To Live is Christ, to Die is Gain
Born and raised in Pisgah, Alabama, Hannah Johnston wasn’t always a regular churchgoer. She described her hometown as the kind of place where everyone knows your business, and everyone knows your family. Her grandparents owned the local convenience store. And her grandmother was her hero.
When Johnston turned 16, her grandmother started asking for rides. She didn’t have a driver’s license, because her husband wouldn’t allow it. When Sunday mornings rolled around, Johnston would drive them both to church. Then one week, she started joining her inside.
“She was always super faithful,” Johnston said. “That was a cool influence of seeing her walk in that. Even in tough situations, even when she’s not supported by her husband, even when she’s not supported by the world in certain ways… she definitely is the person who brought me to that in the first place.”
Eight years later, Johnston practices her Christian faith daily in her Auburn home, where she devotes her time to Baby Steps, a non-faith based, non-profit organization that empowers college women with unplanned pregnancies to continue their education. When she’s not holding a baby or connecting with a student mom, Johnston can be found tackling multiple roles within her church community.
Sunlight pierces through the small window panes of the 24-year-old’s upstairs duplex, radiating warmth into the white linen sofa cushions. There’s no TV in the living room. An acoustic guitar suspends from the back wall, along with two wide-brimmed straw hats that journeyed all the way from Boshang, a small village just outside Lincang, China.
Seth Johnston, her husband of ten months, laughed about the wall art. “As much as she’s rich, and deep, and loving, and- there’s like a depth to her- she’s fun and goofy, and will go buy these Chinese hats, and go through all the trouble of bringing them back through customs, and making sure they don’t get broken on a plane just ‘cause she likes the way that they look. I love that about her.”
After returning from a mission trip in 2017- Chinese straw hats in tow- Johnston knew that she wanted to plant churches. At the time, Auburn Community Church was still getting its feet off the ground.
“It’s a crazy story, because I think it was the second time that I ever went there, and I see this unmarried, pregnant girl, who, I didn’t know at the time, was actually a Baby Steps mom,” Johnston recalled.
“I didn’t know anything about Baby Steps. I’d never heard of it. She was telling somebody about how she’d never felt so loved. She was like, ‘I walked in here, and no one sees my pregnant belly, but they see me as a human.’”
Today, Johnston remains involved in ACC, alongside her husband, Seth. As a member of the Connect Team, Sunday mornings for Johnston start under a white tent, where she greets churchgoers and helps adults and students get plugged into a serve team.
Meanwhile, her husband serves as one of the relational ministry coordinators. The two also lead a co-ed college group every Tuesday evening through ACC.
“I get to spend an extra two hours with her, thinking about what she thinks, and how she understands the word of God,” her husband said. “We spend personal time talking about those things- reading together, worshiping together, and praying together. But getting to see that in community with other people and see her share that…Honestly, just getting to experience her intimacy with God shared is really incredible.”
In addition to her roles in the church, Johnston serves as a full-time Live-in Support at Baby Steps. Whether it’s administering on-campus talks, meeting with pregnant students, or caring for the moms in the community, her schedule remains full.
“I tell everybody I’m a professional problem solver because that’s pretty much what we do,” Johnston said.
Baby Steps founder Michelle Schultz said she can always count on Johnston that no matter the task, she will get it done, and she will do it well.
Samantha Ponder, the second Live-in Support, works directly alongside Johnston to handle maintenance and relational needs for the student moms. Ponder joined the Baby Steps team in July 2020, but the two have known each other for five years now.
“She puts the needs of others before herself in all circumstances, whether that be always refusing to be first in line for dinner- because she’s usually holding a baby so a student mom can go first- or simply always finding time in her day to have an intentional conversation,” Ponder said. “Hannah loves big, and she loves through her actions.”
Auburn University student Veronica Cherry moved into the Baby Steps home in August 2019 when she was 26 weeks pregnant. “Hannah’s one of my closest friends,” Cherry said. “She’s just a great role model and somebody that I wish, one day, to be like when it comes to having a relationship with God.” As a senior, Cherry is set to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering by 2022 with her daughter, Annistyn, by her side.
Johnston recently received a text from another Baby Steps mom who attended a women’s night at Auburn Community Church. This mom said she started crying at her table because of the love she’d been shown through her community, much like that pregnant college student four years ago who inspired Johnston toward her career.
For Johnston, being a Christian means everything. “I really do believe that before I met the Lord, I was dead in my sin,” she said. “Part of my job, as a Christian, as who I am, is loving people. And that’s what they need the most. They need somebody to love them.”
The dream is to be a missionary, Johnston said. That might take the couple back to India, where she and her husband spent three weeks in 2019 running a sponsorship program for a children’s orphanage. “I don’t know where He wants me. We’re just trying to be really obedient in that.”
Last week, her husband turned in a graduate application for a seminary school just outside Brussels, Belgium. God permitting, the couple could be making the move by September.
“I think me and Hannah are growing in our unity and desire and delight in what God wants to see done in the world and how He wants to see it done,” her husband said. “I think it will be a little while before we really figure that out, but along the way, we’re just trying to be faithful- taking that first step.”
Growing up, Johnston’s dad always taught her that it doesn’t really matter what you do, or how much money you make. If you’re enjoying it, and you’re treating people well, he said you’re where you’re supposed to be. Johnston continues to live out those words every day, both in her career and in the relationships that stem from it.
“Christ seemed to teach, more than anything, to follow Him is to die to yourself, and to serve other people, and to love other people, and to, more than anything, love God,” her husband said. “And I think she does that from Baby Steps. She could be working a different job and making a lot of money. She’s not. She’s died to herself, and she’s serving other people.”
