“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” Luke 2:10

Christmas is always a special time of year for everyone. We just love listening to all the old Christmas carols; especially with a good cup of hot chocolate (and marshmallows!). I’m very thankful that the message of the birth of Christ was not limited to a few people but to all people. What a wonderful Savior!

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Ministry Update

We spent November out west and December out east. The Lord allowed us to present our ministry in nine different churches while having to cancel five due to sickness.. It is a very difficult thing for us to cancel meetings. Not only do we not have “sick days” but we miss out on meetings that sometimes have taken a year to schedule! So, thank you for your prayers because I’m sure those days I was sick could have been a lot worse!! But praise the Lord for six churches that we feel a strong possibility for support. We actually just had a church the other day call us completely out of the blue to inform us they’ll begin supporting us first thing in January. What an encouragement! We’re now at 62%!

Change for Change Update

• Our Change for Change project offering has now reached over $1500!! We had two separate jars come in to bump in an additional $130! Praise the Lord!!

Prayer Requests

• Wisdom in finding a place to “base out of” logistically next year. We’re going to try to avoid simply “living out of our van” next year and instead live somewhere for most of the year and just travel to and from our meetings. Our family really needs to be able to have a place.. a temporary home I guess you could say. And since every one of you I’m sure has a home – you can relate!
• We’ve been saving in order to purchase a vehicle in January (Lord willing!) and we’re almost there. We just need about $3000-4000 more.
• For another 15 churches to take us on by the end of January to hit our goal of 20 more. This would put us over 75% of our total support.

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Stuffed!

“And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing.” Ex. 36:6

Adam Richman tackling the 10lb pizza challenge

Have you ever eaten so much food that you simply could not pack any more into your stomach? I have. In fact, I’m sure every man (a real man, that is) has done that one time or another. I remember one instance in particular. I was a fourteen year old boy at the time, and Pastor Homan (our school principal – whom I was very well acquainted with!) took our entire class out to have some pizza buffet at Pizza Hut. To make a long, funny story short, our pizza outing turned into a contest among us kids to see who could eat the most pizza slices! So, I somehow managed to pack twenty-three slices of pizza into my expanding, adolescent stomach… a new personal record! And yes, it was much to Pastor Homan’s (and every other adults’) chagrin! I didn’t get any demerits, but we also never went to Pizza Hut again.

I think that feeling was somewhat what was going on in Moses’ mind when the people were assisting in the building of the Tabernacle. They gave so much that the people were literally “restrained” from giving! They simply couldn’t fit any more in! Oh, that we would be so giving to others and to the cause of Christ that we would make others feel completely “stuffed!” What word would best describe your giving?

Deputation Update

October seems to be “missions month” in North America so we found ourselves very busy in missions conferences all across the US. We had some great missions conferences and meetings with Liberty Baptist Church (Pastor Rust), Harvest Baptist Church (Pastor Skelly), Greater

Here's Azlynn and Matt riding Pastor Crank's horse in Cincinnati, OH

Portland Baptist Church (Pastor Adams), Harvest Baptist Church (Pastor Gass), Central Baptist Church (Dr. Buchanan), First Baptist Church (Pastor Wilkerson), North Valley Baptist Church (Pastor Trieber), and Sonrise Baptist Church (Pastor Stoppelbein) just to name a few! I can’t begin to explain to you how thankful we were to be in every church we were in the last two months. We’ve never seen so many people sacrifice and give the way they did in some of those meetings! We would like to thank every one of you who demonstrated the love of Christ to our family. You were a great encouragement to us!

To close out the year, we will remain in Arizona until November 21 at which time we will begin our travel back to the East Coast. December is usually a tough time to schedule meetings, but God has provided a nearly full schedule for us! Also, January will be a month of anticipation for us. Many churches will vote to take on new missionaries in succession with their annually planned budget. So I ask that you would please PRAY! that we would see twenty churches take us on from now until the end of January. This would allow us to be well ahead of schedule in closing out deputation in 2012. In January 2010 we saw seven churches take us on after having been in fifty-four churches that year. This year the Lord allowed us to be in one hundred so we’ve certainly put in the work! Now we just need your continued prayer to entreat the Lord with us to grant this request.

