The Johnson Family is a family of Missionaries affiliated with MaryKnoll.  They became a part of our St. Augustine School family during the  2022-2023 academic school year.  
The children--Josephine, Collin, and Charlotte-- were students here until the family moved on to Tanzania to continue their missionary work.  

This loving, caring family lives their Catholic Values each and every day.

They keep in touch with us still, and we follow their work through various social media avenues.  Some of the links posted below are for Mr & Mrs. Johnson, MaryKnoll, and for their Family Missionary Blog.  

St. Augustine School has continued to donate small sums to their work in Africa.  The money from The Coin Wars, collected during Catholic school week this year, will be donated to their mission in support of all their good works. 

See below their recent newletter sent out in December 2023 to their followers. 

The Johnson's are a far flung part of our extended St. Augustine Family, they are doing God's work and will always have a special place in our hearts. 

The monies collected by St. Augsutine School Students were donated to their Mission,  to go towardfs many needed health and medical needs...below from Anna Johnson's email to Sr. Mary Elizabeth ---

"Took a kiddo in yesterday to get a prosthetic leg. He lost it a few years back when a crocodile pulled him into the lake! Figured the kids in Ossining might appreciate their funds going toward something exciting like that! 

Blessings from East Africa!

Anna Johnson, RN, BSN"

"Thank you for your incredible support and contributions in 2023. Whether it was a financial gift, words of encouragement, or simply praying for our family, we are grateful for all of you. We especially want to acknowledge Anna’s cousin, Adam, for using his creative tech skills to create some beautiful videos showcasing some of our service work. It has been extremely helpful, and we can’t express our gratitude enough. Many others have encouraged us through difficult situations or have just been there when we needed to talk. We couldn’t have made it through our first year in mission without you!

While this past year was challenging in many ways, we feel that we have become stronger as a family. The kids especially have adapted well. They have all joined a swimming club. Collin and Josephine are in Model UN and Chess Club and Charlotte is in Yoga and seems to have made friends with the entire school. They have grown up a lot since we arrived, but in some ways, I think we have been able to preserve more of their childhood as well.

Anna and I have found resonance with the work we are doing although I don’t think it will ever be routine. For better or worse, Anna has become a “go-to” person for navigating the health system in Mwanza for children with disabilities. She could write a small book on what she has witnessed while accompanying patients to hospitals and clinics. I continue to be amazed at her capacity to help others in what are sometimes extremely difficult circumstances.

Below is a list of some of the things we are doing on mission:

Huruma School: This is one of the very few schools for children with severe disabilities in all of Mwanza. Anna conducts clinical assessments, procures wheelchairs and braces (they must be built at a welding shop), coordinates much needed physical therapy, assists with accessing medications for children with seizures, and is currently working with a group of surgeons in Boston to assess over two hundred kids, some of whom will receive potentially life-changing surgeries when the physicians visit later this year. Additionally, we continue to fundraise for the school. Some of the funds are supporting much needed building improvements such as a fixing a leaky roof, resurfacing crumbling floors, painting the interior/exterior, planting trees, and creating color murals on the walls to help stimulate the kids. Other funds are being used for medical care, medical equipment, and to help pay for a physical therapist to be on staff.

Africa Street Dogs Rescue: When we first arrived, we would drive by starving dogs near where we live. I’ve seen some sad strays before, but these dogs were something else. Finally, Anna couldn’t stomach it anymore. She started working with a local veterinarian and so far, has helped procure enough funds to build Mwanza’s first dog shelter, conduct several spay/neuter clinics (hundreds of dogs have been fixed and tagged), and has helped secure grants to vaccinate thousand dogs against rabies. The last part is especially pertinent since several people have been infected (and died) from rabid dog bites in the last few months. Anna has also ventured out to a local gold mine (that is a story in of itself) hoping to secure grant money that will assist local people on improving the treatment and livelihood of working donkeys that support the mine – which in turn will support their work and their families. Our family friend, Camilla, who operates an animal sanctuary in California has been an indispensable partner in helping make these things happen.

Mercy Montessori School: Kyle worked with a local primary school to repair its water system. The school now has a source of water from the lake which will allow it to irrigate rice crops which are used to feed the children. A filtration system will soon be installed that will allow for the water to be consumed without treatment.

Bukumbi Hospital: Access to clean drinking water is an issue in Tanzania and even hospitals and clinics don’t always have access to it. In some places, expectant mothers need to bring their own water when they come into a clinic to give birth. You can imagine how this effects hygiene, the spread of infectious diseases, infant mortality rates, and more. Kyle is currently fundraising for a project that will bring clean water to this rural hospital, as well as provide clean drinking water for staff housing and the affiliated nursing college.

Scholarship Program: Our kids attend an international school in Mwanza. It is a good school and has students from Tanzania as well as many other countries. One of the surreal juxtapositions we regularly observe when dropping our kids off is when other children (very poor children) are rummaging through the dumpsters outside the school. Our hope is to help to raise funds to create a scholarship program for impoverished children. The intent is to raise enough money that high potential children who couldn’t otherwise afford to attend the international school will be able to do so. Poverty is a huge problem, and this program is just a drop in the ocean. But like one of my favorite movie quotes acutely points out,“What is the ocean but a multitude of drops?”

Parents of Children with Disabilities: Responding to the needs Anna has witnessed at Huruma School, Kyle will lead an effort to organize the parents and teachers of children with disabilities. Like in the US, change at the societal level demands that people are empowered to engage with their government. In this case, we want to help people get organized and show them how to initiate changes and obtain support for children with disabilities starting at the grassroots level. We can start programs and fundraise all we want, but at the end of the day it is the people of Mwanza who must lead the way on changing the stigma around disabilities. This effort is meant to help teach people how to work together and how to advocate for the children in their charge who are so desperately in need of financial, nutritional, emotional, and medical support.

Thank you again for your support and we wish you all a happy and healthy 2024!!

Love,

Kyle, Anna, Josephine, Collin, & Charlotte Rose 

Kyle E. Johnson, Maryknoll Lay Missioner

Mwanza, Tanzania

Google Voice/WhatsApp: + 1.360.775.5159 (preferred)

Cell: +255 (0)762.316.874

[email protected]

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."- Rabindranath Tagore