Missionary Update: The Radfords in Kenya [July 2015]
Nathan and Carrie Radford serve the Lord in Kitale, Kenya. Their main ministries include indigenous church planting, a prison ministry, and a hospital ministry for mothers with premature babies.
July 1, 2015
Dear praying friends,
Another month has come and gone, and there is much to update you on. We praise the Lord for His goodness, faithfulness, provisions, and guidance. What a mighty God we serve. Unto Him and Him alone belongs all the glory. There have been some health issues recently that we would like to ask you to pray for, as well as ministry prayer requests.
Life in Kitale has been challenging lately, especially with the public van station moving right downtown into the heartbeat of traffic, which causes much congestion, etc. We hope and pray that things will go back to normal in a few months once the new station is built. There have also been frequent power outages. Imagine doing something that is really important, only for the power to be cut off abruptly in the morning hours, and not returning until late evening. This has happened repeatedly and has been frustrating for all of us. Sometimes we have to boil water to take pan baths as the power is out so long we are unable to shower. However, Kenya is still better than neighboring countries, where there are even more frequent power outages. Part of the frustration is that we never seem to get a straight answer as to what is causing the outage and how long it will be out. It has been better the past few days, for which we thank the Lord, but please pray the power company would get to the root issue and not cut the power so frequently. Stable power is something we thoroughly enjoy while we are home on furlough. As someone has said “You do not know what you have until it is gone.” How true.
Another of the main challenges with missionary life is the turnover rate among the missionary community. The mission field has people coming and going all the time, and it seems that we are always saying “goodbye.” It feels at times like a “revolving door” of people coming and going all the time. People we have become close with and shared struggles with. I know this happens not just in Kenya, as I have heard it is the same on mission fields of other parts of the world as well. There is a family that has served their time in Kitale that we have grown close with who are now moving on and following the Lord elsewhere. We will definitely miss them and although it is hard to say goodbye, we trust the Lord will bring others, and we are thankful for the faithful families who have been here for many years. Transition is never easy, and when it comes to friendships, it is difficult, but we trust the Lord to help us and as various families move on to where the Lord has called them. Proverbs 18:24 states “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Please pray for all the missionaries serving around the world, who struggle with these same issues. The Lord is faithful through it all, and we trust Him to provide in His time and plan.
In health news, both of our daughters have contracted amoeba, as I have shared in previous newsletters. Amoeba is very common here in Kenya, although it is certainly not fun. I have had it myself two times, and know how it feels. Cami, especially, has been struggling with this for 7 months and has been on various medications but thus far none of them have eradicated the problem completely. Please pray for them and us as we are trusting God to help us with this issue. Also, I, Nathan, recently went to a dermatologist at a hospital in Eldoret and had some moles removed. There is a history of melanoma skin cancer in our family, so I need to get checked fairly regularly. Please pray for our family with these health issues. Our health is in His hands, and we trust Him each step of the way.
In ministry news, it has been exciting to watch the spiritual growth of the prisoners at the Annex prison. I recently had the opportunity to teach on Pharaoh and the ten plagues of Egypt. My goal was to show the importance of having a soft heart before the Lord. It was interesting to watch the Bible come alive to the men as they heard of each plague that came upon the nation because of Pharoah’s refusal to listen to the Lord. We learned of pride and the dangers of pride. Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Please pray for this ministry and the teachings that are ahead of us, that the men would see the truth of the Word of God, obey it, and follow it faithfully.
My friend Roger Tate and I are continuing to train and disciple men, as well as go out ourselves into communities to start house churches. We are meeting regularly, discussing our thoughts about how the Lord is leading and comparing our experiences. We need wisdom from the Lord each step of the way. We can do nothing without Him. Proverbs 2:6 says “For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” We trust Him for wisdom for the most effective way to start churches in this culture. The Lord is faithful and we desire His leading and guidance, not our own.
May the Lord bless each of you abundantly. Thank you so much for your interest and heart for those around the world to be reached with the precious Gospel message. You each are such an important part of the ministry, and we thank the Lord for you so much.
Until next month,
Nathan and Carrie Radford
P.O. Box 4150
Kitale, Kenya
East Africa, 30200
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Missionary Update: John Mark & Judy Hatcher in France [July 2015]
Missionaries John Mark and Judy Hatcher have been serving the Lord in Tournefeuille, France since 1999. They define their ministry as “disciple-making.”
June 27, 2015
Dear Fellow Servants,
It hardly seems possible that I last wrote you just 4 weeks ago. This has been a busy and blessed month and it seems to me as if 3 months have passed since my last letter to you.
