Dear faithful prayer partners and financial supporters:

I trust you have had a great Christmas season and a blessed beginning of the year 2004. We enjoyed have our family together. Joe and Janette were able to come from St Louis, Mo.

We praise the Lord for Susana's recuperation. She is back at Covenant College now in her second semester. Please continue to pray that she will keep up with her work and keep her stress level low.

January 18-25 trip to Cuba

Tomorrow morning I go to Cuba to teach two courses for a period of one week. It is my second trip and I am a little bit more relaxed than last time, although the task ahead is even more challenging. I will be teaching an Introduction to Biblical Counseling course to 140 pastors in the city of Santa Clara and a course in Crisis Counseling to 50 masters level students in Placetas (20 minutes from Santa Clara). I am taking 50 books, and loads of medicine donated locally. Please pray that these will go through customs safely, that my health may be strong, and that the Holy Spirit will fill me as I finish preparing and deliver my classes.

As I grade papers I run across some encouraging comments - and from the most diverse places (these testimonies are translated from Spanish)

A student from Switzerland says "Since I have been studying with Flet, I am more motivated to evangelize. This course has been a good preparation for the work that I do here in Switzerland" (Aug. 23, 2003 in Evangelism homework)

This is from a student in jail here in the US: "Thank you Lord for the opportunity to lead 5 inmates to Christ today". (he completed his evangelism homework interviewing visitors and evangelizing and comforting inmates)

A little history of the Colombian church.

I wrote in my Nov. 2003 prayer letter: "Another surprise for me was to learn that the evangelical church's history in Colombia started as late as the 1960's!" This is not true, I know better, the pastor had to be talking about his own denomination. Forgive me for not doing my homework more thoroughly.

The following is from the book "Religious Freedom and Evangelization in Latin America" by Paul E. Sigmund, editor 1999, Orbis Books (Catholic).

"Evangelicals in Colombia date their history to the arrival of Henry Barrington Pratt, the first Presbyterian missionary, who arrived in Santa Marta in 1856. Yet Evangelicals, even in the best of time, have struggled simply to attain official tolerance.

Religious persecution has existed in Colombia for 375 years. The Inquisition in 1622 in New Granada burned the first evangelical martyr, Adam Edon, at the stake. Since the mid-nineteenth century discrimination and exclusion from the political process have accompanied identification with Protestant evangelicalism. In recent history the late 1940s and the 1950s is known as the years of the most severe repression yet this was the most important period in terms of "explosive growth of evangelicalism" Evangelical Protestants in Colombia now number about 2.5 million (out of a total population of 32 million). The formal separation of church and state was only established in 1991 in the new constitution.

Flet Needs your financial help:

As of this month, FLET University is separated organizationally from Logoi. We are now under MTW/FLET. The University needs to stand on its own financially. This is a ministry to Hispanic pastors and leaders, and many cannot pay the full cost, so Flet University will continue to survive as money is donated. Please consider this need in your prayers and give to FLET these pastors need this training and God is giving us great opportunities right now. My trip, including the cost of the books is costing FLET $1800 dollars.

Please send your checks to "Flet" at the following address:
14540 SW 136 Street, Suite 202, Miami, FL 33186

By His Grace in His Service
Richard Crane

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@logoi.org / Office Robyn: office@kbpc.org
Web page: http://mtwla.org/people/rcrane.htm
Link to picture albums:
Trip to Colombia: http://www.mtwla.org/people/rcrane2-pl/dec03a/
Janette and Joe's wedding pictures: http://mtwla.org/people/rcrane2-pl/oct03/