MEET YOUR “VETERAN MISSIONARIES PENSIONERS” BENEFICIARIES OF YOUR “FOUNDERS MONTH OFFERINGS”

We are frequently asked: “What are you doing to continue giving our Veteran Missionaries assistance, especially financial assistance, in their senior years? How do you assist them? Through what means do you assist them? How can I help assist them?”

The short answer to that question for those who served long enough to vest into our traditional retirement/pension plan is: “We continue to honor and assist them by giving them a monthly ‘service pension’ for the remainder of their lives – and for which spouse may outlive the other.”

This is just a small way we can honor them and show our love and appreciation to them for the years of service they gave to Christ in partnership with BFM.

Many of you have known our Veteran Missionary Pensioners for decades. You have not only known them, but you have loved them, fellowshipped with them, served with them, hosted them in your churches and in your homes, and have contributed to their missionary support.

We still have six current Veteran Missionary Pensioners to whom we are giving this honor:

[Click on their names to learn more about their missionary service and where they are now.]

The “Veteran Missionary Pensioner” account is not funded through the regular monthly offerings given to BFM, but rather through a separate investment account that is established for that purpose.

Currently, every month, there is a disbursement of $11,590.00 to fund their service pensions. That amount, even on a good month, is double the amount of growth we receive on the investment base in that account.

Would you help us with this expression of our love for them? When you designate your offerings for ‘’Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Your missionaries and their families have served and sacrificed greatly on your behalf during their productive years.  Please make a small financial sacrifice for your missionaries in their senior years by giving to the Founders Month Fund.

And, there’s MORE you can do to encourage them! Pray for them!  Reach out to them through every means you can (call, write, email), and let them know you still appreciate them and their service.  They would love to hear from you personally, or from your Sunday School class, or your church’s Pastor/leadership.

Thank you for sharing with them!

You can make a secure donation online with a check or credit card. Just click the “Give” tab on our homepage at www.bfmnow.org.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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VMP: Sheridan & Anita Stanton

Sheridan and Anita Stanton served in partnership with BFM in Peru for 32 years from April 1983 to October 2014.

Anita and I were missionaries in Peru from April of 1983 until October of 2014 (32 years). 

Here’s a timeline of the major events:

