December 24, 2004
Dear brothers and sisters,
As we celebrate in this wonderful season the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, I pray for you that in your families and churches you may
rejoice in His coming into your heart and making you His child. The
assurance of belonging to Christ certainly fills my heart with joy and
peace.
I also want to thank you for making it possible for us to serve Him in
Latin America and to Hispanics in the USA. In my trips this year I have
had the privilege to personally "bring" good tidings of great joy in the
gospel to pastors and leaders in Cuba, Uruguay, and Venezuela, as well
as to our FLET students scattered throughout the USA, Latin America and
Europe through our courses and Internet interactions. I am reminded
more and more through technological advances that we are in a "global
village" and geographical distance is less and less of an issue in
ministry as well.
In the past few months since my trip to Venezuela, I have been working
at the FLET office here in Miami grading essays and working on the
design and content of four courses that need to be published in this
coming year. My trips have been invaluable for me to be in touch with
the needs of the pastors and to know what to emphasize in each course.
There is great theological confusion and a need to see how the gospel
works out in day to day situations.
- Counseling in Crisis Situations (I have been teaching this
course on my trips)
- Introduction to Counseling for the Masters
level students (I have been interacting with Latin American
professionals to write some chapters in this course)
- Intimacy and Sexuality in Marriage Robyn and I will be putting this course
together in this coming year
- Contemporary Issues in Counseling This will come out toward the end of next year.
I have also begun to upload a FLET course on The Family into the FLET
on-line web page. We want to get all our courses on-line (over 50 courses)
Urgent prayer need: At the present we are not able to enter Cuba.
The Cuban government has taken reprisal with the Christian organizations
that have been going to Cuba and have shut the doors for us. We trust
that this will be a temporary situation and that soon we may be back
there again. We praise the Lord for the books and courses that we have
taken in over the last few years. We are working on other ways to get
our teaching across.
Family: We are enjoying the presence of Robyn's parents and my
mother for three weeks in the holiday season. Joe and Janette are in
Saint Louis, MO and could not be with us due to a new job that Janette
has and not enough days free to travel. Joe has a year and 1/2 left at
Covenant Seminary; pray that God will make His calling clear to him.
Susana has successfully finished her first semester as a Junior at
Covenant College, in spite of some struggles with her health; pray that
she may be rid of the symptoms that cause her discomfort and
discouragement. Daniel continues to get excellent grades he is now in
9th grade. He enjoys soccer on the varsity team at Westminster
Christian School. Since Robyn and I are not getting any younger, we
have had a few health problems this year. Please pray for the spiritual
and physical health of all our family so that God's grace would be
evident as we continue to serve Him.
May you all have a very blessed and joyous Christmas!
Because of His Love and Grace
Richard Crane
8460 SW 198 St
Miami, FL 33189
home phone: 786 293 3074 cell phone: 305 310 9599
E-Mail rrcrane@adelphia.net (please note that it begins with 2 "r" s)
office E-mail: rcrane@flet.edu / Office Robyn: office@kbpc.org
Web page: http://mtwla.org/people/rcrane.htm
Link to picture albums:
Trip to Uruguay June 2004: http://mtwla.org/people/rcrane2-pl/04jul/
Trip to Cuba Jan 2004: http://mtwla.org/people/rcrane2-pl/apr04/
Trip to Colombia Nov 2003: http://www.mtwla.org/people/rcrane2-pl/dec03a/
Janette and Joe's wedding pictures August 23, 2003:
http://mtwla.org/people/rcrane2-pl/oct03/
*More wedding pictures:* http://www.joeandjanette.com/pages/jc2gallery.html
- December 25, 2004