What would you think if you walked into your church and found irrigation equipment between the pews and the altar? I’d be surprised, and would wonder what the trustees thought of this intrusion.

But what if the irrigation demonstration was part of a ministry event that would help Christian farmers serve their families and communities and would draw people who don’t follow Christ to enter the church?

In rural Thailand, a church hosted an event that taught how irrigation and other techniques could benefit the community. It was sponsored by a ministry of Cru®. Two of my coworkers — Sarah Wontorcik, a writer, and Guy Gerrard, a photographer — traveled there to report it.

I invite you to take a look at “Cultivating Hope in Organic Farming.” You’ll read about Runchan, who farms and pastors village churches, and who took part with others from his village. Here’s some of the background that Sarah wrote:

I was excited when I heard that this story was planned. When we lived in Asia thirty years ago, I visited Thailand three times, and Anne Marie was there twice, to report about Cru’s work there.

Meanwhile, I’m working with our Cru communications leaders and the team that works on our website, Cru.org, to make sure stories like this are still told in even more effective ways. I’m also working on several other projects, including a Discipleship Pathway book that will be used by several Cru ministries.

As you think of our ministry, please pray that God will help the group of writers, editors and designers to have an early version of the Discipleship Pathway book ready by mid-July for our Cru25 staff conference this summer. Also, please pray that our article about Thailand will motivate readers to take part in Unto outreaches and that God will continue to meet the needs of people in the most difficult parts of the world through that ministry.

Sincerely in Christ, — Mark Winz

Almost every Thursday evening while I was a college student, I attended the Cru weekly meeting. And almost every meeting featured a student sharing their three-minute testimony, telling how they came to understand what it means to follow Jesus. My freshman year, I learned how to share my story in that way. I’ve shared it in many different situations over the years.

In January, memories of that process came back to me. At our church this year, we’re studying some of the testimonies we see in the Bible. And as church members we’re being encouraged to share our testimonies in the church and beyond. In January, Anne Marie spoke to the church, teaching everyone how to develop their story. Every week, at least one member shares a testimony. In March, it was my turn. (This photo shows an image from the church’s video.)

Here’s a version of what I said:

Have you ever felt that you need more friends? When I was in sixth grade, I thought I was set for friendship. I spent most of my free time with three other guys. We’d spend our lunch hours and other breaks during school together. After school most days, we’d play two-on-two basketball or watch reruns on TV.

But when I started seventh grade, everything changed. One friend moved away over the summer. The other three of us didn’t have any classes together. One started dating, and one had to work in his dad’s restaurant after school. I saw them once in a while, but not often.

I was lonely a lot of that year. I tried making friends, but I was shy. I tried going out for football, but quickly realized my “athletic prowess” wouldn’t win me any friends. I was so desperate, I even started going to church more often. The next summer, I went to church camp. That was where I finally understood that being a Christian was about more than going to church every week.

It was about accepting the gift of forgiveness that Jesus offers each of us. I prayed and told Jesus that I wanted to follow Him. I felt great, and I knew that Jesus was the best friend I could ever have. Unfortunately, for a boy going into eighth grade, having a friend who was only present in Spirit wasn’t fully satisfying.

But over the next few months and years, as Jesus worked in my life, something interesting happened. I stopped focusing on myself and trying to get friends. Instead, I focused on being a friend. I wanted to hear them talk, instead of expecting them to always listen. I took interest in their hobbies instead of just wanting them to take part in mine.

And as time passed, I realized that I wasn’t as lonely. I was both gaining from, and giving to, a handful of new friends as the love of Jesus moved through me.

If you’d like to see how the process works, and maybe prepare your own version, go to Preparing Your Personal Testimony at Cru.org. And if you want, send it to us so we can celebrate with you.

As you think of us over the next week, please pray for the opportunities we have. Pray for Anne Marie as she teaches an online writing class for Cru staff women from Asia and the Pacific. And pray for me and three other project managers as we work with Cru’s communications and marketing teams to set up a system that will let us all work more effectively together. Thanks for your partnership and friendship.  

— Blessings, Mark

P.S. Our team is trying something different for Easter this year — a comic. See that and other Lent and Easter items at Cru.org/Easter.

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.

Our team spent part of last month reviewing what God has accomplished in our arena last year. We have much to be grateful for. I want to share some highlights with you, since you played a part in all of this. Here are some of the numbers we found.