Important Updates

• We now have 48 supporting churches which puts us at 57% of our total support!! And, thankfully, we have much more prayer support than that!
• Our “Change for Change” offering has now reached $1300! Thank you to all who have sacrificed and given to help this cause. I’m very excited about the special projects we’ll be able to use this for when we get to the field!
• If you’d like a more convenient way of remembering to pray for us, be sure to get one of our keytags! They’re small and were designed to fit right on your keychain. If you would like to receive one, simply email (mcretzman@gmail.com) or text us (614.460.9817) with the subject “KEYTAG” (with your mailing address) and we’ll be sure to get some out to you. Just specify how many you (or your church) would like and we’ll mail them right away.

Prayer Requests

• GREEN CARD: Wednesday, Nov. 2^nd we have our biometrics (fingerprinting) appointment with the USCIS. Since this whole process has taken us almost a year and has cost quite a bit of money I feel as though we’re walking on egg shells constantly for fear of doing something wrong or missing something that would cause forfeiture. So please pray that everything goes smoothly. Shortly after this appointment we will likely have our official interview. Pray that God would give us wisdom.
• VEHICLE: We are saving to be able to purchase a vehicle by January 2012. We have almost half of what we need so please pray the rest comes in by year’s end.
• HEALTH: Continued health of our family. The girls have been bombarded, it seems, almost every month with something due to our living on the road.

Media

Life on deputation is rarely ever boring. We wish we could explain to those who don’t know what an unusually entertaining time deputation can be! But I hope these videos will help give you a glimpse into our lives just a little bit. Enjoy!

PS – If you would like to see more then be sure to visit our ministry Facebook page (Cretzmans to Cuba).

Thanks for your prayers and support! And… HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

The Cretzman family

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“Can you sign my Bible?”

I don’t think I will ever get used to that question. Since we’ve been traveling and presenting God’s call on our lives to go to Cuba I’ve been blessed with the privilege of scribbling my name down in someone’s Bible just next to some of the greatest men of God I’ve personally been blessed to know. Never have I felt adequate enough or worthy of such an honour. It is a true test on one’s humility for sure! 

And with that action comes the responsibility of leaving a verse. Perhaps something that has made an impact personally, something you think will aid someone else, or a life verse. I struggled with what to put down, usually just seceding to one of my default favorite verses – Philippians 3:13-14. As a teenager these verses kept me moving forward in my Christian walk, but somehow they just didn’t quite seem to fit anymore. Then one day as I wasready through my Bible I found some verses that I had marked – Hebrews 12:1-3 with verse three really carrying the emphasis. It says, “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”

“Consider Him…” Wow. What a thought. Could there have been any greater contradiction in anyone’s life than that of He who “came unto His own and His own received Him not”? Could there have been anything more difficult anyone could have ever had to endure than what Christ endured those final three years of his life? How about the final hours leading up to Calvary? Could there have been anything more agonizing?

So, “Can you sign my Bible?” Sure. But throughout your life, in whatever circumstance, “consider Him.”

Ministry Update

The past two months have been very profitable for us. I’ll admit, I came into July and August wondering what the Lord had for us. I had to cancel a few meetings and rearrange my schedule somewhat and that left a couple holes in our schedule (which, for a missionary can be slightly disconcerting because it’s the meetings sometimes that keep us going financially), but overall we were very surprised with how it turned out. ​

We were able to attend the Spiritual Leadership Conference at Lancaster Baptist Church which proved to be very profitable for both our family and ministry. We learned much from the seminars that were held, and I was able to secure a few meetings (I told my wife I felt like a shark in a small pool trying to secure potential contacts and meetings because there were so many pastors! Perhaps that may be too much information, but let’s be honest – every missionary would feel the same way!). 

The remainder of July and August consisted of more meetings in California, me dislocating my left shoulder (third time in three years – a perfect record!), my parents making a visit for a few days (my mom’s first time on a plane and outside of Canada – way to go mom!), and resting up to prepare for an extremely busy fall. I was also privileged to lead two more young men to the Lord! Their names are Justin and Kevin. Please be in prayer for them. 