On Tuesday of this week our daughter Lydia gave birth to a beautiful daughter, our 11th grandchild. We are full and running over with God’s blessings. I will insert here a few words from Lydia written the morning following Jeanette Miriam’s birth:
Jeanette: a form of John, meaning “God is gracious”, also a bit of a family name for me. This name reminds us (and hopefully someday her) of the gracious gift of legacy she has. A legacy that includes, but extends far beyond the “Johns” in her family line. A legacy not focused on great acts performed for God, but on God’s great grace extended to those who go before her. Grace that has been extended in all seasons. We want her to know this legacy, because we want her to know this God, whose grace will carry her.
Miriam: the Hebrew form of “Mary”, mother of Jesus. A woman who surrendered herself to the will of God as his servant. Clueless, as she treasured the early events of her son’s life in her heart, what her surrender would mean. Bearing the weight of social stigma was only the beginning of the sword that would pierce her own soul as Simeon prophesied. She was called to be a refugee, to face the fear of a twelve year old runaway, to be “pushed out” of her son’s life on account of strangers, to watch her eldest child crucified surrounded by lies. May our daughter someday have the faith to declare herself fully surrendered to the will of God, even though she has no clue what His will may bring.
Judy was able to be there at the time of the birth and is staying 3 more weeks to help with the newborn and 3 other children. I am in France with the weeks scheduled tight and basking in the sunshine of God’s grace though missing Judy tremendously.
Just as Jeanette was being born, I was at funeral in a town north of us. A brother of a man I discipled for several years was killed in a paragliding accident. The Religious structure was packed with people and many were standing outside the door. There were over 300 people present in the middle of a work day. The man whose empty body lay in the casket before us was 48 years old at the time of his death and left a widow with 2 teenage sons. I grieved at the empty pagan christianity displayed in the traditional religious ceremony. I observed my friend who was with his family while not participating in the hopeless activities other than to help his mother as she got up and down to participate in various parts of the mass. I prayed that God would open the eyes of the family and draw them to Himself. I prayed that Jean-François would have the privilege of leading them to Christ.
In last month’s letter I mentioned that a lady in the assembly at Tournefeuille had given birth to a baby girl. The day after I wrote was Sunday and the child’s father insisted that they come to Sunday morning service on their way home from the hospital. This was a first for me. In over 40 years of pastoring, I do not remember anyone bringing their newborn child to church on the way home from the hospital. This father has attended regularly for several years. He asked that we sing a particular song of praise (not available in English) for this special Sunday. This young man lost one parent when he was 10 and the other when he was 13. They both claimed to be atheist. We continue to pray for him.
In the last letter, I also mentioned that we were to have a Youth meeting later in the day. A young lady was here for the first time brought by one of the kids who comes to church here. On the way home she told the mother of the youth who brought her that she felt like she was barging in because she did not believe in God. This opened the door for the mother to witness to her.
These are just a few of the incidents where we have seen God at work this month. We have had great Bible studies at all of our locations and new visitors who showed a real interest. Thank you for participating with us in what God is doing here. The dividends are out of this world!
You fellow servants in France,
John and Judy Hatcher
John and Judy Hatcher
4, rue d’Aspin
31170 Tournefeuille, France
JMHatcher[at]aol.com
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Missionary Update: The Tates in Kenya [July 2015]
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is indigenous church planting.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
If you read my newsletter from last month, and I hope you did, then you read a little about my discouragement over not seeing as much spiritual growth in the disciples and churches I work with here in Kitale. I tried to end my newsletter on a higher note and show that God’s work will be completed in each of his children, but when I finished my newsletter and hit the send button I was still discouraged. But God has a way of encouraging his children and he did just that for me this month in the form of a message from a pastor back home. Many, many months ago I received in the mail a message on CD. This was a message taught by Tom Teall, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in West Branch, Michigan. The CD sat on my desk for a week or two before I got around to listening to it. I tried playing the disk on various devices but because the disk had gotten scratched somewhere I could never get it to play past the first minute. Because I could not get the message to play, it sat on my desk for the next couple of months…until last week. Last week Julie and I were looking for something to listen to, pulled out this message by Pastor Tom, popped it into her computer, and, amazingly it worked. And now I know why it never worked before – because I needed to listen to it last week and not months ago. His message was from Psalm 1:2 –
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water
That brings forth fruit in its season
Whose leaf also shall not wither
And whatever he does shall prosper.
