News & Reports – March 2022
The Online Edition of the March 2022 BFM News & Reports is available at the link below. Read how God is working through the lives of our faithful missionaries and continue to pray for them.
*Remember you can click on any headline to view the post/story on our website.
Read more
A Few Thoughts on Glorifying the Lord
Tuesday, March 1
Hello dear friends,
We are so grateful for your prayers and financial support. Our family is doing well. My treatment is over and side effects have subsided. Laura still has a long way ahead of her as she learns to hear again through her left ear with the cochlear implant. This month we celebrated Raquel´s birthday. We also enjoyed time with my cousins David and Dulce Hatcher during the beginning of the month. The ministry in São Paulo is doing well. Jonatas and Charis´ training and exposure trip to the States was a great success. Our children were greatly influenced by them during their time with us. We are truly grateful for what the Lord is doing during our Stateside assignment. I want to share something a little different with you this time. May I share a few thoughts on glorifying the Lord with you today?
God ultimately expects us to give Him all the glory. “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:36). “To the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). So, how do Christians go about giving God all the glory? Here are two ways:
God receives the glory through our Faithfulness to Him.
God receives the glory when we demonstrate faithfulness. “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). Faithfulness is evidenced when providing an account of what was entrusted by the Master. Matthew Henry states, “to the trust reposed in him… keeping back nothing…when he seeks not to please men, but God; and not his own glory, and the applause of men, but the honor of Christ” is how a Christian is found faithful. Our thoughts, plans, and actions should be developed based on God’s principles found in Scripture. Faithfulness is an issue of personal integrity. Luke 16:10 states, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. Steadfast faithfulness to God goes beyond what the human eye can see. God examines the faithfulness of heart. We demonstrate our faithfulness and testify of Him by our internal and external mission. Faithfulness brings glory to God.
God receives the glory when we give account to Him.
God receives the glory when we provide an account of what He entrusted to us. The parable of the talents reveals this concept, “Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them” (Matthew 25:19). Everything a Christian is entrusted with is settled before God. It is impossible to omit anything from Him. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). Scripture is unequivocal regarding giving an account before the Master, “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). Another verse says, “they will give account to him who is ready to judge” (1 Peter 4:5). The Master can search the heart and test the mind. “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds” (Jeremiah 17:10). Each one of us must provide an account to God of the responsibilities entrusted to us.
Those whom He has entrusted must prove faithful, to use our talents, to maximize His Kingdom for all of us will stand before him to give an account. We do all things to give Him the glory.
May our commitment to give glory to God through our lives embolden us to live faithfully knowing we are accountable to Him for the talents he has placed in our lives.
Grateful,
Jud Hatcher
Contact Info:
Jud & Raquel Hatcher
São Paulo, Brazil
judsonhatcher@gmail.com
(872) 400-6522
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Sharing God’s Word & Love with Others
February 25, 2022
Dear Friends,
When we read God’s word, the Bible, and see how He has acted in the past, it helps us to know more about Him, about what pleases and displeases Him. His word also helps us to know how we should behave in our own lives, in the circumstances and opportunities that we face daily. I have learned from God’s word that He is intricately interested in every little detail of our lives, of my life. Yes, He wants me to revere Him (fear Him) and obey Him because of that, but He also wants all my actions to be done from a heart that adores and loves Him. I am grateful that He is also very gracious and merciful toward me because I fail so miserably at that.
Early in February we had the privilege of working together with a group of 8 adults who seem to understand what it means to serve God out of love. There were four men and four women from Virginia who wanted to be used of the Lord to share the gospel to those folks who wouldn’t ordinarily be found in a church service. We first took them with our Projeto Vida ministry team to speak to a men’s and women’s drug rehabilitation center. Oh, how the Lord blessed! Several of the interns gladly received the gospel and surrendered their lives to Christ. Then we set up stands in a public square to offer free haircuts, blood pressure readings, health advice (one of our volunteers is a medical doctor) and family counseling. Through those means of contact we also had the privilege of sharing the gospel and several more people came to know the Lord personally. In the same week, we were invited by the city council to minister to the homeless population who come seeking aid. Our volunteers shared their testimonies of their salvation and walk with Christ and a few more individuals surrendered their lives the Lord as well.