6,000,000 Visitors — Six million visitors from around the world visited our main website, Cru.org. We continually add new articles and update existing articles. The top five countries represented by people viewing the site in 2024 were the U.S., India, the Philippines, Nigeria, and Egypt. People from around the world, including those “closed” to the gospel, come to grow closer to Jesus.

65,000 Newsletter Subscribers — Each month, we provided discipleship and evangelism resources, including Cru Storylines articles, to 65,000 Cru newsletter email subscribers.

13,680 Christmas Subscriptions — We created a seven-day Christmas devotional series to help people connect with Jesus through Scripture, thoughtful reflections, and guided prayer.

11,600 Holy Week Subscriptions — Our 8-day Holy Week devotional series on YouVersion discussed the events leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection and the significance for us today.

10,750 Easter Subscriptions — The Truth and Reflection Guide we developed helped people learn more about Jesus and the significance of Easter and what it means for those who choose to follow Him.

9,600 Evangelism Series Subscriptions — We created an email and text series to help people learn how to share the gospel and their testimonies effectively. People are hearing the Good News.

6 Cru Storylines Articles — For Cru Storylines^® we told six feature stories of God at work around the world. (Three are shown at right.) They were from California, Florida, Guatemala and Portugal. Anne Marie had a hand in all three Florida stories — two were based on ideas she suggested when she was on the writers team and she edited the third. I edited the article from California and was project manager for all six articles.

As you think of us this month, please pray for people to continue to meet Jesus through our pages and through those we train online. And please keep praying for Anne Marie’s health. Her autoimmune disease appears to be in remission, but she needs to keep taking medication to keep it in that state. Thanks so for much your prayers and generosity.  

Sincerely in Christ — Mark

Happy New Year. We’re eager to see what 2025 will bring our way even as we look back at last year with gratitude.

We spent Christmas in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with our two adult children. Bethany lives there with her two companions — large dogs named Rhema and Glory. (In the photo a the bottom of the page, Anne Marie pets Rhema.) The dogs make it difficult for Bethany to travel, so she preferers to host for holidays, and does a great job. Michael lives about a two-hour drive south of her. They see each other about once a month.

Of course we did the normal Christmas activities, like exchanging gifts and eating meals together. We also did a puzzle tied to a family memory (above), played a new board game, watched Christmas movies and went bowling. We even ventured outdoors for the Fox Cities Festival of Lights (below).

While we were there, I was happy to know that people across the country were learning how to follow Jesus more closely as they took advantage of the Christmas devotionals our Cru team created. Before Christmas, more than 10,000 new subscribers signed up for the series. That’s in addition to people who have signed up for our previous similar devotional series.

Now, as I get back to work, I’m focused on two priorities. One is a Discipleship Pathways booklet that will be available to Cru staff members in all of our different ministries to use. It will be written by field staff members, then finished by our communications team at headquarters. We hope to have a test version printed and ready to show during our Cru staff conference this July.

I’m also coordinating our team’s work on four Cru Storylines Cru Storylines  articles. We’re finishing an article about Cru’s Athletes in Action’s ministry. Another story is about Cru’s humanitarian aid ministry, Unto, in Thailand where a team is helping farmers increase food production while also presenting the gospel. We’re reporting about a lawyer who is leading Bible studies for others in her profession. And last month, a writer and photographer joined members of a Cru campus ministry that spent part of their school break in North Carolina helping with ongoing hurricane recovery.

As you think of us this month, please pray for the staff members writing the Discipleship Pathways articles as they also begin their outreaches in the new year. And please pray that our Cru Storylines articles will help readers grow in their faith as they see and hear how God is at work around the work. Thanks so much for playing a role in our ministry.  

Sincerely in Christ, — Mark

Jason sensed chaos as he cleaned up after a Cru event. He’d brought pizza for Crawford High School students, hoping to share the gospel as they ate. But rambunctious middle schoolers grabbed most slices. The high schoolers rushed through the conversation to get free pizza.

He was disappointed, but then he saw Kimheng, a Cambodian refugee. Kimheng was the only student who had engaged in conversation earlier. As the two spoke once again, Jason learned that Kimheng’s family was Buddhist, but that the young man was learning about Jesus on social media.

Jason shared the gospel with Kimheng right there. Two days later, Kimheng attended Cru’s on-campus club and brought along a friend.

I don’t know if Kimheng’s online search for God included any of our Cru sites or social media accounts. But we know that last year, more than a million people encounter the gospel and Christian growth information through our digital resources.