I won’t repeat the whole message here but I just wanted to point out that Pastor Tom spent a lot of time on that third line in the verse: “That brings forth fruit in its season”. The point of his message was that fruit is seasonal. SEASONAL! In other words, you shouldn’t expect to see all the fruit on all the trees at all times but that when the season is right (the season God has prepared) then the tree will bring forth the right fruit, in the right quantity and in the right quality. Pastor Tom’s message encouraged me at the right time to press on and wait for the fruit that God will bring in his season. Be looking for fruit, beloved. It will come.
On a bit of a lighter note, let me ask you what has ever happened in one of your worship services that has held up or delayed the proceedings? Nathan and I were right in the middle of a worship/Bible study hour at the home where our group meets when a crazy chicken strutted in. This crazy chicken strutted right to my feet where it stopped, cocked its head to one side and stared directly into my eyes. When I didn’t move the way the foolish fowl wanted me to, she jumped up into my lap and lept onto my shoulder. At this point I was just hoping it would not release a bomb onto my shirt. The boneheaded bird then walked across the back of my chair and jumped onto Nathan’s chair. Nathan hastily extricated himself from the chair before the brainless biddy could land on his head or in his lap. With Nathan’s chair now free from its occupant the pesky poultry took up residence there. One of the Kenyan boys quickly removed the half-witted hen from the chair before it could nest down and lay its egg, which is what it wanted to do in the first place. The removal of the chicken allowed our Bible study to recommence and proceed. While being in Kenya I have now had worship services interrupted by a chicken, sheep, cow, dog and a snake. The young boy relieving his bladder in the corner of the church building never fazed anyone, though, and the preacher never missed a beat in delivering his message.
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in East Africa,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Emily, Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
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Mission Sheets: June 2015 [PDF Version]
Get your advanced PDF copy of the June 2015 Mission Sheets at the link below!
BFM Mission Sheets – June 2015
*Note: You should be able to click any reference to a page number to be taken to that page. Links and Donate buttons should also be clickable.
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Missionary Update: Jud & Raquel Hatcher in Brazil [June 2015]
Jud and Raquel Hatcher serve the Lord in Manaus, Brazil. They are part of the “SeedFactory” church planting initiative, which is a movement to plant churches in all 26 Brazilian capitals. Since 2006, 43 churches have been started in 5 states.
June 4, 2015
Dear friends,
Thank you for loving and praying for us. We sure are grateful. As you know, we will be in the States as of July 10th for Stateside assignment and are making final transition preparations for our ministry in Manaus.
The Church
The Lord has blessed the church tremendously in every aspect. We continue to hold all our ministry related activities at the private school. The worship services on Sundays continue to grow in attendance. The children’s club and the adolescents club on Saturday’s are always packed and the kids love it. We have gained the parents’ trust and already two couples have requested marriage/family counseling. Last Sunday we had more baptisms. The new pastor is transitioning successfully and the ministry team is following his leadership excitedly.
The Pastor’s Network Gathering
This last month the pastor’s network met twice. It is exciting to see how connectivity ignites new partnerships and ministry ideas. My brother-in-law, Michael Samples, spoke the first event and my Uncle David Hatcher spoke at the last meeting. We are always leave challenged to go out and work harder. There are always people who need Jesus.
Sharing and Training
The Lord has allowed me to speak at several churches this month. I have also preached at a leadership conference held by one of the churches in Manaus. This week I am in São Paulo speaking at a national conference with 800 people enrolled. I speak twice on the subject of church planting and will speak to a local church’s leadership team two days after the conference.
Please, pray for our family as we prepare to be in the US for a year. Specifically, for Sarah, Laura, Benjamin and Melissa as they adapt to studying in and American school. Thankful for all you do. Also, pray for us to sell our car in Brazil before we travel, so we may purchase one in the US.
Grateful,
Jud Hatcher
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Missionary Update: AJ and Barbara Hensley in Brazil [June 2015]
The Hensleys have spent nearly 15 years serving in Brazil. They run a vocational school and orphanage in Caraguatatuba and have also established a church and mission points throughout the city.
June 3, 2015
Dear friends and family,
What an amazing (AWESOME) month, needless to say we have been busy with our mobile Seminary traveling to Garça São Paulo for a week—teaching, visiting, and making new friends and spending time with old ones. We were also able to present our Seminary to a group of pastors. There were around 500 local pastors and leaders. What a great week.