After our American brothers and sisters returned to the States, our outreach team traveled upstate to minister in some public schools. In just a few days we had the privilege of sharing the gospel message with over 3,000 students and staff members. In the schools we are allowed to speak freely of Christ and share our testimonies, but we can’t extend a public invitation to accept Christ as Lord right there. But after the presentations in front of the crowds, we are allowed to carry on personal one-on-one conversations with the students and staff and many of them gave evidence that the Holy Spirit had spoken to their hearts, and they sought further information on how to have a relationship with the Lord. We had not even arrived back from our trip before we started receiving emails and messages from the school administration telling us how much of a transformation they were seeing in some of their most difficult students. We are so blessed of the Lord to have this open door of opportunity. Please pray that it will remain open and that we will be able to use it to the best of our ability for God’s glory.
Thank you so much for your prayers for us and your faithful financial support. May the Lord richly bless you.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Contact Info:
Bobby & Charlene Wacaser
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279
Sobrado 1, Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR. Brasil
Phone: 55-41-99899-2333
bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online
Read more
Special Prayer Request: Pastor Valdival
February 18, 2022
Friends and family,
As I write this letter, I am extremely happy to say we are in the process of buying the Bibles for the Guarani Indians. Thanks to all who have helped with this purchase with money and prayers. If you wanted to help in this purchase and have not yet, there is still time. Send your check and designate it to Bibles. Continuing in the thought of Bibles—we sometimes forget the past where many people did not have a Bible and not in their own language. How AWESOME is the God we serve. We now can have a full copy of the Bible and it is in our language. So now we can make that possible for the Guarani Indians.
You have heard this before, but I need to tell you all what we are doing or are not doing. The COVID again disrupted our schedule, but we are going back to Zoom. So, we have two classes scheduled in later February and March. The level of COVID raised to a level 4 so it was better for the professors to go Zoom. These classes are The Old Testament Survey and another elective from the Old Testament. Pray for our professors and the students from these classes.
Barb and I were planning to go to Brazil for these classes but since the level was so high we changed those plans. We are scheduled to go on the 22nd of March, so pray that we do not have to change our plans again. You know that those grandkids are anxious to see us and we, too, are wanting to see them.
I have a special prayer request for my Brazilian missionary brother, Pastor Valdival. He is now in a hospital in a very compromised health situation, and they have diagnosed him with Guillain Barre Syndrome. This is a hospital, very large, with socialized medicine. His daughter has contacted us to keep us updated. He is being held in the hall because of the situation in the hospital and the space needed for the treatment he needs. He is taking his second treatment of plasma to clean the infection out of the blood.
As we continue the Lord’s work that we are do, please pray for us as we are having to make adaptions in the way we are ministering. But thank the Lord the mission and the Word never changes.
Please pray for BFM as they continue to support missionaries and ministry all over the world. We are missionaries who, without the help of BFM, would not be able to carry out the Great Commission. Also continue to pray for the seminary and the students as they study God’s word.
In His service,
Aj and Barbara
P.S. – We have moved. Our new address is below.
CONTACT INFO
AJ & Barbara Hensley
30524 Mimi St
Sebring, FL 33870-0530
AJ: 859-539-2302 | Barbara: 859-539-1424
ajcaragua@gmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Using a Home to Reach People
February 12, 2022
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We hope and pray that you all are doing well. We are doing well, thank God. The virus was in our area and even some people from our church got it this time. Until last month, things had been pretty calm around our area. Thank God, this week things have calmed down. We canceled the church services for a few weeks. This week we were able to have service again. We just asked each one to be careful and used the mask.
This last year we took on a missionary from here in Manaus who went to the state of Maranhão. Many of you helped brother John Hatcher and Brother George Bean who also started works there. We are happy to help a Brazilian pastor that has given his life to missions. For several years, the pastor Francisco helped in one of our mission points, the one in the community of Multirão. May God continue to guide and bless him and his family.
