But God

Although the first adventure has come and gone the experiences and lessons I have learned will leave a last impression on me. First, we arrived here on Tuesday and got situated where we would be staying in China. It is place nothing out of the ordinary you would see at home. The next day we went through a debriefing process with the people or friends we worked with. They told us the huge need for Bibles in China and it was amazing to see their passion for this ministry.

Here in China you can't buy Bibles in bookstores but you can buy Max Lucado stuff

50 million New Testament Bibles have been printed in the past 30 years

There are 1.4 billion people living in China currently

Churches get raided here by the government and the Bibles previously printed are burned

Ten's of millions Christians need Bibles

You have to be registered to have a church, to print Bibles, just about anything.

I hope that gives you an idea of what needs the Christians in China need is for the Bible.

Now, we got to help bring Bibles to China by going through customs and sometimes the Lord wanted us to take one Bible in after being detained by the Chinese customs and sometimes the Lord wanted us to bring several in through backpacks and suitcases. The opportunity to bring the Bibles into China was not mentally taxing, but physically, it was taxing carrying several pounds on your back. Satan could try to attack us by saying this opportunity is boring, easy, but while debriefing someone said a quote that convicted me but impacted me as well.

*Finding the Lord in the routine will grow a deeper relationship than with special events or experiences*

This was great to hear because sometimes I feel like I need something to jump start my walk again to get out of a rut, but this quote was true. I like it because it gets our focus off of us and on Christ. Something that I have learned from working at camp the past few years is that being Christ-centered is so much better than being self-centered. Our life is not about what we did or what we accomplished, but about what God did through us being a willing instrument for His Kingdom. Another quote that someone said was, "*But God."*

After being detained a couple times the group was talking about if we wore hats or changed our hair color then we might be able to get across because they would not be able to recognize us. That is when they said BUT GOD which she was implying that takes away the idea of letting God orchestrate His will and us feeling like that if we changed our hair or wore a hat that we had something to do with getting through. That would not be the case.

The Lord allowed myself to get through to China three times and every time there was a big diversion when I went through whether it was other people getting stopped by the customs or the last time we went threw a guy had a gun who they pulled over and all the customs were focused on him. Praise the Lord these custom officials are there to protect. We cannot look at them as enemies for doing there job, but just ask the Lord to give them blind eyes because we are not trying to harm them but help the Christians who need Bibles.

The first time I was detained, I ran into 3 other people who got caught doing the same thing, bringing Bibles into China, which was really encouraging to me and the others on the team knowing there were several people living a life of servant hood for the Lord.

When we get detained we are perfectly fine because all they do is take the Bibles and give us one for our personal use ( like we can read Mongolian Chinese right?) but it is one more Bible into China that was not there before. After they take our Bibles we have to go back to a place where they are holding our Bibles and pay to get them back. The amount in which you pay is determined by the weight of Bibles you brought to China. Everything is fine when you get caught except for having to carry them back. That is the least we could do and just try again later.
We have one more day of Bible couriering and then off to India Tuesday morning.

We had a day off to sight see and check out the culture so we decided to go around China and check out where we had been living. We went to a place called Splendid China because it brought all the Chinese cultures into this amusement park. The great wall of China was there and buddhist temples. They were much smaller and the replicas were the scale of 1:12. It was amazing to see the Lord provide people who could speak English to us because we had no idea where to go and we found it perfect. The Lord provided us with guidance and direction. pretty much the whole day.

I will leave you with one story from our adventure.

One funny story from yesterday was that when we tried to eat was the only time we couldn't find anyone who spoke English. So we finally found a place that had food and we walked up and they handed us menus which of course was all in Chinese. We asked if they had one with both English and Chinese because most places do here. They just laughed and shook there heads. Well a guy came out of the back of the kitchen and said, "Tomato and egg, Tomato and egg." We then laughed and was like "no, no" I asked if they had any chicken and the guy was like oh chicken. Well, when they decided to show us the chicken we made a surprised look on our face because it was a beheaded chicken with feet and toenails and the such. It was pretty funny. All the people in the restaurant were cracking up at us. I decided to look around the place to see if I could find anything I wanted to eat, but we didn't so we left. It was pretty interesting day.
It has been an amazing journey and will post more about it soon hopefully.

Proverbs 3:5,6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."

For His glory and your joy,

Levi Johnston

Ready or not world here we come!

First, off I want to say thanks to everyone who is supporting the team and myself on this amazing journey! The Lord is so good and I am ready to see what He uses us for! I have a story that happened to me while at home in Oklahoma to tell you guys

I went to eat at Johnny's because I was craving the world's best onion rings, so mom treated me with that. She invited some friends and some people I was able to meet who just got back from camp at Turner Falls called Falls Creek. There were 5 boys and a mom named Kimie. They were such a blessing to me.

First off, they were telling me about a cousin who accepted the Lord at camp (Praise the Lord) and how another kiddo surrendered to ministry (Another Praise) so that was pretty great to see the Lord working. Then the encouragement from them poured out! They gave me a scrub that they all signed and wrote some encouraging words on then prayed for me at the restaurant. It was amazing to see the Love and support they were giving me. It blew my mind and was great to see them being used by the Lord to send encouragement my way.

Then the mom was an encourager at Falls Creek and begged for a name tag that said encourager on it. She felt empowered when she had that name tag. Well, she decided to give to me which meant a lot because she really liked it and although some may say its just a name tag, but to me is a reminder of what we should do and look for opportunities daily to love on some one! They definitely did that with their words and actions that day!

Wow! We leave tomorrow morning at 6 A.M. for Phoenix then will head to San Francisco and then to Hong Kong for a short flight of 14 hours. This will be great because the team will get to meet Heather in San Francisco and we will all be unified together!

I ask for your prayers that you pray this passage for us! As we begin that we will be unified

Romans 15:5-6

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"

Until next time,

For His Glory and your joy,

Levi Johnston

Bio

Well, I am an Okie for most life and landed in Texas to work at T Bar M camps for the past two years! I was on a discipleship team for a year then landed a job at Christian Academy of San Antonio teaching and coaching! The Lord gave me an opportunity to go on a trip around the world to serve Him and love on people! That is where I am at in life now!

I grew up in Oklahoma in Mustang, OK and loved every minute of it. I fell in love with sports at an early age, but basketball is my favorite sport and the Lord has opened many of opportunities through the passion of basketball He gave me! I graduated highschool in 2001 and then moved on to Oklahoma State University! Go POKES!!!! I am orange through and through....

I came to know the Lord my 7th grade year in the fall! It has been truly an amazing journey for me. The Lord is so good and I am excited to see the changes He will have on my life through this trip we are about to go on. I thank the Lord for everyone who has poured into me! You all have molded and taught me many things with the Lord's help. Man, I am fired up to see the Lord work on this trip and get to see the opportunties we have to love on people and serve them!
Mark 10:45 "For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve"

My family means so much to me and has impacted my life more than you could imagine whether it is about sacrifice, hardwork, or compassion. They have been the biggest blessing in life! I am so thankful for the lessons learned from them and being raised with such love and discipline! Yeah, I said discipline everyone needs discipline!

Well, the I am done for now and hopefully that will give you a little insight of who I am!
1 Corinthians 2:4,5
"4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."