Merry Christmas 2023--Family Update

Brown Family Update 2023

This has been a different kind of year for me. I just recently passed the first year of having no kids living in my home year round! I have continued as a nurse and CPR instructor for Cru. As part of that I work 2 days a week at a clinic for the uninsured. We have primary care, some limited specialties and a liver clinic that provides screening and treatment for those with Hepatitis C. It really feels like we are making a difference in the community.

Barrett and I took a trip to Vancouver with Cru, we all went to Charlottesville for Luke’s graduation ceremony, and I traveled to Maine with Catelin and my sister Mari.

Barrett also spent a week in Bogota to help the Jesus Film Project and has has worked on a wide variety of engagements for Cru. The “2-year” headquarters renovation is now into its 4th year! His daily routines include walking Brexit twice a day and riding his bike to the gym.

Catelin continues her work at Orlando Health supporting the Career and Talent Development teams. She traveled to California to see Cara and her nephews twice this year, and always looks forward to any time she can spend with her family. She enjoyed our trip to Maine, which has been 5 years in the making—it was exciting to finally make it there and enjoy some autumn colors in a small town by the ocean!

As I write this, the Johnsons have COVID for the first time! I think their biggest news is that Zeke started kindergarten this year and loves it. Zeke also played soccer for the first time. Titus is three and has taken swim lessons. He really seems happy too. Bowen is 2 and very busy. He loves his cars (they all do!). Cara is super busy with the boys. She has painted a lot in the house. She has made super fun rooms for the boys. Perry has traveled quite a bit to different conferences for his work at UCI in turbulent flow.

Aubrey started a new job last week. She began working for Orange County in compensation. She also has an Etsy shop! She traveled for work to Minnesota and to Connecticut, Michigan and California to visit friends and family.

Luke is living in Melbourne and just passed his first year anniversary working for an aerospace company. He continues to enjoy his two favorite hobbies of playing sports and gecng injured playing sports.

Macy is in her second year at the University of Florida. She is majoring in Criminology and Psychology and minoring in English. She volunteers as a tutor for kids with decreased literacy, and joined an adult co-ed softball team and is playing with some “old men.” Last summer she worked for Cru doing childcare. She really loves the kids. She also traveled to New York City and loved it!

This year has had its ups and downs like every year. It seems like we’re ending it preMy well, which is something I am very grateful for. We wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I hope you can find time to reflect on the difference Jesus’ birth has made in your life.

For all of us, 

A Special Request

At church in this month a praise song really spoke to me. It was a simple, clear message of God’s love for me. It was beautiful. When I got home and listened to different versions of the song, they were over-produced and had dramatic crescendos that clouded the simple message.

That simple faith in Jesus can
get clouded in our society by so many peripheral issues that hinder people’s ability to listen, hear and understand.

Our work at Cru is trying, often imperfectly, to
present the simple message of Jesus coming to create a bridge between God and man through his death, so that each person can accept that for him or herself. We believe many people respond when they can hear it through the all the noise.

That's why we do what we do.

You have followed us, prayed for us and partnered with us. Thank you. We thought you would want to know that our financial support has decreased over the last couple of years, and we want to ask if you will consider helping with a special gift this month.

We need to raise an additional $1,000 per month, or $12,000 annually to be able to stay engaged in the mission. Would you prayerfully consider a special gift this December to help? Or possibly consider helping with a monthly gift this next year?  Or if you are already giving, consider increasing your gift?

The easiest way to give is to visit give.cru.org/0374749 and indicate how you would like to help. You can also mail a check made to “Cru” to our home address at 4126 Stonewall Dr., Orlando, FL  32812.

We are grateful to you for your faithfulness to the Lord, and your friendship with us we serve with Cru. Whether you can help with this need now or not, we are grateful for how you have partnered with us. Thank you, and we hope you have a wonderful Christmas celebration. 

With love,

Thank you

We are so thankful for you. 

I shared with someone recently that Dayna and I have served with Cru for 37 years now, and all that time we have been able to serve because of faithful and generous supporters who provide all of the funds to pay for our salaries, insurance, and ministry expenses.  It really is incredible to us when we think about it.