  • 1973 I graduated from High School and began studies at Lexington Baptist College.
  • 1974, June 7th Anita and I were married.
  • 1977 I graduated from LBC and our daughter Leah was born.
  • 1978 I was ordained to the Gospel Ministry and began pastoring the Jordan Baptist Church of Sanford, Fl.  Also, our son, Joshua, was born.
  • 1982 resigned the pastorate of Jordan Baptist to begin preparations to go as missionaries to Peru under the authority of Jordan Baptist and legally and financially aided by Baptist Faith Mission.
  • 1983, April – we arrived in Iquitos, Peru. Leah was five years old, and Joshua was four when we arrived in the Northern Jungle town of Iquitos, where the Amazon River begins. They grew up in Peru and came back to the States for college. Leah and Joshua are both grown now, married with children, and live in the United States.
  • We lived for seven years in two different jungle towns of Peru: Iquitos and Pucallpa. Those were our “formative” years as missionaries. The Lord used us to start our first church in Pucallpa and then assume the directorship of the Pucallpa Baptist School (begun by former Missionaries, Del and Ada Mayfield). Anita and I worked with the school for five years and the Lord blessed with an increase in enrollment from 250 students to 870 in our last year there. 
  • My wife, Anita, (a graduate of the University of Kentucky) spent years in Peru developing Sunday school curriculum for our churches. Many of her materials have been used as Religion Curriculum in the Peruvian Public schools. She completed the curriculum series for children of all ages. She managed her home and took great care of her husband and children! She has always been a Proverbs 31 wife and mother.
  • During the late eighties, the terrorist situation created an extremely difficult time for missionaries in Peru.  We felt it best to move to the capital city of Lima at that time. There we stayed for the next seven years and were able to help start three more churches.
  • It was also while in Lima I began traveling and teaching Bible classes in five different cities of Peru. This quickly turned into the Baptist Institute of Biblical Studies, which we continued until we left Peru in 2014.
  • When our children returned to the USA to begin college, Anita and I felt it would be best to move and work out of the town of Huánuco, 6300ft above sea level in the Andes Mountains. The main reason for moving there was because of the town’s location in the center of Peru. The location allowed us to have our Institute classes there instead of me traveling all over the country. Because of the towns central location our pastors could travel to us. The first classes there were an immediate success in that they not only received the teaching but now Pastors had a venue for fellowship that they had never had before. This large-scale association significantly helped the unity among our pastors and preachers in Peru.
  • Jungle, coast, or the Andes Mountains; everywhere we worked in Peru, we were always involved in church planting. The first church started was Iglesia Bautista Jordan in the jungle town of Pucallpa and the last church organized was the Iglesia Bautista Calvario in the Andean Mountain town of Huánuco. During those years we were directly involved in the planting of seven churches and indirectly with about thirty (working with Peruvian missionaries in starting new works).
  • For most of those years I prepared course materials for the Bible Institute, pastored the mission we were involved with at the time. I also traveled around Peru to visit and encourage the churches and missions.
  • 2008 I graduated with a master’s degree in Biblical Counseling from Luther Rice Seminary
  • 2012 I graduated with a PhD in Christian Counseling from the Louisiana Baptist University.
  • Hosting mission teams became a ministry for us also. Some years we would host two or three teams a year. These mission teams were always a blessing to our work in Peru. 
  • People very often refer to missionaries’ great sacrifices in leaving their homes in the USA, but we never considered our ministry in Peru as a sacrifice; that is until our grandkids came along. We are thankful for webcams, faster airplanes, and internet phones!
  • In 2014 the Berea Baptist Church of Hiddenite, NC extended a call for us to come and be their pastor.  After thirty-two years (half my lifetime) we knew it was God’s will for us to leave the mission field of Peru and come to North Carolina to continue the rest of our years in ministry here. The Lord has been very gracious to us here and we have grown to love the dear Saints of Berea Baptist very much.
  • 2018 the directors of Baptist Faith Mission invited me to serve as a director of BFM. I enjoy the opportunity to serve in this capacity and in some small way, give back to the ministry of Baptist Faith Mission in helping local churches send and maintain their missionaries on the foreign field.
  • Our view of life is that neither the United States nor Peru is our home, but as the Bible teaches us, we are only pilgrims in this world and citizens of a heavenly city. To God be the glory!

Sheridan & Anita Stanton
224 S. Center St
Taylorsville NC 28681
828-962-0149
sestantonperu@hotmail.com

When you designate your offerings for ‘Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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VMP: Asa Mark & Lucia Bratcher

ASA MARK & LUCIA BRATCHER

I served as a missionary in partnership with BFM for 22 years, but I have practically associated with BFM since I was 3 years old. That’s when I arrived in the Amazon Valley with my godly parents on July 15, 1959.

I was ordained in May, 1977, and served as pastor of the 14th of December Baptist Church, Manaus Brasil, for the next 19 months. Then I served the Tabernacle Baptist Church, Manaus, for the next 7 months while missionaries Paul and Wanda Hatcher were in the States on furlough. Then for the next 3 years, I served as pastor of the Peniel Baptist Church, also in Manaus, Amazonas, Brasil. Then returned to the 14th of December Baptist Church for the next 18 ½ years, until December of 2000. In January 2001, I organized the Comunhão Baptist Church in Manaus, and remained as pastor for the next 12 years, until December of 2012.

On the last day of 2012, I arrived in Lexington KY to care for my Dad in his retirement after 53 ½ years in Brazil serving with BFM. I had the indescribable privilege of caring for him for the next 5 years and 3 months, until his glorious promotion to Heaven on March 23rd, 2018, just 6 hours short of his 91st Birthday. While we were making plans for a small birthday party, his Lord and Savior whom he served so faithfully for so long, had better plans. He had his 91st Birthday party in Heaven, organized by our Lord Jesus himself.

From April 2018 to March 2020, I continued to do mission work, spending 2 months in Manaus, and one here in Lexington. Since being stranded because of the Pandemic, both my wife and I have been working for the past year at the BAF Fan Company here in Lexington. This year Lucia and I will celebrate 41 years of marriage.

