My husband, Rodney, and I met in 1990 at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Before meeting, we both felt called to serve God in the Spanish speaking world. We spent spent 15 years in Uruguay where our focus was building a culturally relevant community of faith among Montevideo’s upper middle class professionals. We developed deep and lasting relationships during our time there, and we consider our Uruguayan friends as some of our closest and most intimate friends.

We have two kids–Ryan (30) and Cassie (24) who grew up in Uruguay. In 2014 we returned to the U.S. for what we thought would be a one year home assignment as we helped our son settle into his first year of college. We were also transitioning to a missionary sending organization that was more aligned with our relational and developmental approach to nurturing communities of faith than the organization we had been serving with. (This is when we first found Communitas, and we thought we would return to Uruguay under their hospices.)

When we returned to our home church community in 2014, the leadership had significantly changed, and we found ourselves in a spiritually abusive situation where we were sadly treated as though we were guilty of something but nobody would tell us what it was. Because relationships are one of our highest values, we persevered for three years, attempting to find relational peace with the leadership in that church. After three years, God finally released us out of that church community, so we left. As you can imagine, this experience left us wounded, and as we healed, my husband found his niche in mental health as a therapist.

For many years I have worked as a Spanish Interpreter and supervisor at a pediatric clinic. During this time I did some ministry work with Communitas and a sister organization called LK10. My work at the clinic always felt temporary as I sought opportunities to use the gifts and talents God had given me and to move back into full-time “people and kingdom work”.

Three years ago I became a Professional Leadership and Transitions Coach. I currently have my own coaching business, www.soleajohnson.com, and I am building a community of ministry partners so I can dedicate part of my work week to coaching Christian leaders in the Spanish speaking world. Together with the Latin American director of Communitas, Eduardo Rodrigues, I will help build a network of Latin American leaders who are deeply connected to themselves, God and one another. Eduardo and I will be helping leaders take a coaching approach to building communities of faith. Much of my work will be remote, but I will be traveling to Latin America a couple of times per year for more face to face training.

I also look forward to opportunities to use my unique gifts, including coaching, shepherding and my love for building healthy community, to prepare Communitas workers to serve cross culturally, from a place of emotional and spiritual health.

I was born in 1968–the same year (I think) that Communitas was born. I was born to hippie parents in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco. From ages one to six I lived on a little Island in Greece with my mom. My parents has divorced while traveling in Europe, and my mom decided to stay on the island with me. I remember always being fascinated by the Greek Orthodox church and festivals that were such a part of life and culture on that island. Because the island was a safe environment, from a young age I had a lot of freedom. When I was four or five, I was sitting on the roof of a little chapel on a mountainside (how I got there is a story for another day), and some tourists walked by. I proudly told them the priest of this church was my father. (This, of course, was not true, but I was, apparently, aware I didn’t have a father in my life–my dad was in the U.S.) When I told the tourists the priest of the church was my father, I was talking about the village priest connected to that church. Fast forward to adulthood–God showed me that without knowing it, when I said this, I was referring to Him and that even from a young age, He had his hand upon my life as my father!

We returned to the US when I was six. While I always felt loved by my mom, my growing up years were bumpy at home. I met Jesus as a 13 year old at summer camp, and that changed the trajectory of my life. In high school I went to Uruguay as an exchange student, and little did I know that one day my husband and I would raise our kids in that beautiful country!

I am a highly relational person who builds community where ever I am. I have been blessed with many deep and satisfying friendships, and my good friends are spread out among many countries. I am excited to begin working with Communitas and extend that network!