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.
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.
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!