The training we are doing at the church is going well. We are trying to prepare more leaders for the different communities we go to—that way, we can reach more people. Pray that God will help us more and more each day with wisdom and strength.
Our home has been used to reach people for over 32 years. Paulinho, one of the first boys we got 32 years ago, was here to visit us this week. We have always had someone in our home. Right now, we have 3 boys that live with us. We also are helping 3 men that did a recovery treatment for drug from a project called “Projeto Vida” (Project Life). They work with men with drug and alcohol problems. We pray that we can help these people look to God and know how much He loves them and gave His life for them.
Kathy is in the United State for a while to care for her father. Paul had to have surgery. While she cares for him, she has some time with her brothers.
Thanks for your prayers and support. May God bless each one of you!
Love in Christ,
Odali and Kathy
Paulo catching the fish. The two young men holding the fish are the two new boys who live with Odali & Kathy Barros. 
Paulo is the first boy Odali & Kathy Barros helped. They taught him many things, but it looks like fishing was well learned 
The mission in Maranhão. 
This is the Saturday Bible School in their home at the mission in Maranhão.
Contact Info:
Odali & Kathy Barros
Iranduba, Amazonas
Brasil, SA
odali_kathy@hotmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
A Rollercoaster to Start the Year
February 8, 2022
Dear Brethren,
What a roller coaster. We have had joy and sadness. We have had health and sickness. There has been frenetic activity and standstills. Numbers have been up and down.
In December we had a baptism service with over 40 new members added to the church. We had a couple of services with over 1000 people present. The average over all services was in the six hundreds.
Then came January. Then came the common cold, the flu, a new variant of Covid, more dengue fever and plenty of malaria. All this illness got so bad that last Wednesday night we had to cancel services. All of the 50+ musicians, 20+ praise group singers and all 7 pastors were sick. There was a grand total of 3 people that showed up. Fortunately, we have not had any deaths.
December 2021 
January 2022
Even with all the wave of disease we still had pretty good crowds during January. There were from 2 to 8 saved every week. One of the really wonderful things about those who have been saved is that most of them are between 8 and 10 years of age.
On one Sunday night I really messed up my scheduling. I accepted an invite to be with one of our chapels, but hadn’t noticed that I was also scheduled to preach at First Baptist. Oops! So I sent one of the other pastors over to Cruzeirinho in my place and begged forgiveness of the chapel folks. God wanted me in my pulpit that night. The core of my sermon was about ways that adult Christians can really mess up a clear presentation of the gospel and how adults have a hard time grasping the simple truth of the gospel. My closing illustration was the Elon Musk interview with the Babylon Bee and his purported “profession of faith”. If you haven’t watched it, stop right now and go look it up. That night ALL 5 of the professions of faith were children. There was such joy and also many tears were shed. Even though our human planning got all twisted up by me, God had His plan working as smoothly as ever. It was one of the best services I have ever been in.
The city has put us in lockdown again, complete with mask mandates, mandates to show proof of vaccination, social distancing and all that stuff. No public gathering is to have more than 300 people. We are not following any of that. It is interesting that our last service had 297 present, even though we did nothing different to keep people away or bring them in. Our people love to be in church. We are back to livestreaming all services, because so many just can’t come.
The Creiglow gang has been sick, too. Some have tested positive for Covid, others for the flu. Bev is still quarantined. Bev and I don’t know what we had and haven’t gone to the trouble to get tested. We ruined enough swabs during our travels to the States and have had our fill of that stuff. I am back in the pulpit full time. My cough is completely gone while I am preaching. When not in the pulpit I am hacking away. We are all on the mend though.
Well this has been one strange report, but I hope you were edified at least a little.
Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.
In Christ,
Mike Creiglow
CONTACT INFO
Mike & Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
69980 Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre
Brasil, SA
mdcreig@hotmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Waiting on Work Permit Renewals
February 5th, 2022
Dear praying friends,
Another month has come and gone, and we are now into the year 2022. We pray that each of you had a great holiday season with friends and family and were able to celebrate the birth of our Savior together. There are many items to update you on in this prayer letter, so please allow us to share our current prayer requests.