During these over 40 years of ministry in Brazil, Dad and I had the privilege and honor to organize or assist over 40 churches in 5 states. I also taught at the Amazonas Baptist Theological College and the Good News Bible College in Manaus and was a visiting professor at the Equatorial Baptist College in Belém in the state of Para.

Presently we reside in in Lexington KY. We appreciate all of BFM’s support during this time, and even today, as we have been receiving the missionary’s pension since January 2021. We thank God for every remembrance of you, and to God be all glory, great things He has done!

Update, 2023:

Lucia and I would like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date on recent happenings. Two years ago, I had to have cataract surgery on my left eye. I haven’t had vision in my right eye since 2013, due to a botched surgery for retina dislocation in Brazil. The cataract surgery went well, but 2 weeks later the retina dislocated. After immediate surgery, I was able to begin a slow but complete recovery. But I no longer was able to work at the Big Fans Company in Lexington, where I had worked for about a year. Since then I have been unofficially retired. Lucia is presently working at the Preston Greens Senior Living center here in Lexington as a CNA (Senior Living Assistant).

I have not been able to return to Manaus yet to check on the churches but hopefully will be able to do so in July, our Lord willing and permitting.

We would like to express our deepest appreciation to all the Directors and each supporter of BFM, for your daily prayers and continued support to the Veterans Missionaries Pensioners Fund and the Founders Day Offering. We faithfully receive a portion of those funds each month. Also in December we received a blessed Christmas gift, for which we were surprised and eternally grateful.

May our Lord and Savior continue to bless each one of you as we all strive to be faithful!

Still in His Service,
Asa and Lucia Bratcher

Asa Mark & Lucia Bratcher
1950 Falling Leaves Ln
Lexington KY 40509-8013
859-806-9827 / cell phone
ambratcher56@yahoo.com

When you designate your offerings for ‘Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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VMP: Paul & Wanda Hatcher

PAUL & WANDA HATCHER

Paul and Wanda Hatcher served the Lord in partnership with BFM for over 40 years.

Paul grew up in Manaus, Brazil in the John and Alta Hatcher family. After marrying Wanda and pastoring here in the U.S., they returned to Manaus to serve in the Tabernacle Baptist Church. When John and Alta transitioned their church-planting ministry to the states in the south, Paul assumed the pastorate and leadership of Tabernacle Baptist Church. The church experienced phenomenal growth under his leadership and numerous churches were planted in the neighborhoods of Manaus.

In still later years, even while they were reaching Manaus, God laid it on their hearts to reach the states in NE Brazil. Through their outreach burden, vision, and efforts, numerous church-planting teams were sent out by Tabernacle Baptist Church, Manaus, Brazil, into the states and cities of the northeast. Churches that had been established in previous years were re-vitalized, and other church plants were established.

Just a few years ago, the Lord directed them to return to the States to provide care for their aging parents. They have faithfully fulfilled these services as well. They continue to serve and assist in their current home church in Clermont, FL.

Pray for them! Reach out to them through every means you can (call, write, e-mail), and let them know you still appreciate them and their service. They would love to hear from you personally, or from your Sunday School class, or your church leadership.

Paul & Wanda Hatcher
15905 Mercott Ct
Clermont, FL 34714
229-529-8497 / home
239-227-6551 / Paul’s cell
rphatcher@gmail.com

When you designate your offerings for ‘Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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VMP: John A. Hatcher

JOHN A. HATCHER
[Alta is with the Lord]

John and Alta Hatcher served the Lord in church-planting missions for over 50 years in Brazil. Alta is now in Heaven with our Lord.

John spent the first terms of their missionary service pastoring Tabernacle Baptist Church in Manaus, Brazil. Then, during their later terms, they planted churches in the southern states of Brazil, especially Sao Paulo and Parana. Literally scores of Baptist churches were established and are still multiplying through their efforts.

John is currently living with their son, Paul Hatcher, and his wife Wanda.

Pray for him! Reach out to him through every means you can (call, write, e-mail), and let him know you still appreciate him and his service. He would love to hear from you personally, or from your Sunday School class, or your church leadership.

