Lana Cretzman
Having been raised in a Christian home, my father, Dr. Philip Clayton, taught me to love the Lord and to have fun serving Him. My grandfather, Dr. Larry Clayton, founded Salvation Evangelistic Association (S.E.A.), and has been an evangelist travelling around the world preaching, starting churches, and doing missions work. Even unto this day he has not skipped a beat! Our family would travel to churches throughout North America while my father preached, and my sisters and I would sing. I loved travelling and being at Preachers Conferences growing up. God has blessed me with parents who taught me the Bible, and it’s because of this I realized from a very young age that I needed to be saved. It was under my grandfather’s preaching that I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit; so it was while at a meeting in Morristown, Tennessee that I knelt down and opened my heart and life to Jesus Christ with my father right by my side. In 1990 my father pastored a church in Marathon, Florida which is where I was baptized shortly after arriving. We served there until coming to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in 1996, and then Matt and I joined Cleveland Baptist Church in 2011.
I have served the Lord at Kitchener Baptist Church in the bus ministry, children’s ministries, music program, outreach ministry, Youth Alive, and the Spanish ministry. The five years I spent growing up in Florida gave me a natural passion and desire to help the Hispanic people. It put a desire in my life to learn Spanish and someday become a missionary to the people that I grew to love so much. Needless to say, I am very excited to begin our ministry!
Matt and I met while attending FaithWay Baptist College of Canada in 2005 where I graduated with a Certificate of Biblical Studies. We quickly realized that we truly were a “match made in heaven” because right away we both expressed our desires to serve the Lord as missionaries to Spanish-speaking people. We were finally married in June 2007 after dating for almost two years. Our first child, Azlynn Noelle, was born on December 15th, 2008, and Maddison Kate was born on October 20, 2010.
I am so very excited for the ministry God has for us. There’s no happier place to be than in the center of God’s will!