We praise the Lord that after a difficult international trip, we finally made it back to Kenya. Travelling now is not easy, with all the covid restrictions and testing. We each had to be covid free within 72 hours of traveling, so this was stressful. We praise the Lord that we were all covid free and able to leave at our scheduled time.
Upon arriving in Kenya, there have been many adjustments. There seems to be an endless “to do” list, just getting caught up on everything after our time of furlough. We have needed to do some painting, move our daughters into their own rooms, work on government paperwork, get all the mail caught up, etc. There is still more to do, but I (Nathan) thank the Lord that we are making good progress. We need grace and strength from the Lord for the daily tasks that we undertake.
We have been informed that our work permits were misplaced, so there is need to resubmit the paperwork for the government’s approval. Covid has slowed everything within the government down anyway, so this is an extra prayer request on top of the normal government processing. We are currently on a three month visa, so could you please pray with us that the work permits will be submitted in a timely manner and that they would be approved in an expedited way? We are trusting the Lord for all of this, and know that He is in control.
There have also been changes within the missionary community. Some families are retiring and moving away, and other families have just moved. This is totally normal, as other missionaries have said it is this way for them also, but we are trusting the Lord to bring other missionaries in His time and plan. This is a difficult year for tourism and visitors, when you consider covid restrictions, as well as a presidential election later this year.
The election is scheduled for August of this year, so we need to be praying now for peace and safety later this year. God will watch over us as we take precautions. We thank the Lord that Kitale has always been peaceful during times of election, yet we still are cautious. Psalm 121:1-2 says “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.” Also, Psalm 56:3 says “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” May we take to heart these Scriptures and trust in the Lord at all times, throughout our lives.
We will be sure to keep you updated. Thanks so much to each of you for your heart for missions. You each mean so much to us and we thank God for you.
Until next month,
Nathan and Carrie Radford
Contact Info:
Nathan and Carrie Radford
naterad[at]yahoo.com
P.O. Box 4150
Kitale, Kenya
East Africa 30200
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Continued Open Doors with Unbelievers
February 5, 2022
Dear Fellow Servants of Christ,
We thank God that you are a part of our team as we seek to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ and make disciples here in France. Many in our assembly are touched by Covid and other medical issues but our Lord and Savior is not stymied by the apparent problems of this fallen world.
Three months ago, we mentioned in our letter to you the beginning of English conversation meetings. One of the participants, N—–, is a lady that we met in our daily trekking. Last week she was the only one able to be present as the others had conflicting obligations. It was God’s appointment for her to hear the Gospel. On the Catholic calendar it was the day celebrating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Judy mentioned this and it opened the door for which we had been praying.
This lady came from a typical non-religious French family in Brittany. However, they sent her to a Catholic school because of the higher quality education. The religious teaching convinced her that there is a God and she became a practicing Catholic. She is frustrated that her daughter has not had her children baptized. This opened the door to talk about our Savior and the difference between religion and faith. We showed her the Sunday School room and the invited her to participate in Bible studies.
About a month ago we received a phone call “out of the blue”. It was Mireille, who along with her husband, Jean-Luc, moved into our neighborhood when we had only been here a few years. If you have been supporting us for a long time you may remember that early on she announced that she was and always had been an atheist. We had conversations with them nearly every day. About 8 years after we met them she excitedly announced that she now believed that there is a God and that He had worked personally in her life.
Then, due to job changes, they moved to a neighboring city. Two or three years later we were invited to Jean-Luc’s retirement and they moved hundreds of miles away to work as hosts at a vineyard reception Chateau where marriages and events are held. Judy had some contact with Mireille through the internet, and then this unexpected call. They have moved to a town about 50 miles from us and are anxious to host us for a meal. It was to be last week but had to be canceled because of Covid in their family.
So, the doors continue to open and we seek to walk through them to make disciples for Christ.
Thank you for your prayers,
John and Judy
Youth Meeting in France 
Youth Meeting in France
Contact Info:
John & Judy Hatcher
4, rue d’Aspin
31170 Tournefeuille, France
JMHatcher@aol.com
Present USA phone 1-812-416-1033
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