It is an honor for us to have you believe in us, invest in us and trust us to follow the Lord and invest our work in helping introduce people Jesus.

Thank you.  We we remember you often.  God is blessing us through you.

Yesterday I met with the new AIA Team Leaders who are here in Orlando for 3 days of training.  I gave them a tour of our Cru headquarters, explaining that this is their headquarters, and that everyone here works to support their work on their campuses.  I also explained that this place is theirs to use.

I also met with Steve and Cecile Mohammed, who lead Cru’s seminary in Latin America, UNILID.edu.  The seminary’s official location is Lake Hart, and I helped them get set up here as they pursue accreditation.  As we toured and they learned that our headquarters is designed for them to use any room and any space, they were so grateful.  “We can’t tell you how much this blesses us.  This really is our campus.”

Every time we get to touch a part of Cru around the states or the world, I  think of our partners and how you are making an impact with us.

Last month Dayna was hanging out with Catelin and her sister in Maine, and Perry, our son in law, was in town to speak at the University of Florida.  So, I rode up with him to watch him speak on turbulence (of course I understood all of it), and we stopped by to visit Macy as her apartment.  We are glad Macy is close enough that we can drive up and are looking forward to her coming home next week for Thanksgiving.

We hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. While we will give God thanks for your friendship and partnership with us, we also want to express to you how grateful we are to you.

With love and thanks,  

Dayna, Catelin and Mari in Maine

A picture of Cru's Lake Hart Campus

Here are two recent videos that highlight Cru's newly updated Lake Hart Campus and the work that happens here.  The first is the Grand Opening video for the last two office wings, and the second is a video posted on Cru's LinkedIn page that gives you a picture of what it's like for one couple to work at Cru.

Over three years ago Cru's current president asked me to lead the transformation of our campus from a siloed, departmentally segmented office to an activity based environment.  The objectives were to 

• Accelerate the mission
• Foster collaboration and innovation
• Exhibit care
• Demonstrate Stewardship

And our design principles include

• Flexibilty
• Accessibility
• Holistic solutions
• Ease of use
• Safe & secure

Thank you for allowing us to serve Cru and these ministries by providing such a beautiful space to work in.  

Summer 2023 recap

Technically summer doesn't end until September 21, so let me share a bit about what what we've been up to.

HR Stuff

What some may consider not so exciting, I prepared a recommendation to update Cru's compensation philosophy for our hourly/salaried staff.  This will help us consider how we best attract, resource, and retain these important staff.

Jesus Film Project

In early July I traveled to Bogota, Columbia to be with the Jesus Film Project Latin America & Caribbean Core Team to help them as they developed their plan to provide resources to help everyone hear the gospel in their heart language.   Their three strategic anchors are to identify and expand strategic regional partnerships, establish alignment internally with Cru national ministries, and to prioritize the least resourced people groups in each country.

Lake Hart Transformation

Last week we had the ribbon cutting for the last two wings of Cru's Lake Hart headquarters.  These 8 wings have taken over 3 years to complete, so we are excited to have all of the office spaces open.  Lake Hart supports over 1,000 staff on 25 different ministries/departments.  

The experience we have gained from leading this project has allowed us to help our Canadian headquarters, the National Christian Foundation, and several other ministries as they adjust their office space to meet the new reality of work.  I didn't know missionary work would include how offices work, did you?

If you are ever in Orlando, please let us know.  We'd love to show you our Lake Hart campus and all that is happening here.

Family Time

We had our California crew come to Florida for over two weeks and we got them here for over a week!  We got everyone together at one time, so we took our Christmas photo that you'll see again in December!  A highlight was visiting the Cars hotel at Disney to see the life size heroes.  We also canoed, swam in beaches and pools, and identified airplanes landing and taking off.

We are so grateful for your friendship and partnership with us as we serve with Cru.  So much of our work is invested in helping our staff serve effectively, and that is what you do for us.  

With love and thanks,

A Helping Hand

We hope you are having a good start to your summer!  We had a fun family trip to Charlottesville to see Luke hooded at graduation.  He is now Doctor Brown!  He finished his PhD last summer, but we all wanted to come see the ceremony. 

