Ellen L. Johnson Rohrer was born on July 27, 1947 in Champaign County, Ohio, the second of seven children born to Mark and Marilyn Johnson. She was an Ohio native until the age of 34, but currently considers Mechanicsville, Virginia, to be her home.
Ellen became a Christian at the age of eight, and began dreaming about serving the Lord on a foreign field shortly afterward. After graduating from high school, Ellen attended Cincinnati Bible Seminary for two years (1965-67), majoring in Greek Bible and Missions with the hope of working with Mac and Wilma Coffey in Bari, Italy. An attack of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis during her sophomore year at CBS effectively sidetracked her schooling and missionary plans.
Believing that God had another design for her career path, Ellen married and began her family the following year. She was married for 25 years and has one daughter (Julie, born in 1969) and one son (David, born in 1970).
Ellen has taught piano and voice privately since 1968. After her family moved to Virginia in 1981, she was asked to consider a teaching position at Liberty Christian School. She taught fourth grade there for ten years and served as music director at both the school and Liberty Christian Church.
After Ellen and her husband were divorced in 1993, the Lord redirected her teaching career when she was accepted as a recruit of Pioneer Bible Translators and began her training as a Literacy Specialist at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Dallas, Texas, in 1994. While taking her SIL training, she also completed her bachelor's degree in Christian Leadership and Management at Dallas Christian College. A year of partnership development followed.
Ellen arrived in Papua New Guinea in August 1998. Following the Pacific Orientation Course (SIL), she traveled to Ukarumpa where she was accepted on teaching staff of the Supervisors' Tok-Ples Education Program (STEP) for training national men and women to serve as teacher supervisors in Tok Ples (language of the community) Preparatory Schools throughout the country of PNG. Besides serving on staff at STEP, Ellen is the Literacy Resource Coordinator for PBT.