While for many, summertime tends to be a time to “kick back and relax,” the Lord allowed us to gain a few more supporting churches to bring our total to 42 of the (approximately) 80 that we need. We’re very encrouaged to finally be over the halfway point. It certainly has not been easy, but we know that it will all be worth it someday.

Prayer Requests

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“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.” – Russel Baker

There are many things we are attempting to do to prepare us for when we make the final move to the Caribbean… Eat more Caribbean food, try to speak more Spanish, and… teach ourselves to cope with the heat! This picture was taken while driving through Birmingham, AL in May. I tried to convince Lana that in order to fully prepare for our transition we should forgo using air conditioning for the rest of the summer… She didn’t go for it.

Support Update

Over the past couple months we’ve been in many different states and have added a couple more supporting churches! We now have 35 supporting churches and are steadily moving towards our goal of finishing by the end of 2012. July will be our slowest month with August falling right behind as a “slower” month. We’re planning on attending the Spiritual Leadership Conference at Lancaster Baptist Church in Lancaster, CA next week, and that promises to be a great time of renewal and growth through all the sessions and fellowship. If you can make it I would greatly encourage it. Please pray that we can make good contacts and schedule some meetings for next year.

September through Christmas we have over 40 meetings so we’re anticipating a great finish to the year. We’re thankful that the Lord has kept us busy.

Ministry/Projects Update

As always we have a few projects on the go.

• Our “Change for Change” project recently received close to $100 more which puts it at almost $800. We’ll have an additional way of getting involved in this project which should be ready in the next month.
• Concerning our Green Card applications, the Lord has blessed us with all we need to file this month. This is a HUGE answer to prayer. Many of you gave sacrificially and we thank you very much for your willingness to do so. This will allow us to remain in the US to raise the remainder of our support, simplify many things within our family both now and for the future, and pave the way for more opportunities in the future.
• We have updated our website in order to make it more functional and will include more video updates in the future so make sure to check back every now and then. We’ve also added a new ministry page on Facebook so if you have either Lana or myself added then please make sure to “Like” us! (Same goes for Twitter as well if you frequent that more.)
• I’ve begun working on a new video project which I will explain in a following email.
• We’ve also launched a new way of staying in touch with us and receiving updates – TEXTING! You can now subscribe to the Cuba Connection by texting CUBA to 313131 (sorry, US only). Don’t worry – I won’t be sending too many! But if you have a phone and know how to text then pls sign up! (If you don’t know how to text, ask any teenager or go here.)

World Class Boxer Trusts Christ!

Recently while attending a missions conference at Crossroads Baptist Church the Lord opened the door for me to talk to one of the hotel staff. It’s quite a funny story actually… His opening comments were “Excuse me, umm.. do you work out? You lift weights?” He went on to explain he’s a world class boxer (going fight in England in July for a title belt) and arm wrestler that wanted to see if I would arm wrestle him! He wouldn’t take no for an answer. So after fasting and prayer I decided to give it a go two days later. The result? We’ll leave that to your imagination. In any case, after speaking with him on a couple occasions he readily prayed and accepted Christ as his Saviour! What a blessing that was!

I’m continually amazed at how the Lord has given us opportunities to impact the lives of so many people. As just an interesting note, for those of you who are basketball fans and who watched the NBA draft, one of the teens that came out to Crossover Ministries (which we started in college in Ajax, ON, Canada) went #29 in the NBA draft! His name is Cory Joseph and he is now a member of the San Antonio Spurs. Not bad! I’m glad we had the ability to leave an impact in not only his life but many others over the past few years. And just to encourage everyone reading this, don’t ever be afraid of doing whatever God asks of you. Even if it means getting a little uncomfortable, don’t ever be afraid to “step out of the boat!”

Thanks again for all your prayers and support. We are so excited to be serving the Lord in this capacity and for your partnership with us. May God continue to richly bless you this summer.

Redeeming the time,

The Cretzman family

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