Dear Friend,

Greetings from the Scottish countryside.

Wow! Amazing how quickly time can fly by when we get on with God’s assignment for our lives. It’s been far too long since our last ministry update newsletter. So much has happened since you last heard from us this summer.

Here’s an abbreviated list:

• I (Chris) celebrated my 50th birthday
• We secured our facility for the Bible College
• We sourced all the equipment needed to run the school, including furniture, sound system, etc.
• We invested time cleaning, painting, organizing, and preparing for the school to open
• We were visited by Colorado friends Tennie Goen and Cole Van Der Veldon
• Our entire Charis Dumfries team attended a two day event in Glasgow where Pastor Duane Sheriff was the speaker
• We hosted a fabulous Grand Opening Celebration for Charis Bible College Dumfries
• We’ve started Bible college classes with 16 students
• We were visited by Cecil and Lisa Paxton
• We replaced our car
• Lisa and I have both passed our driving theory tests here in the UK (we take the practical exam next)

Grand Opening Celebration

Pastor Duane Sheriff ministered a powerful message about the importance of planting the seed of God's Word into your heart to reach your destiny.

Charis Bible College Dumfries, Scotland is officially open!! This is a huge deal for Lisa and I. Discipling nations is at the core of our focus. And Charis Bible College is the one of the most powerful tools available for us in that arena. Getting the Bible College up and running is the primary reason we moved to Scotland this past year.

Lisa and I have been headed towards this for at least the past four and a half years. So it was an exciting, emotional day for us. Fortunately everything went exceptionally well for the event.

We started the day with a time of praise and worship. We were blessed that our staff member, Jasmine Sharp, was able to assemble a worship team where every member was either a Charis graduate or current Charis student.

People came from all over the United Kingdom to help us celebrate the launch of the new Charis location. We had pastors representing churches come down from the Scottish Highlands and up from London to mark the day with us in Dumfries. All told nearly 100 people attended the event.

Introducing the Charis Dumfries staff at the Grand Opening.

Pastor Duane Sheriff graciously accepted our invitation to be the keynote speaker. It was powerful. If you have not had the pleasure of hearing him preach, I highly recommend taking a look at his website. He’s got a ton of free resources you can access there.

We received lots of positive feedback about the event. This included several comments about what a wonderful facility God blessed the school with in Dumfries, and what a fabulous location we are in and how it even feels like a college campus when you are approaching the building.

School Has Begun

We have officially started classes at Charis Bible College Dumfries! This year all of our students are in what we call the Saturday hybrid program. We meet in person every second Saturday for a long day of live teaching. Then in between each live meeting the students watch two complete courses via video.

The Charis Dumfries students on the first day. Four more have since joined us.

We are finding this program genuinely provides an excellent mix of in-person discipleship and flexibility for students to fit their studies in around their jobs and existing life. It was driven by the student applications. We offered both traditional day school during the week along with the Saturday program. All but one of our applications this year was for the Saturday program. And the one for the weekday program was local to Dumfries and happy to switch to Saturdays.

At first glance, it sounds like an easy task because we only have students on campus once a fortnight. However, that gets balanced out because there is so much more live teaching than other formats. Though with our team, we do have some extra capacity to take on some other projects.

For example, we are planning on starting to promote the Discipleship Evangelism program put together by Andrew Wommack throughout Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. This will fit in nicely with our mission to disciple the nation. So it is a blessing that we will have time to work on this in addition to running the school. At the same time we are managing to keep very, very busy.

God Keeps Providing

In the list of things that happened, I mentioned that we replaced our car. There’s a God story with that.

God provided this excellent car for us

When we arrived in Scotland last fall, there was a car waiting for us here. It was given to us by some friends who felt prompted by God to sow their car into what God is doing here. It has been a tremendous blessing to us for nearly a year as we settled into our new lives here.

That car had to go into the shop for some repairs. There were also some other items we knew we needed to get fixed so that the car would pass its MOT inspection which was due shortly. Passing the MOT inspection is a requirement for vehicles to stay on the road here.

When everything was added up, the car needed significantly more in repairs than the car was worth in good running condition. Like over three times more.

We were praying about the right path forward when God told Lisa to ask me to call about an insurance letter we received back in the summer. I had taken out an insurance policy that was really more of a savings vehicle 28 years ago when I first joined the Navy. I forgot about it and in nearly 20 years of marriage it never came up until that letter arrived at our office in Colorado.

Long story short, there was enough money in that account to purchase an excellent used car!

God knew we would have this need and set the money aside for it decades in advance. And because we didn’t know about it beforehand, we were never tempted to waste it on something along the way.

God truly is our provider.

Those are just a few of the highlights from the past few months. As you can imagine, there is a whole lot more we could share with you about the wonderful work God continues to do here in Scotland. Hopefully you can see that God is expanding his Kingdom here through NewCREEations.

And that brings us to our…

Financial Update

Lisa and I know that God provides for us supernaturally from first hand experience. Yet he does so through natural means. Sometimes that natural means is through something like a savings account that we forgot about. But most often the natural means God uses to provide for us supernaturally is people.

God is advancing his Kingdom throughout the Scottish countryside.

So first, we would like to say a big thank you to our existing partners. Lisa and I are so grateful for your faithful and generous support. Without you, we wouldn’t be able to be here doing what God has called us to do in Scotland. Charis Bible College Dumfries is now a reality and you have been part of this amazing work. Thank You!

Many have asked how we are doing in the area of our support. Thank you for asking. We want to always be transparent in answering that question. We are at about the two-thirds mark for where we need to be in reaching our monthly partnership needs. We have experienced an increase in our budget needs as well as the exchange rate has shifted. This mean our dollars don’t go quite as far as the British pound has become stronger.

NewCREEations Ministries is good, fertile, well-tilled soil for you to plant your seed in. God is ministering to people’s hearts and changing lives. If you are not a partner with us we would like to thank you for taking a moment to prayerfully consider being part of our support team. The top ways to help us are: prayer, monthly financial support, annual gifts, or one-time contributions. No gift is too small or insignificant. All are welcomed and appreciated.

Until next time, we speak blessings over your life,

Chris & Lisa Cree

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P.S. Here are some more photos from the ministry being done through NewCREEations here in Scotland.