Happy New Year. We hope you enjoyed your Christmas celebration. We ended 2023 with a trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to spend Christmas with Bethany and Michael.

Bethany moved there last March to start a new job. She’s settled in and wanted to host us for Christmas. One reason she likes hosting us is her two dogs. She doesn’t like having to find a dog sitter for them.

Michael lives about two hours away from her in Verona, Wisconsin. He moved there shortly after college for his job and has been there almost eight years.

Both of them are doing well, enjoying their jobs and the activities they can take part in nearby parks.

As we move into 2024, we’re grateful for your prayers, friendship and generosity as we continue to serve with Cru. As you think of us, we’d ask you to pray for two things.

• Please pray for Anne Marie’s health. She continues to fight an autoimmune disease. She’s much better than she was a year ago., but still needs ongoing treatments. Later this month, she’ll have three infusions of medicine to keep moving forward with the healing process.
• Please pray for me to manage my workload well. I’m taking on more work as a project manager. Our team shrank from five people to four, and one team member is out of the office on maternity leave. The other three of us are all trying to keep up, helping our Cru teams plan and carry out a large number of projects to share Jesus’ love with people around the world.

Thank you again for your prayers and partnership.

Sincerely in Christ, — Mark, for the Winz family

Anne Marie traveled to Romania in 2018 to report about how the “Jesus” Film was being used to plant churches. A couple who are part of the Romani people group —historically known as Gypsies — had planted 11 churches.  

That same year, I went to Slovakia to report about Cru’s campus ministry. Students from the U.S. visited there for a summer mission trip to share the gospel while teaching English in Speak Out camps for high school students. 

Since August 2017, Cru Storylines has published 122 articles, and we’re working on five more. Those articles covered ministry in 28 countries and 18 states. We’ve reported on 20 different ministries of Cru. The campus ministry was represented the most — 28 times. Other ministries in articles we’ve worked on as editors include Athletes in Action, City and FamilyLife. (Some older articles are still on this website while we update our content.)

For most of those 126 articles, I played a role in planning and scheduling them so the writers, photographers and editors could coordinate well. Cru Storylines takes about half of my work time as a project manager. I also managed our 2023 Advent devotional and am working on an Easter-themed devotional series for 2024.

Anne Marie recently edited an article about a long-time staff member who was trained as spiritual director. In that role, the staff member helps people to discover a deeper understanding of God’s extravagant love for them. Anne Marie has also trained writers on our team and is coaching two writers on other Cru teams.

She’s done that while continuing to battle an autoimmune disease. She’s had more than 60 medical appointments in the last year. Among those were 12 infusions of medication and two outpatient surgeries. The treatments are paying off. She feels much better than she did a year ago.

Then, on Saturday, Nov. 4, we were driving to a memorial service. On Interstate 4, the major road through Orlando, traffic in front of us stopped. We were able to stop, but a car behind us couldn’t stop in time. The “chain reaction” accident left our car and two cars disabled. We weren’t seriously injured, but both had aches that were treated during the next two week.

Later that week, we learned that the car was totaled and needs to be replaced. The insurance company paid us for the 15-year-old car’s value. Of course, that’s not enough to get a reliable car now. Please pray for us to find a replacement car soon.

Thanks so much for your prayers and generosity. We’re so thankful that we get to tell these stories to help make disciples around the work by our online content.

Sincerely in Christ,  Mark and Anne Marie

As we come to November and Thanksgiving, we can’t help but be grateful for God’s kindness. Sadly, in the past year, my parents both passed away. I will always appreciate that they raised my siblings and I to love God and to love the people around us. They taught us to be generous and to give thanks for our many blessings. While I miss them, I’m glad they are no longer suffering. (In this photo, they celebrate Christmas in 2018 with us at church.)

At Cru, Mark and I have both been involved in creating content that allows our staff members and lay leaders to grow closer to Christ in their faith and to make disciples.

We’re working with others on the team to prepare and send a series of devotions for Advent. I wrote several of the devotions, and Mark is managing the process to get them out into the world. You can use the QR code to the right or go online to to Cru.org/advent to subscribe so you can receive them daily throughout Advent.

