When Your Life Gets Rebooted

All Our Luggage The Morning We Left Athens

Has your computer ever rebooted? Ever done it on its own? We have a computer (a Toshiba) that we purchased in Greece that seems to reboot itself whenever IT feels the need to be rebooted. This can be frustrating, especially when I'm in the middle of something very important (which is usually the case).

I said that to say this....our life has been rebooted. I am posting our last ministry update letter. Please read it and pray for us.

As is often the case, when the computer reboots, it runs again...as opposed to just shutting down. When our family was faced with the option of rebooting our ministry or shutting it down completely (aka quitting), we chose, by the grace of God, to reboot and continue the ministry that God called us to many years ago.

______________________________
Dear Ministry Partner,

We would like to thank all of those who sent us Christmas cards and financial gifts at the end of last year. The financial gifts were much needed and we say “thank you” from the bottom of our hearts. We’d also like to express our appreciation to those who prayed for us during the riots in Athens. God protected us through some very difficult circumstances and we were able to make it back without a scratch! Since our arrival on December 12 we have driven over 5,000 miles reporting to some of our supporting churches.

The last quarter of 2008 was a very difficult period for the Crabtree family. Brandie and I have worked on obtaining some sort of residency since 2002 with no success. All of our children were born in Greece, but that did not grant us any favor in the application process and the girls were not given Greek citizenship upon their birth. During the fall of 2008, we made another application for residency, even making an additional appeal to the government and they denied us for the final time. We have exhausted all of our options. Without residency, it is impossible for us to stay and minister in Greece.

For the past four and a half years, we were required to leave Greece, a European Union country every 90 days. This was taxing on us both physically and financially. Another law change took effect January 1, 2009 that prevents us from spending more than 180 days (6 months) during any 365 day period inside Greece. This would prohibit us from leaving and re-entering Greece in order to stay legal.

This puts our family in a very difficult position. After much prayer and fasting, we have decided to continue ministering to Greek speaking people. After some research, we learned that there are more Greeks living outside Greece (12 million) than live inside Greece (10 million). The largest Greek community abroad is found in Astoria, Queens, New York (with over 65,000 Greeks). Not only do we see an entire immigrant community in need of Jesus Christ, we also see 65,000 potential missionaries that can live in Greece legally and not face the same residency restrictions that have plagued my family for the duration of our ministry (not to mention that they already know the language and culture). Our plan is relocate to Queens and start a Greek speaking Independent Baptist Church. We want to continue the ministry that God called to do many years ago. We go about this with the complete support and approval of Dr. Jerry Mullendore, Director of Beacon International Baptist Mission (formerly Evangelization in Eastern Europe) and Rev. Wayne Barron, the pastor of our sending church, South Side Baptist Church, Springfield, MO. Our goal will always remain the same: to plant self-supporting, self-governing Independent Baptist churches. One focus of our ministry will be equipping Greek families to do the work of the Lord with the intention of sending them back to Greece where we, as Americans, cannot live and minister (2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”). Our plan is to remain involved in church planting. When Greece opens her doors to allow us to stay and minister, we will be on the first plane.

If you have any questions, please contact us (telephone: (317) 222-1952 or by email: mail@thecrabtree.org), Dr. Mullendore (mailing address: P.O. Box 5907, Johnson City, TN 37602-5907 or by phone: (423) 426-1196), or Pastor Barron (address: 465 S. Grant Ave., Springfield, MO 65806 or by phone: (417) 869-5496). Thank you for your support and confidence in us over the years and please keep us in your prayers as we strive to follow God’s call in our lives in reaching Greeks for Christ!

Serving Him,

Adam, Brandie, Emily, Adalyn, & Abigail Crabtree

Our Crazy So-Called Life

On December 12, we arrived back in the States after being detained in Greece for an additional 2 days. We were tired and worn out, but so glad to finally be on American soil again. Even though we were tired and half asleep, we hit the ground running!!! The following afternoon, we had a 4th birthday party for Emily. We are told it was a great party, but we were to tired to really remember it! The next week was a blur of trying to Christmas shop, Parties, Family and fun! From there we headed to Tennessee to see the other side of the family and celebrated the New Year.

Just after the first of the year, we hit the ground running! Well....Adam hit the ground running, because all of our girls started getting acquanted with the many germs that were circulating in America. Abigail got RSV had to be put on breathing treatments. Adalyn and Emily got the stomach flu. With Adam on the road, it was a fun time for me and the kids! Adam was in Florida when the kids all were finally better, so the kids and I decided to fly down and meet him there. We were able to get an Amazing deal on tickets, so on Sunday afternoon, my mom dropped me, Emily and the twins off at the airport for our trip. I know what you are thinking, and yes I was nuts, but we made it in one piece! We had a great time in Florida! We were able to see some old friends and had a great time. One of the highlights of our trip was going to Sea World. The church where we were staying purchased tickets for our family. Emily loved watching "Shampoo" jump and flip in the water! It was a great day! Thanks Monterey Baptist!