Like Jason, we’re grateful that we can use our skills and experiences to share God’s love online through Cru Storylines and Cru.org. For Cru.org, I’m assisting with three projects, including a new Discipleship Pathway that we hope to have ready for Cru staff members to use by the coming summer. Our social media team is connecting with people through Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. The goal is to help each person take a step of spiritual growth.

And I continue to plan and manage Cru Storylines work. We’re currently working on stories from Jacksonville, Florida, from Paris, France, and from rural northwest Thailand.

Anne Marie edited our most recently published Cru Storylines article, “Let Me Tell You a Story: How Bible Stories Open Conversations.” It tells about a group of six students, including Rose, a student involved with Cru’s ministry at New Mexico State University.

Rose attended Cru’s Winter Conference in Dallas, Texas. There she learned about Story-Runners, Cru’s oral-learning ministry, which teaches Christians to share their faith using culturally relevant Bible stories. Rose signed up for StoryRunners’ two-week summer mission in Orlando.

By the end of the summer, Rose and the other summer mission students had initiated 240 conversations, told 96 Bible stories to 150 people leading to 88 deeper spiritual conversations. At least two people placed their faith in Christ.

“Now, my best friend regularly asks me for a bedtime story from the Bible,” Rose said of a friend who’d been resistant when she’d shared the gospel in other ways.

In 2025, I look forward to continuing to help tell stories like Rose’s and to play a role in providing online resources for people like Kimheng who look for faith-building resources online. 

Thanks so much for your generosity and prayers. I’m so thankful that I get to help make disciples around the world through our online outreaches.

Sincerely in Christ, — Mark

P.S. We’re grateful for your prayers and interest in our ministry. At the end of each year, God provides a significant percentage of our salary and ministry expenses for the coming year through people’s year-end giving. If you’d like help with that effort, you can do so here.

Not long after I placed my faith in Christ as a 7^th grader, I sensed that I should tell others about Jesus’ love for them. After a few awkward tries, I gave up and decided that professional pastors and evangelists were better equipped for that work. I still tried from time to time, but didn’t know what to say.

Shortly after I arrived on the campus in Kearny as a college student, I began attending Cru meetings and a small group Bible study. There, the students and staff members talked about sharing the gospel as a part of life that every believer could be involved in.

After some training, I began to talk about Jesus with people in the dorm and at my part-time job in a grocery store. It still didn’t come naturally. But I finally knew what to say to start that conversation. One highlight was leading two coworkers to Christ in the store break room during the summer between my last two years of college. We started a Bible study to learn more together.

Over the years, I’ve relied on that training to tell people about Christ in different situations. As a college student, I shared that message on beaches in the U.S. and Croatia, in neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., and in summer camps in Poland. As a Cru staff member, I shared the message on a plane on the way to the Philippines for my first full-time role with Cru, on a campus in Baguio where I lived for most of five years, in churches there and here in Orlando, and in daily life.

To many Christians, the idea of being an evangelist can seem intimidating. But evangelism is simply telling someone how much Jesus loves them.

Bill Bright, Cru’s co-founder, said, “Success in witnessing is simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and leaving the results to God.” How they respond isn’t our responsibility. Few things have brought me as much joy as introducing someone else to Christ.

This year, our digital communications team at Cru’s headquarters created a resource for anyone who wants to tell others about Jesus. We titled it “Know Your Story. Share His Story.” You can find out more at cru.org/evangelism, or by using the QR code below. I invite you to take a look and to find new ways to tell others around you about Jesus.

Please pray that many people who come to our site will join in talking about Jesus in their daily lives.

As Anne Marie and I think about Thanksgiving later this month, we have much to be grateful for, including Jesus’ love and sacrifice for us, the opportunity to share that message and opportunities to help others meet Him and grow in faith. And we’re grateful to you for your prayers, friendship and generosity.

Sincerely in Christ, — Mark

I planned to write to you 10 days ago, but I was distracted. We watched as Hurricane Milton approached Florida. Thank you for your prayers and concern last week. We were fine last Thursday as the storm passed overnight and are now back to normal life.

This is how the week unfolded for us.