We thank the Lord for our children, Michael and Bethany. They are both independent adults living in Wisconsin. Michael is using his engineering gifts to help doctors and hospitals track the health of their patients with medical software. Bethany works for a non-profit that raises money to help provide relief for those living in poverty. We’re so proud of both of them.

We’re also thankful for good medical care. We have both had health adventures, Mark with high blood pressure and me with autoimmune disease. Mark’s blood pressure seems to be under control, and my symptoms continue to improve.

And we are thankful for each one of you. Thank you for praying for us and for giving so generously so we can do the work God has called us to do. We’re grateful for your friendship and your commitment to us.

Wishing you God’s grace and peace this Thanksgiving, Anne Marie, for the Winzes

Thank you for praying for us. We helped train 10 Cru communicators in September. Some were new to our team, others were experienced, but benefitted from a refresher. We each led three sessions over two days.

Anne Marie leads a session about how to find and “pitch” a story in September.

On October 3, we attended the fall Day of Prayer for all Cru staff members. It’s always a highlight for us to spend the day with our teams worshiping together and praying for Cru ministries around the world.

We joined the day a bit late, after Anne Marie’s medical appointment (see below for more). We gathered with some staff members we’ve worked with over many years to pray for our department.

We specifically prayed for wisdom as our teams seek ways to communicate effectively with Christians and with people we hope will soon trust Jesus. We prayed to connect with people of all ages and of all levels of spiritual growth from around the world.

After lunch, we joined a group praying for some of the countries in Asia where we used to work, including the Philippines, Thailand and India.

• For Thailand, we prayed for the ministry to connect with younger generations effectively. One encouraging report we heard was that the Thai Knowing God webpage had reached 9.4 million people. We know of 1,200 people who came to Christ and connected with 38 churches.
• For the Philippines, we prayed for Filipino families to worship the Lord in spirit and truth, to have biblical knowledge so that false teachings will not creep into their households and churches.
• For India, we prayed that the media would allow Christ-followers to proclaim the gospel, and for the strength of marriages for pastors and other Christian leaders, including Cru staff members we know. 

This month, please join us in praying for these things. Also, please pray for continued healing for Anne Marie. She is doing much better in her fight against an autoimmune disease. At the same time, her recovery from minor surgery seven weeks ago is going slower than expected. Please pray for complete healing. Also, please pray for me as I oversee a major project to make more than 100 Cru Storylines articles more useful to more people. We’re moving our past articles into a new format that will make them more accessible.

Thank you for praying for us. We’re grateful for your partnership and generosity, which allow us to train others and serve the Lord in these ways.

— Sincerely in Christ, Mark, for the Winz family

August was a difficult month for our family. On Saturday morning, August 19, my sister, Eileen, called to say that my mother’s health was failing. If we wanted to say goodbye, we needed to come immediately. Because of some health problems Mom had previously, we knew the day was coming, but is anyone ever prepared when it arrives?

Mark and I immediately got in the car and drove two hours to the hospital so we could be at my mother’s bedside. My three sisters and I spent a sweet afternoon together with Mom, talking about our memories. We sang some of her favorite songs and we read scripture. We said goodbye and told her how much we loved her. Later that evening she passed away.

Two days earlier, I underwent a procedure that successfully reversed some damage caused by myositis, the autoimmune disease I’ve been fighting for the past year and a half. It was an exhausting few days.

Since then, I’ve thought a lot about my mother and her influence. She valued her faith. She took us to church every Sunday, and she made sure we attended Sunday school. She lived out her faith in front of us.

Later in life, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought it valiantly, trusting the Lord for His strength to endure chemotherapy. As she faced adversity, her faith was strengthened, and she passed it along to the rest of us.

We miss her terribly, but we’re grateful she’s no longer suffering. We will celebrate the life she lived on Saturday, September 23. We welcome your prayers for our family as we remember both her life and my father’s life.

Thank you for praying for us and for your generous support of the work God has called us to do. Please let us know how we can pray for you. We’re grateful for your friendship.

Wishing you grace and peace, — Anne Marie, for the Winz family

Thank you for praying for my health. For more than a year, I’ve been battling myositis, an autoimmune disease that causes muscle weakness. On August 17, I’m having an outpatient procedure at a local hospital that will repair damage done by the disease. Please pray for a successful surgery and recovery.

