
Changes continue in our ministry and lives. In last month’s prayer letter, I reviewed some statistics from our work in 2024. This month, we’re adjusting to be more effective in 2025 and beyond. Until 2016, the work Anne Marie and I did focused on, Worldwide Challenge, a print magazine. Starting in 2017, that focus moved to Cru Storylines, our online magazine-type stories. As I reflect on the changes, these images are reminders of some of that work.
Three issues of Worldwide Challenge magazine stand out (right). In 1986, my photos and one article appeared in our special Explo ’85 issue. In 2001, we celebrated Cru’s 50th anniversary. Our last magazine issue came out in 2016.

In the near future, my work will move on to a new process. As readers seem to prefer shorter articles, we’ll produce fewer long articles so our writers and editors can do more shorter articles. Instead of working for a few months on a long article, we aim to be able to complete an article in four weeks.
I’ll continue serving as project manager for a mix of communications projects — there are about a dozen right now. But with this change, I’ll have more projects to manage each year. My first job is setting up the process for our teams to complete the new processes.

Preparing for this change caused me to reflect on our work over the last 40 years. When I studied journalism many years ago, I would have never imagined how much communications would change over the years.
Over the next few weeks, please pray for me and our whole team as we make this adjustment. Pray I’ll be able to develop clear project management steps that will help every writer, editor, photographer and designer know how to move work quickly through each step. And pray our work will connect with and ever-increasing number of people to draw them closer to Christ. We’re grateful that you’re a part of our ministry.
Sincerely in Christ, — Mark
In 2018, Anne Marie and I each traveled to Europe for Cru Storylines articles (below). My article about Slovakia was published in January 2019, and her article about Romania appeared in March of that same year.