John A. Hatcher
15905 Mercott Ct
Clermont, FL 34714
229-529-8497 / home
jhatcher1925@gmail.com

When you designate your offerings for ‘Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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VMP: Wanda Turner

Wanda Turner [Richard is with the Lord]

Richard and Wanda Turner served in partnership with BFM in Brazil from 1971-1987. Richard is now in Heaven with our Lord.

They began their missionary ministry in Manaus, Brazil during 1971-1973. Richard supply-pastored in Quatorze de Dezembro Baptist Church while Harold and Marie Bratcher were in the States on furlough.

Then they continued their missionary service in Cuiaba, State of Mato Grosso, during the years 1973-1985. It was during this time that Richard started and planted Boa Esperanca Baptist Church. They started meeting in their home living room, then moved to their carport. They came to the States on furlough around this same time, and Bobby Creiglow came to continue the building of the church until they returned. A building was constructed shortly thereafter. Richard also ministered and preached to the lepers in their own church located in the leper colony.

After fulfilling their work in Cuiaba, Mato Grosso, Richard supply-pastored in a church in Manaus from 1986-1987.

Wanda bears testimony to the sustaining Grace of God and His faithfulness to them and to her through all of their seasons of joy and difficulties: “four major surgeries for me, much demonic opposition, dangers on land and in air – and thankful for all the prayers offered for us and God who has kept us!”

Wanda is enjoying living in Lynchburg, VA where she is striving to live a Christ-like life and continue to be a witness for Christ.  Oh! and she also greatly enjoys her seven grandkids and two great-grands!

Pray for her! Reach out to her through every means you can (call, write, e-mail), and let her know you still appreciate her and her service. She would love to hear from you personally, or from your Sunday School class, or your church leadership.

Wanda Turner [Richard is with the Lord]
207 Shady Oak Lane
Forest, VA 24551-1113
434-316-2519 / home phone
wandaturner2017@gmail.com

When you designate your offerings for ‘Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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VMP: Louie Carver

LOUIE CARVER [Mary is with the Lord]

Louie and Mary served in partnership with BFM from 1971-1987. They served as missionaries to Korea and the Philippines from 1971-81. Then, from 1981-1987, Louie served as Field Representative for BFM.

Here are just a few of the numerous churches they either established or nurtured during their tenure of missionary service:

  • Shin Nae Baptist Church – Seoul, S. Korea
  • Faith Baptist Church – Seoul, S. Korea
  • Doo Mill Baptist Church – Doo Mill Dong, S. Korea
  • Kai Pyoung Baptist Church – Kai Pyoung Dong, S. Korea
  • First Baptist Church – Kai Pyoung Dong, S. Korea
  • Open Bible Baptist Church – Saint Maria, Philippine Islands
  • BFM Stateside Field Representative: 1981-1987

“I had to retire from active missionary activities due to illness. However, I am a member of Rocky Creek Baptist Church in Simpsonville SC. I have been in temperament counseling for 30 years. Due to progressing illnesses I have suffered over the past few years, I cannot preach or teach, however, I still conduct counseling through the ministry of our church as I am able to do so.”

Pray for him! Reach out to him through every means you can (call, write, e-mail), and let him know you still appreciate him and his service. He would love to hear from you personally, or from your Sunday School class, or your church leadership.

Louie Carver
259 Finley Hill Ct | Simpsonville SC 29681
864-346-5734 cell phone
wlc1939@earthlink.net

When you designate your offerings for ‘Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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VMP: Bobby D. Creiglow

BOBBY D. CREIGLOW

Bobby and Betty Creiglow served in partnership with BFM from May 1960 to May 1993. Bobby also served as Stateside Field Representative for BFM from 1998-2003.

Here is Bobby’s missionary service testimony: “We began our missionary service in Faith Baptist Church, Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil. This was our home base from 1961-1973. There were five other Baptist Churches in villages scattered up and down the various rivers, and only two had pastors.  My service included visiting these churches on a regular basis holding evangelistic meetings, and many times conducting VBS. During the same time period, I was the founder of two new churches, along with another that was started, but not formally organized until some time after I left the area. I visited there several years later and preached to a thriving Church.

