Justin and Alicia Johnson

After years of working on Northern maritime vessels and in the gas and oil pipeline fields, we felt a tug that asked us to stop what we were doing and to seek God. We didn’t know what that meant. At this point, alcohol abuse and a fractured marriage had destabilized what we thought we knew about life. 

So I quit my job, moved my family to Southern Indiana, and started attending Smithville Christian Church in Bloomington. We just started a habit of saying “yes” to serving. At Smithville, we got involved with the Substance Abuse Ministry and were able to witness over 300 baptisms in 1 year. Our minds were transformed and our priorities were rearranged. One yes led to another, and now we work together for the Kingdom in two different capacities within Lifeline. 

Lifeline acts as a catalyst to empower people’s lives within their physical station as well. Instead of looking at what people do not have, Lifeline looks at what they do have, and we help them strengthen that asset in order to empower their lives upward, helping them become self-sufficient. Within this scope, Lifeline has two ministries called “Container Outfitting” and “The Marketplace.”

At Lifeline, Justin serves as Director of Container Outfitting. His mission is to work with Lifeline’s field leadership to identify an international community where shipping containers could be transformed into useful and impactful ministry and community space. Once a location and purpose is identified, Justin then finds North American churches and groups willing to sponsor, design, create, and outfit the container for its global partner. Typically, when a newly outfitted container is sent to a community, the container is full of nutritious Lifeline meals, as many as 200,000+ meals. These purposes and needs come to us in many forms. All of them serve as an asset to ministry and aim to expose those God is calling to the Kingdom of Jesus. The physical utility of this concept knows few bounds, and it facilitates people’s exposure to what God is doing through His Kingdom locally and globally.

Alicia oversees and manages The Marketplace, a retail space in each of Lifeline’s North American Centres where people can come to pack Lifeline meals as well as to purchase fair trade items made and produced globally. For example, at The Marketplace, one can buy coffee from Tegucigalpa, Honduras; earrings and dishware made by mothers in Haiti; and sauces and tea from Panama. All of these things may seem small, but when coupled with Lifeline’s other empowering programs, these all come together to create self-sustaining ministries. And we are seeing great success with this. Because of this approach, some of our ministries have reached 75% self-sustainability.

Together we have 4 children: Brooklyn, Ezra, Charleigh, and Eliza. The ability to work in ministry together is such a blessing to all of us. God has resurrected our lives and blessed us with the opportunity to work alongside each other, together as a family.

We are able to minister with the prayerful and financial support of willing individuals who have understood and caught the vision of our mission. We work as a unit, kids and all, pulling weight alongside each other and empowering everyone we can. We would be very appreciative of both of your efforts prayerfully and financially, if you are able. Thank you!