This year, I celebrated a milestone. I have now been on staff with Cru for 40 years. How can anyone do anything for 40 years? For me, I get out of bed each day, get dressed, look around and do the work God has called me to do.

Sometimes it has included interviewing people who trust the Lord to live in them and through them as they teach others about Jesus.

Mark and I traveled to Nepal. We met a man whose wife miraculously recovered from cancer. She prayed to Jesus, and He healed her. Everyone in the village decided to follow Jesus, too. (In this photo, Cru’s leader in Nepal helped me wade across a river to an isolated village to meet new Christ-followers.)

When our staff members heard the story, they traveled to the village and taught them that Jesus offers more than physical healing. Then, they showed the new pastor how to care for his people. What a wonderful story.

Another day, it included walking the neighborhood with my friend Donna, knocking on doors and asking neighbors if they wanted to join us for a Christmas Coffee. Twenty neighbors accepted our invitation. One of our friends explained the true meaning of Christmas. Twenty-five years later, the Bible study that started that night still meets.

Sometimes, it included teaching elementary, middle school and high school students how to write. It also included teaching classes for adults. Now, Mark and I are preparing to teach another writers training class for Cru writers in mid-September.                            

You have been an important part of that story. Your prayers

and gifts through the years have allowed us to create content for our print publications, Cru Storylines and Cru.org that students, educators, staff members and lay leaders use to share their faith and make disciples.

Thank you for your kindness and your friendship through the years. Please let us know how we can pray for you as well. We’re so grateful for you.

Sincerely in Christ, — Anne Marie, for the Winz family

Last month was full of family events and news for us. Amid a lot of work projects, we were able to take two short trips and do our best to support one big move from afar. Here’s a quick recap.

The month started with our daughter, Bethany, moving from Nashville to Green Bay, Wisconsin. She started her new job there, and likes both the place and the job. She’s farther from us, but is close enough to Verona, where Michael lives, that they can visit each other over a weekend.

We enjoyed Father’s Day in Holdrege, Nebraska, where I grew up. It was a full weekend which started with a small family reunion as my brother and his wife joined us for two days. Dad’s moving a bit slower, but his memory is clear. We drove to places where he spent part of his early life and on Sunday morning, took him to the church he attended for 50 years (top photo).

The next weekend, we traveled to Clearwater, Florida, where we celebrated Anne Marie’s mom’s 90^th birthday. Anne Marie’s four siblings — Joe, Eileen, Kathleen and Maureen (from left to right in the lower photo) — were there from four different states, along with her aunt and a cousin from two other states. Her mom, Helen, is doing well and enjoyed the party.

All of that didn’t keep us from making progress on work projects. Anne Marie completed the editing of a Cru Storylines article and worked on a writers training event planned for this fall. I was in two all-day planning meetings with people from six teams. We developed a process that will help our teams work more smoothly together to serve our readers and to help them grow spiritually. Now, I’m the project manager helping carry out the plans we made in those two days.

This month, please pray for both of us as we work with one other team leader to continue planning the upcoming writers training. Pray for capacity for me as I edit some Cru Storylines articles while one of our editors is out for a medical leave. And please continue to pray for Anne Marie’s health as she battles an autoimmune disease.

We’re grateful for your prayers and generosity, which allow us to serve God full time.

Sincerely in Christ, Mark, for the Winz family

Every three months, the editors, writers and photographers who work on Cru Storylines gather together to plan upcoming stories. Like many publications, it starts with team members — usually the writers — pitching story ideas.

In our pitch meeting last week, we heard story ideas from three continents.

• In Canada, a Cru staff member who has a passion for cooking organizes events where people gather for a gourmet meal and also hear the gospel.
• In Kenya, a woman began helping girls and young women get feminine sanitary products through a school program. The girls asked her about self-esteem, sexuality and relationships. She realized they needed much more than sanitary towels. She began using a Cru program called the Priceless Project to offer answers.
• In Hungary, an event called the Crescendo Summer Institute brings classical musicians from all over the world together. Some professors and students are followers of Jesus, and some are not. The Christians share their testimonies and lead spiritual discussion groups.

