Darien, the “spaghetti hit the fan” and I found myself sensing failure at everything…overwhelmed with pending defeat!  Sitting at my jungle desk with homeschool material, a linguistic box, two little princesses calling “mom” (because they needed lunch), my wash in a big basket on the front porch with the river calling, a house-full of Kuna mothers with their babies sitting in every available space in our living room (including the floor) and my heart being pulled in every direction…I finally gave in, after months of coping and burst into tears!

 I was a failure! It was hot and muggy and my head was throbbing! I was overwhelmed with it all and in that moment, in walks our partners, Jay and Sue.  Compassionately, they asked, “Why are you crying?”  My honest reply, “I am a failure as a wife, missionary, mother, language learner…why I don’t even know how to cook most of what is handed to me!  No running water, no electricity, no washing machine for three dozen diapers…” Expecting an understanding word, I was shocked to hear Jay say, “Jackie, you are a failure!”  No empathy there!

 I learned about endurance that day and how failure was my best friend because it was my reminder that I couldn’t, but He could.  Rom. 5: 3-5  He is never tired or weary and just waiting for me to surrender it all to him so He could begin to build His strength of character in me.

 Endurance is continuing to do what is right, trusting God has got the plan and  even though the difficult times overwhelm, they ultimately lead to unexpected opportunities that I would have missed if I had quit.  It is the inward strength to withstand stress and continue to trust God for whatever life might bring my way.

 Easter was this past Sunday and I am reminded again of the example He set for us in enduring the cross for me.  He is not a “quitter” and faced the horrific trek through courts, mocking, chiding, beatings, being spit upon, floggings, hanging hours on a cruel cross with ripping tendons…to complete the will of His Father …and He endured until the end…victorious!

 There is no excuse for us…HE set the bar…

Whatever our circumstance, we stick to the task with thanksgiving,

 knowing He will do it (if we get out of His way!) and

it has eternal benefit and divine purpose.

It’s a total win…win!

 “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”  Hebrews 12: 2-3

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.