As we were leaving Garça, the rental car of Pr. Deeic had a problem with the radiator. It sprang a leak and we had to have it towed to São Paulo about 250 miles. Then we had to hire some transport for us to get to São Paulo with our luggage. This lost us a full day in our schedule. As a result of this, we lost the class in São Paulo til September. As a result, Dr. Derek and Dr. Edge were able to spend the weekend with us here in Caraguatatuba. Then we continued to Orlando where we spent the second week of Seminary classes. It was two weeks of great classes and much learning. We returned home elated by the results but really tired.
The dates for the fall semester will be announced soon. Our hopes, desires and plans are to have this seminary in 5 different cities: Garça, Sao Paulo, Orlandia, and next year also in Rio de Janeiro. All this can be accomplished by prayer. So here is a BIG prayer request: start praying for the seminary and all that God has in store for this upcoming semester. We feel that this Seminary will be one of the ways that Brasil can be reached with the gospel.
We no sooner got the Seminary classes finished than we began planning for the groups that are coming in June. We will be doing evangelism in the schools and catching up with some of our construction needs. What a blessing to have Churches coming down to assist with the ministries here in Brasil. AWESOME!!
Running out of space and seating for Sunday School.
The repairs and construction projects involve painting two homes on the school property, putting a roof on the front porch of one of the houses, and working on some more room for Sunday School. It is good to have space problems. Our Sunday School has doubled in the last months. So we are out of space, as you can see in the photo, and we don’t have enough seating either. By the way, we would like to give a shout out to Churches that have helped us with the purchase of new chairs. Thank you all so much.
Not only are we out of space, our sound system is old and giving us continual problems. Please pray for help in this area. What we really need is new speakers, but you know what? Problems are good—they keep us on our knees, and looking up. We serve an AWESOME God!!!
We have our small groups back up and running since our return. We are seeing many new faces that are not involved in our regular Church services. We are using our small groups to minister to people that would not normally come to the Church; however, we are praying that after some time attending the small groups they will want to come to the other services also.
We are planning many evangelistic and ministry projects in the coming months. Pray with us and for us as our goal is to win many souls for Christ.
We would love to have you all come and see what God is doing here in Caraguatatuba, Brasil. The light is on and the beans are on the stove. So come on down.
In His Service,
Aj and Barbara Hensley
Aj and Barbara Hensley
ajcaragua[at]gmail.com
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Founder’s Day Offering 2015
For many years, we have remembered and honored our principal founders, Hafford Overbey and Z. E. Clark, by giving special offerings for the missionaries during the month of June. We call it our FOUNDER’S DAY OFFERING.
But, the Founder’s Day Offering not only memorializes our original founders in 1942 – we are also honoring our ten faithful missionary families who are currently serving the Lord in Brazil, France, and Kenya.
Their support needs are great – and the supplies are low. We use the Founder’s Day Offering to help supply our missionaries’ monthly essential living and ministry support. And, these offerings will also help prevent our having to reduce the monthly commitments we have made to them due to a lack of General Fund supplies.
Here’s what each of us can do:
PASTORS – we encourage you to observe a special Missions or Great Commission Emphasis Sunday and give your church the opportunity to give to the BFM General Fund. Emphasize Jesus’ command to preach His Gospel to all nations. That is what our missionaries are doing. That is the original burden and vision that inspired the founding of BFM. We are continuing to perpetuate that vision and burden. That is what we are supporting when we give to BFM’s General Fund. We will use these offerings to continue to supply our missionaries’ on-going needs.
GIVING FRIENDS – if your church is not participating in our Founder’s Day Offering, we encourage you to support your missionaries by giving a personal offering. You can visit our Donate/Support page to easily contribute through the options we have made available to you.
Of course, you can give as the Lord enables you to give, and no offering of any amount is insignificant. But what if every one of our missionaries’ Giving Friends gave at least a $70 offering in honor of the 70+ years our missionaries have been faithfully preaching the Gospel? But – please do give as the Lord impresses and enables you.
Here are a couple of PDFs that might be helpful as you promote Founder’s Day:
BFM Founder’s Day Offering – Bulletin Insert
BFM Founder’s Day Offering – General Letter
BFM Founder’s Day Offering – Letter from Our President
BFM Founder’s Day Offering – Flyer: Where Your Contributions Go
The image below is ideal for a PowerPoint slide. To save the image, right click and click “Save Image As.” (You can also left-click the image for a larger version and then right-click > Save Image As.)
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Missionary Update: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [June 2015]
Mike and Beverly Creiglow have served the Lord in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil together since 1971. In addition to pastoring First Baptist of Cruzeiro do Sul, Mike builds his own boats and frequently travels up and down rivers to share the Gospel with those who have never heard.