• Sunday, we checked our long-term preparations (as outlined in the General Hurricane Information note below) and planned meals to use up perishable foods.
• Monday, we filled our cars with gas, organized the garage and bought a few last-minute items.
• Tuesday, we put plywood over some windows, moved our gas grill to our garage and secured our patio furniture and trash cans.
• Wednesday, we moved both cars into the garage, covered one more window and moved food for a few meals from the refrigerator to a cooler.
• Late Wednesday afternoon we spent an hour in our most secure room during a tornado warning. Hurricane Milton caused 47 tornados in Florida as it approached.
• Wednesday at 11 p.m. we lost electrical power. We slept fitfully as the storm passed about 30 miles south of us. Wind gusts of 87 m.p.h. were reported at the Orlando International Airport, five miles from us.
• Thursday, we used our camping gear and gas grill to make coffee and then read by window light until power returned at 2 p.m. We also started cleaning the yard.
• Over the weekend, we did more yard work and put everything else back where it belonged.
• This week, we’re back to normal.

Oh, and ten days ago, I was going to tell you about our October 1 day of prayer at Cru, one of two such days we set aside each year. This year, each of us was asked to use the information at the EveryCampus.com website to “virtually prayer walk” a campus in our home state. I chose Southeast Community College in Beatrice, Nebraska. It was a good reminder that Cru started by reaching college students so they would go on to reach the world.

Please join us in praying for those who were affected by Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Along with other organizations, Cru’s disaster relief ministry, Unto, is helping with aid. If you’d like to help with those efforts, go online to Hurricane Milton Relief or Hurricane Helene Relief.

Thank you for your prayers, friendship and generosity.

Sincerely in Christ, — Mark, for the Winz family

General Hurricane Information

We’re grateful for your prayers and concern when you hear about storms approaching Florida.

After multiple storms have passed near us, here are five things we’ve concluded.

• Storms are worse on the coasts. Storms lose power as they travel over land. People who live near the coasts come to Orlando to be safe. When you hear dire predictions, those typically apply to the coasts and less so inland.
• We feel safe in our home. It was built in 1958 and has survived at least two major hurricanes, including Charly in 2004. It hasn’t flooded in the 31 years we’ve lived here, and we’ve never had water on even the lowest point of our lawn. We have plywood window covers that we put up if the storm appears serious. We don’t evacuate as those routes are needed by people who live in low areas or the coasts.
• We prepare each hurricane season and for each storm. The season runs from June through November. Every June, we stash food that doesn’t need refrigeration, get fresh batteries for flashlights and lanterns, and fill propane tanks for our gas grill. We fill any empty freezer space with ice so our food will be safe if we lose power for hours or a couple of days and we don’t open the doors.
• The storm often changes as it moves. While the forecasting is very good, the path and strength of a storm is constantly adjusted. We watch and stay flexible. 
• The path of the storm affects our experience. There’s usually more rain on the left side and more wind, including possible tornados, on the right side. We prepare accordingly.  

It usually takes a long time — typically seven or eight months — to plan, gather, report and produce an article for Cru Storylines. The process starts with planning and ends with the article live on our website and distributed by email.

But some articles take longer than others. Last week, a story I edited was finally published after almost 18 months from when we began to plan it. “Practical Kindness at World Youth Day” (top story on the photo on the right) required more planning than many stories, and then the editing process took extra time, too.

First, we heard that Cru’s Jesus Film Project^® would have a significant presence at 2023’s World Youth Day event. More than a million people went to Lisbon, Portugal, for that event last August. Being at such a large event required making sure our writer and photographer had transportation and lodging amidst the crowds.

Once our team was back in the U.S., we needed to coordinate the story with Cru’s leaders in Europe, who hosted the event, and with the participants from the Jesus Film Project Office who took part. That process was more complex than we anticipated. 

While we worked on that story, our team developed two stories about Cru’s Campus Ministry. The article “Redirection Happening Within a Central Florida Campus” (third story on the image above) developed from an idea Anne Marie suggested to our editorial team. That article tells about a Cru intern, and the challenges he faced. For example, when his team arrived at the room they had reserved for the first meeting of a semester, they found another group meeting there. They moved to the roof of a nearby parking garage and began notifying people of the change. That evening, 260 people joined — more than would have fit in the originally scheduled room.

As you think of us over the next few weeks, would you pray for these things?

• Please pray that our team will finish the last article that Anne Marie edited, about Cru’s Orlando Summer Mission. Her part is done, and others are taking the last several steps to produce it.   
• Please pray for Mark and his team as our whole department sets our plans and goals for the coming year. Since our work coordinates with so many campuses, our plans run from September to August instead of by calendar year.  
• Thank you for praying for Anne Marie’s health. Please pray for complete health for both of us especially during September 12-21 as we take a long-planned trip.

Thank you for your prayers, friendship and generosity.

Sincerely in Christ, — Mark, for the Winz family