We briefly brainstormed each idea together. Then, the editorial team reviewed the ideas and decided which ones to pursue. From our previous pitch meeting in February, we’ve already started work on a story from not too far away for us in Tampa, one from Guatemala and one from Portugal.

Anne Marie recently pitched two stories that we plan to work on in the near future, one about Cru’s outreach to grad students at Clemson University and one about the JESUS Film’s 2000th translation — the Zo language, spoken by people in and from Myanmar. In the photo above, Zo speakers watch the film.

Over the next few weeks, would you please pray for Anne Marie as she finishes editing a Cru Storylines article about a Cru staff member here in Orlando who trained to become a spiritual director so she could help people make sense of their spiritual journeys. We hope that story will be complete by the end of this month.

Also, please pray for wisdom for me and the other editors to plan well as we consider the story ideas above. Pray that we’ll chose and tell stories that encourage people in their faith. We’re grateful for your prayers and generosity, which allow us to tell these stories and do much more.

— Mark, for the Winz family

How well do you deal with unexpected changes to your plans? I don’t do so well. I like to make a plan and stick to it. Often, that doesn’t work. I’m learning that I need to be willing to see my plans change. Sometimes these changes are small, and sometimes they’re big.

Last month, I had a plan for the last day of the Evangelical Press conference. It was sidetracked during lunch when I bit into my salad and a tooth cracked. I missed lunch and two conference sessions right after lunch to visit a local dentist. Then, I had to change my schedule back home. A few days ago, I saw my dentist in Orlando and learned I’ll need a root canal. That will use another half day that I planned to use differently. These are small changes that I can make easily.  

But I’ve also been thinking about big changes. Our Sunday School class is studying the Book of Acts. The way faith is lived out completely changed when Jesus died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and then sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in his followers.

Understanding the role of the Holy Spirit in my own life dramatically changed my life as a college student. At church camp between my seventh and eighth grade years, I’d developed a more personal faith in Jesus. My faith grew through the next six years thanks to involvement in church and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

But while I knew that my faith was real, there was little difference in my day to day life. As a college student, I became involved in Cru, and began to understand the role of the Holy Spirit. Two things I learned still influence me today.

• First, the Holy Spirit dwells in everyone who accepts Christ. “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him” (Romans 8:9, English Standard Version).
• Second, while the Holy Spirit dwells in me, I can give Him control of my life or chose to go my own way. I make this decision day-to-day or even moment-by-moment. As one bible study leader put it, I get to decide if the Holy Spirit is a resident, or the president of my life.

It’s amazing to study Acts and see those first followers of Jesus go from fearfully huddling in a room to boldly proclaiming the message of the risen Savior to the world. I want to face the world with that kind of faith. And I want to face my own shortcomings with the Holy Spirit’s power.

Sometimes, want to lean on what I learned as a print publication writer and editor for 30 years. But as we show the love of Jesus online, I have to change. While there are lessons we can carry forward, we also need to change for this new platform and for upcoming generations. I need to rely on the Holy Spirit to make these changes, too.  

Over the last year and a half, we’ve changed a lot of plans due to Anne Marie’s health. We’re grateful for your prayers for her. She’s doing well after a medical infusion last week. Another infusion is planned for next week. Please keep praying for reduced pain and increased mobility.

Sincerely in Christ, Mark, for the Winz family

Hello from Orlando. We’re headed to Pennsylvania soon. We plan to attend the Evangelical Press Association convention April 11-14, then to speak at two churches the next two weekends.

At the convention, we’ll interact with professional Christian communicators from across the country and learn how to be more effective in our work. In addition, Mark is scheduled to offer advice to the team that produces a denominational magazine and Anne Marie plans to help judge the group‘s annual scholarship entries.

Then, at both churches, we’ll report about our work with Cru and thank church members who help fund our ministry. We’ll be at Parker Ford Church in Pottstown the morning of April 16 and at Great Valley Presbyterian Church the morning of April 23.

Please pray we’ll encourage people at each stop and for safety and health as we travel and interact with a variety of people.  

Thanks for your prayers and for playing a part on our ministry team.

—Mark, for the Winzes