After Florida, the kids and I decided that it was time to stay put for a while in our little missions apartment that we are calling home for the time being. Adam did back to back missions conferences among a few other meetings. We were glad to have him home again after he was finished. We have been in several churches since and have had a wonderful time. Traveling is very tireing for the kids as well as for Adam and I! We are able to be in some great churches and have made some wonderful new friends, but I will be so glad when this all comes to and end and we are again settled!

I am writing this while going down the road heading to Missouri. We get to spend the next week with our home church family and we are really looking forward to a time of re-couping while we are there!

Until I type again,
Brandie

Blog Reboot Coming!

We will make some changes to our blog. These changes will take place by February 25, 2009. Thanks for your patience.

Adam

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! If that offends you, get over it!

Safe Arrival

Just a quick note to update you on our status: We arrived safely late Friday night in Indianapolis, Indiana. My parents were at the airport to give us a ride to their house where we will stay until December 26. On that day, we will drive to Tennessee to spend some time with Brandie's family. Yesterday we celebrated Emily's 4th birthday with a party for our family and friends. It was good to see many people we haven't seen in a long time.

We had a great trip. We had long layovers that we were dreading to be honest with you. But, when you travel with babies, longer layovers are needed and it all worked out. Lufthansa was great and treated us very well. There were porters at each airport to help us with our luggage (as you can imagine, we had our a bunch with all the stuff we need for the kids).

Thank you to all that prayed for us during this very difficult time. We are still a little jet lagged...but we'll get over it in the next few days.

Delays, Delays, Delays

Okay, we're not really roughing it. Lufthansa has put us up in a 5 star hotel. Since we have 5 in our family, they gave us 2 a joining rooms (even though 2 of us are only 9 months old). So, we've not been exactly roughing it. Being delayed has been an inconvenience, however, Lufthansa has done a lot to ease our discomfort with the nice rooms and meal vouchers.

Please pray for us tomorrow as we travel and that our luggage makes it on time. We will let you know our progress as it happens.

Riots & Strikes

Have you heard about the riots here in Athens? It's pretty big news over here as we experience the general public's outlast at the police over the fatality of a 15 year old boy. I'm not going to get political or place blame on either party here....this post is to just recount to you our experience.

Today, Wednesday, December 10 was to be a big day for our family. We have been preparing for furlough for some time now and this date was circled on our calendar for months. Last Saturday night, I believe in downtown Athens, a police officer shot and killed a 15 year old boy. This has sparked outrage in the community.

So, how has this affected us? On Monday night, while trying to pick up Brother Jimmy, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, and his family, the riots started and spread through the part of town where Jimmy lives. We've rented a big 12 passenger van to haul our luggage to the airport and thankfully, I was driving that. Suddenly, out of nowhere, approximately 50 youths (ages 15-25) surrounded the stand still traffic that I was part of. Brandie and the girls were not with me at this time (thank God!). The youths started harassing cars and throwing rocks and fruit. About 5 or 6 of these youths picked my car to try to intimidate. Before I knew it, they had surrounded my car and started rocking it back in forth with me in it. To be honest with you, this scared me to death. I didn't know what to do because they were already burning cars in the center of the city. I was hoping not to become a "well done" missionary at this point. The man in the car in front of me started yelling at the youths and they threw a rock through his window. Immediately after that, about 15 feet from this car, the youths set a dumpster on fire and it burned very quickly. In a matter of seconds, flames were jumping 15 to 20 feet into the air. All of this happened and I just prayed for God's protection and I'm here to tell the story without a scratch on my body!!!

Fast forward to this morning. It is about a hour drive from the my house to the airport. When we arrived at the airport and parked the van, we discovered that the nation wide strike scheduled for today has indeed affected the airport and it is closed. CLOSED!!! We are flying with the German carrier Lufthansa. At the help desk for Lufthansa, there was nobody to help...just a note that said, "If the 24 hour strike has affected you, we apologize." I thought "if..." There are no flights in or out of Greece today. They left a phone number and we called it. The earliest we could get a ticket was on Friday. That's two days away. Plus, on the phone, they told me that since they were not responsible for the strike, that there was nothing they could do (like accommodations, food vouches etc).

It has all worked out so far though. Since this very difficult few minutes this morning, Lufthansa (who is not at fault) made reservations for our family at a 5 star hotel here at the hotel plus food vouchers at a "fancy" restaurant. Tomorrow morning, they want us to report to the front Lufthansa desk at 5 am to see if we can get a ticket "stand-by" and if we can't, then we'll stay another night here and fly at 6:05 am Friday morning. Emily has a birthday part on Saturday...needless to say, we were going to spend Thursday and Friday preparing for that. Thankfully, my mom has taken a lot of this responsibility upon her shoulders and is a huge help.

We are all okay and we just want to get out of this mess. Many say the violence could get worse before it gets better.