Macy is home for the summer and will be working childcare at Cru's Biblical Studies classes.  We love having family around!

We are also looking forward to hosting the grandkids when the Johnsons visit in July/August.  

Last week at Cru we hosted a food packing event with Unto, our humanitarian ministry, a team I have worked with over the last seven years.  Unto's goals now include helping Cru launch into 200 unreached people groups and 5 million people over the next seven years.

I just returned from Xenia, Ohio to  meet with some AIA leaders about how to support the expansion of their Sports Complex & Retreat Center, a launching pad for ministry around the country and the world.

Next month I'll spend 3 days in Bogota, Colombia with the Jesus Film Project's Latin America & Caribbean core team. I'll continue helping them clarify their strategy to help each Cru national ministry reach those without the gospel in their own language. 

Thank you for supporting our work with Cru and allowing us to lend a hand to so many of these amazing ministries.  We are so grateful for your investment in us and all we do.

With love and thanks,

A part of it all

When you try to reach every student on a campus, you start big with a strategy to find those most interested in hearing about Jesus.  Watch this 3 minute video of the New Zealand Cup Giveaway and see how the Student Life (Cru in NZ) students work to meet others who want to know Jesus.

This fun giveaway is an easy way to give students an opportunity to express their interest in spiritual things, and is an easy way for for Christian students to share their faith.  New Zealand started their academic year in January, and this kind of outreach is happening with Cru ministries all over the world!

Dayna and I just returned from a quick trip to Abbotsford, British Colombia.  We were invited to attend the dedication of the new Power to Change (P2C) National Resource Center.  (P2C is the name for Cru in Canada).

Our team helped P2C rethink their office space to be more welcoming, flexible, and inviting for staff and visitors.  It was great to be there with them.  We took a prayer tour of the space, and talked about continued adjustments they can make.

Since the National Resource Center was only a few miles north of the US border, and because we had never been in Washington state, we decided to drive into the US to say we did.  But...we were detained at the checkpoint and asked to come inside for further questioning!  Apparently someone with my same name is a criminal, and they wanted to be sure it wasn't me!

We were obviously entertained by our detention!

We enjoyed seeing Vancouver for the first time, even with rain and cold weather.  It is a beautiful city and we walked a lot of it!  

A view from Stanley Park

One last stop at Tim Horton's before we left.

Thank you for investing in all Cru is doing around the world.  We are so grateful for your partnership with us.

With love and thanks,

Making Progress!

Last Thursday,   we opened another Wing of Cru's Lake Hart headquarters.  You can see the video I made of the dedication and ribbon cutting.  This space has neighborhoods for our campus ministry and Unto, Cru's humanitarian arm.  It also has the largest "Bigger Room" (where the food was laid out) and an Innovation Lab.  See if you can spot me in my red shirt.

This video is one I made for fun before the space is finished to help build anticipation.

I recently had a question from a leader who said, "How do I answer people who ask why we are spending so much money on our headquarters?"  It's a good question.

At the beginning of 2020, our headquarters was at capacity, and 150 more FamilyLife staff were moving to Orlando to join us.  Cru's board had approved building another building on the campus and plans were moving forward.  However, in March 2020, as Covid was just starting, Cru decided to rethink how we use our current space, which was largely untouched over the last 24 years.

As a result, we are able to update the headquarters, create the work environment that supports the way staff actually work, and create a more collaborative and innovative space that communicates value to our staff and their calling.  And all of this can be done for far less money than a new building.  And honestly, we would have had to update the old offices spaces as well.

So, why do I make fun videos like this? It's part of the change management process of building awareness and desire for the change.  Not everyone adapts to change like this easily, so these can add a little sweetness to a difficult change for some.

I have also been working on projects for the Jesus Film Project, Human Resources, and our StoryRunners team.  I'll share more about those in the future.

Thank you for investing in us as we invest our lives in the many ways Cru is reaching the world.  It is an honor to partner with you.

Love,

P.S. We invited my wonderful aunt Carol Anne Harvey from Chicago for a week and took a visit to Krispy Kreme to remember my Dad on his birthday.  He loved those donuts!  Carol Anne has been a faithful partner with our ministry for  37 years, and she held me on the day I was born!