written: 6-13-2018

Hello-
We wish to thank you for your prayers for those affected by the devastation caused by Volcano Fuego in Guatemala and for us as we work through trying to help. I am writing to give you each an update and to help with continuing to pray & support where the Spirit may lead you.

Brad has remained in Guatemala, carrying out the food distribution and being the hands and feet as I am here in the USA for a brief visit for meetings, fundraising and a family member’s graduation. My time here has been great and I have had so many meaningful and fruitful conversations with so many amazing people. Not to mention be recharged by seeing our family, grandchildren and friends. I am ready to go back and continue doing what I do best just plain helping wherever I can. Please pray for Brad and I to have the wisdom, discernment, safety and energy to carry out what God has planned for us to do in the coming months. Please pray for the teams that will be coming. Please pray for the recovery efforts and for the ministries on the ground. Pray for those suffering so much loss and for their spirits to be open to connect with Father God during their greatest time of need in His special and unique way.

We are watching the rescue and recovery efforts closely & have prayed about what our response should be. What we have witnessed so far is the shelters have sufficient food and supplies at the moment due to the amazing response of the Guatemalan people, body of Christ, businesses and nonprofit organizations. However the coordinated distribution of these items is currently in complete chaos due to lack of organization and government corruption. Larger ministries and relief organizations are slowly taking over managing the urgent needs at hand and the government is slowly handing power over which is good. There are still many persons missing and cleanup efforts have been slowed and frequently halted due to ongoing smaller eruptions and pyroclastic flows causing more areas to be evacuated or blocked off from outside help/food. It is the rainy season so mudslides and flooding are hindering as well. We are seeing a good response from mission organizations in with coordinating recovery and care efforts through increasing their funding and care within their current care focus/specialty of their organization bringing in the medical, pharmaceutical & psychological care of their ministry into the shelters as well as cut off villages. We praise God for this! The road to recovery will be long and unfortunately, the abundance of help now will certainly dwindle as people forget or get frustrated with the slow process. Sustaining/bringing help in the future when this happens will be crucial.

After much prayer and video, email meetings with several mission groups on the ground in Guatemala, Recycled Lives has decided to use the current donations to help provide specific families that are hosting displaced families in surrounding communities to the mission home with food and basic resources they need to care for themselves and the displaced families they are committed to helping. Some families are hosting complete strangers while others are hosting relatives and friends of friends. Many of these generous hosts are struggling themselves to make ends meet for their own family needs but are sacrificing to care for others. These are the families we will be targeting to help on a more individual level. We also have located over 100 persons that are displaced in our local community alone and we are working with the “locals” to find a way to aid these homeless as a direct result of the disaster. We feel called to specifically help in these areas because coordinating supplemental food distributions and working on individual family development and housing is where our ministry gifts, resources and skills are. We will set aside any remaining funds to aid in future needs as they develop. We will do our best to keep everyone up to date via email & website updates www.RecycledLives.org & our Facebook page. You don’t need a Facebook account to view our page.
Thanks again for your ongoing prayer.

In Christ’s love,
Shawn Johnson
Founder, Executive Director, Missionary