Here are some of the churches we either established or nurtured during our 33 years of missionary service:

STATE OF ACRE [Served among these churches already established before I arrived…]

  • Faith of Cruzeiro do Sul
  • Faith of Moura Piranga
  • Faith of Japaim
  • Faith of Barao
  • Faith of Parana dos Mouras
  • Faith of Campo de Santana

I established these two churches during my first term:

  • Faith of Humaita (1962)
  • Faith of Colonia de Japaim (1963)

CUIABA/VARZEA GRANDE – STATE OF MATO GROSSO

In 1974, I moved from Acre to Cuiaba, Mato Grosso to build a building and a congregation for fellow BFM Missionary Richard Turner, while he was on his first furlough. When he returned from furlough in 1975, I turned a congregation of thirty members over to him. I continued working with him on the building that was finished one year later. He organized that congregation into the Boa Esperanca Baptist Church in 1978.

In late 1976 or early 1977 I moved just across the river from Cuiaba to the city of Varzea Grande, where after a reasonable search, I found there was no Baptist Church, in the city of 40,000 people, where I set up shop once again. A church building was built for the new church that was organized in October 1978. I served as pastor of the church until 1983, at which time the congregation numbered around 130, and was turned over to a Brazilian Pastor. Two boys, one three years old, and his brother, seven years old, that were in Betty’s first Sunday School class, were years later called to preach and organized a daughter-church from the one I had organized.

NOVO DIAMANTINA

Upon an invitation buy a lady saved in the Boa Esperanca Baptist Church who had moved 130 miles miles away to a city called Diamantina, I agreed to start a church in an area on top of the mountain from the city. I started this work by building the church house before ever having a preaching service. In fact, the first service was the inauguration of the new building. One year later, the Novo Diamantina Baptist Church was organized with 20+ members.

I am now a member of New Life Baptist Church, Lexington KY, serving every way I can to assist our pastor, Steve Wainright, and our fellow members.”
 
UPDATE, 2023:
Bobby will be 97 years old on 25 July. He is under constant medical monitoring and treatments. As he recently told one of his converts from years ago in an email exchange, “I’m living every day now between the doctors and Heaven.” He has been housebound for the past year, too weak to be out and about except to be taken to his numerous doctors’ appointments. Also, after suffering a fall in his home late last year, he was hospitalized, and it was discovered that he was acutely anemic. He received the first of what would be several subsequent blood transfusions to replenish his body’s blood supply. He was referred to a hematologist and was subsequently diagnosed with failure of his bone marrow to replenish his red blood cells. After other treatments were tried to rebuild and maintain his blood counts, his hematologist prescribed him to receive an injection that acts as a ‘booster’ to his bone marrow and his blood’s ability to carry oxygen to his body. He receives these injections weekly.

He is greatly encouraged also by numerous contacts that have been re-established over the recent years with friends, former church associates, and converts in Brazil who have ‘re-discovered’ and re-connected with him through Facebook. Some of these converts and former associates in the churches he ministered in go back forty or more years ago. He is overjoyed to correspond with them again and hear them tell their stories of how they are continuing to serve the Lord largely to the credit of his ministry and influence on their lives. One of them in particular has gone from Brazil to Mozambique, Africa to serve the Lord there. It fills his heart and these later years of his life with much gladness. As he said during a recent visit, “God is so good!” Please continue to pray that God will strengthen and encourage him as he remains faithful to Christ to the end – that he will finish well.

Pray for him! Reach out to him through every means you can (call, write, e-mail), and let him know you still appreciate him and his service. He would love to hear from you personally, or from your Sunday School class, or your church leadership.

BOBBY D. CREIGLOW [Betty is with the Lord]
279 Mockingbird Ln | Lexington KY 40503
859-278-1932 / home phone
606-425-1424 / cell phone
bobcreig26@twc.com

When you designate your offerings for ‘Veteran Missionaries Pension’ or for ‘Founder’s Month Offering’ [they are the same], they will be applied toward the continuing and on-going financial honor and support of these faithful life-long servants of Christ.

Click here to give now or you can mail your offering to:
BFM, c/o George Sledd
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280


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