June 1, 2015
Dear Brethren,
The middle of last month I left for a long trip up the Juruá River. Zico (Francisco Nunes), who is our missions director at First Baptist, went with me.
The river has started its end of rainy season “retreat”. It has gone down at least 30 feet already, but the rains still haven’t stopped. It rained all day the day before our scheduled departure. Then, for good measure, it rained all day the day we had set for the trip. That was Saturday, May 16th. When I am out on the river, I don’t mind too much if the rains catch me, but I hate leaving when it is raining, so we didn’t leave until Sunday. The weather was cool and clear on Sunday.
About a half hour into the trip the engine quit on me. I had taken it out on Thursday to do a test run and all was working pretty good. It took me 45 minutes to repair. I had to pull off the carburetor, tear it all down, clean it then reassemble. After that it worked fine for the rest of the trip.
We had to go all the way to Thaumaturgo where they were expecting us for the evening service. The small open boat with 25hp motor took a long time. This leg was 190 miles. We finally got in at just before 6:00PM. We had a good service even though the electricity kept going off. The church is doing very well. They have bought lots on the corner beside their new building, lots and nice house across the street and a piece of land for their camp.
The next morning we went on up another 85 miles to Foz do Breu. We spent one night with the folks there, but because the river was going down so fast we decided to go ahead a make the visit to our 2 missionaries in Peru.
Bible study with five nationalities in Tipisca, Peru (Brazilians, Peruvians, Caxinauá, Ashaninka and one American)
We spent two full days visiting our tiny group of believers in Tipisca, Peru. José Maia and family (Brazilians) serve there. We also support a Peruvian family, Brother Eduardo. He, his wife and children are also Caxinauá Indians. We already have a building up, but not many believers. The little town only has about 300 people. There is an army outpost. The soldiers spend all their time and money on liquor and prostitutes. They are in the barracks most of the time and don’t come to church. There are a few Peruvians who have government jobs. A few of these come to services. The bulk of the population is made up of Indians from four different tribes. There are a few Brazilians in the town, too. This means that 4 languages and 2 other dialects are spoken. As you can tell this is one tough field of service. We decided to not have regular services, but informal Bible studies while there. We had 5 nationalities sitting around the table in José Maia’s kitchen. Songs were sung in 3 languages and 3 musical styles. This is fun, but daunting.
Missionary José Maia’s house
José and family are still living in a primitive thatch covered house that was on the property when we bought it. It was built by an Indian. Now it is falling apart. He will be building soon. I am going to buy the roofing for them and am building him a trailer to haul the lumber out of the jungle. They are trying to break through to the village through daily work with the children and teens. José and Eduardo also have started visiting the tribes along the rivers. This is all slow, hard work. All I can say is, WOW! What missionaries!
On the way back downstream we spent another full day and night with the congregation at Foz do Breu on the Peruvian/Brazilian border. We don’t have a missionary family there right now, but hope to fill this void soon. Pray with us about sending a missionary. The congregation is doing well though.
The Maia family playing with Peruvian and Indian school kids on our church property in Tipisca, Peru.
Further down river we stopped to visit our congregation and missionaries at Vila Triunfo. We were with them for 3 days. They now have electricity in the village. We were there for the installation of air conditioning in their wood frame building! How weird is that? The first night we held a couple’s meeting with 27 couples. The next night there were regular services with 148 present. Then on Sunday we had 184 in the morning and 217 at night. There was one profession of faith and request for baptism. Fredson and Auriane are doing one great job. The village has been transformed by the gospel. The village has cleaned up in just about every way. There may not be much they can do about the clouds of blood sucking gnats by day and voracious mosquitoes by night, though. My body is nicely dotted by tiny blood blisters, but so what else is new?
Zico and I travelled 970Km (606 miles) during our 9 day trip. We got to visit 4 of our missionaries in 4 locations. We were able to share the gospel to people of 5 different languages. One person was saved. We didn’t get rained on. Not a single drop. Even though the river was dropping so fast (7 feet one day) we didn’t have to even take off our sandals one day. I can’t remember the last time when I made this kind of trip that I didn’t have to wade through all kinds of mud. We were in the sun for many, many hours (protected by 100 factor sunscreen), but no burns. What a wonderful mission trip. HE was so merciful, again.
Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.
In Christ,
Mike Creiglow
Mike and Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil 69980
mdcreig [at] hotmail.com
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