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The Long and Winding Road
How God Brought Us to This Point
Don, Kendra, Zoe and
Liberty Johnson
God has been preparing me for this type of focused evangelistic endeavor
for some time.
In
1993 I took my first foray into missions. I traveled from my home in Canada to
San Jose, California to volunteer with CityTeam
Ministries as an inner city youth worker. It was supposed to be just a
summer thing—something to get out of my system before moving on to a “real”
job, but it didn’t work out that way. I ended up staying with CityTeam for
five years.
During
that time God molded and shaped me and opened my eyes to His great passion for
reaching the lost. To further that end, I enrolled at San
Jose Christian College and received a B.A. in Bible and Theology with a
major in Missions.
The
training at SJCC and experience with CityTeam was indispensable, but something
even better happened while I was in San Jose. I met the love of my life, Kendra,
and we were married in the fall of 1997.
In
1998, Kendra and I moved to Portland, Oregon. I attended Multnomah
Biblical Seminary while she continued her studies at Warner
Pacific College. God used
our time in Portland to greatly impress upon me the spiritual power of
proclamation as well as the huge practical potential of mass communication.
The
professors in the Evangelism program are great preachers and worldwide leaders
in reaching others for Christ. At the same time, I started working with
evangelist Bob Cryder, who had recently started hosting a call-in talk show on a
secular radio station, 1080 KOTK in
Portland.
I
started out doing research for "Hot Potato Radio" and soon joined Bob and his partner, Dave Cetti, on the air.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I loved hosting talk radio. Trying to
convince callers from across the religious spectrum that Christianity is the one
true religion was one of the most enjoyable things I had ever done.
After
two years in Portland, Kendra graduated and I decided to finish my graduate work
at Biola University in Southern California.
Hosting talk radio had shown me that I needed more apologetic skills, so I
entered Biola’s MA Apologetics program.
We
moved to Whittier, California, where our beautiful daughter, Zoe, was born in
April, 2001.
A
few months later I graduated and, after a brief stint back in Oregon doing the
radio show, I accepted a job as College Career Director at the Evangelical
Free Church of Huntington Beach, California in January, 2002.
We
have been there ever since. Kendra and I love the people and the area. And
being a college pastor is great. The young adults I work with constantly
challenge me with their good hearts and keen minds. They also provide access to
the huge mission field of local college campuses and we have had a great time
doing open forums and other outreach events with them.
My church job is a
part time gig, so in 2003 I founded Don Johnson Evangelistic
Ministries in order that I might have the opportunity to do
ministry full time.
Our second daughter, Liberty, was born in August, 2004 and
in 2005 Kendra took over as Children's Ministry Director at
our church so we are a busy family but we enjoy (almost)
every minute of it.
I
look forward to seeing what other exciting things God has in
store for us in the future.
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