BAPTIST FAITH MISSIONS LEADERSHIP TRANSITIONS

Please join us in our prayers to God for His continued – and increased – blessings on Baptist Faith Missions under our new leadership who will assume their ministry responsibilities in January 2024.

Pastor David Pitman (who also serves as our Field Representative) will be serving as our President succeeding Randy Jones who has served for the past twelve years. Pastor Philip duBarry will be serving as Executive Secretary succeeding Dave Parks who has served for the past twenty-four years.   

Dave Parks, Philip duBarry, David Pitman, Randy Jones

In addition, Pastor Jonathan Turner will begin serving as our Vice-President.

Philip duBarry, David Pitman, Jonathan Turner

All of these faithful servants of the Lord and BFM are pastors, BFM Directors, and “messengers of the churches, the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 8.23).

We are excited to see what the Lord has in the store for BFM in the years to come as we continue to partner with sending churches and their missionaries to go into the nations of the world to make disciples and establish New Testament churches for the Glory of God … and all in prayerful and confident dependence on the Grace of God.

We have never been more mindful of our need of God’s sovereign provision (“…for without Me, you can do nothing” John 15.5); and never more confident that He will supply it “according to His riches in Glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4.19).

We all are renewing our prayers to God to ‘enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; do not spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes” (Isaiah 54.1-2; Galatians 4.26-27). And we are also renewing our commitment to “Attempt great things for God; Expect great things from God.” Thank you for your continued partnership with us!


Read more

State of BFM Activities (2021-2022)

A brief report on the state of BFM activities, especially over the last calendar year of 2021 to present. Update presented by Directors Dave Parks and Jonathan Turner at the 2022 BFM Spring Conference.


Read more

FaithWORKS Report [December 2014]

PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…

  • MIKE AND BEVERLY CREIGLOW—PRAISE GOD for blessing seeds that started being planted 48 years ago in Vitória, a new building going up, and more souls added to the Kingdom of God! PRAY for these new believers and for the First Baptist Church of Vitória to grow strong.
  • JOHN AND ALTA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for His grace! PRAISE GOD for using their children in the Harvest of Souls. PRAY for them as they make more copies of “Meet the Holy Spirit”.
  • JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAY for Darren, Eva, and their newborn child. PRAISE GOD for believers in Tournefeuille sharing their faith with people they know! PRAISE GOD for new contacts and PRAY as they form relationships and witness to them.
  • PAUL AND WANDA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for safe travels to Michigan for the Thanksgiving Conference and for time spent with dear friends along the way. PRAISE GOD for His provision!
  • NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAY for the hospital ministry as there are most often more babies and mothers than supplies. PRAY that the mothers would read the Gospel tracts that are given and be saved. PRAY that the Lord would send the right men to be part of their church planting ministry. PRAISE GOD for growth in their daughters this year and for sending a family with children around their age of their daughters that they can play with!
  • SHERIDAN AND ANITA STANTON—PRAISE GOD for the Calvary Baptist Mission of Huánuco being organized into a church and calling a pastor. PRAY for their Pastor, Bro. Franz Coba, and the church as they embark upon this new ministry. PRAISE GOD for all He has done in the 32 years they have spent in Peru and for safely transitioning them back to the States! PRAISE GOD for the kindness of Berea Baptist! PRAY as they begin this new chapter in their lives.
  • ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for Chloe! PRAY as they begin overcoming obstacles of the legal processes to adopt. PRAISE GOD for loving us when we were weak and frail and for changing our hearts little by little.
  • BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAISE GOD for saving Ella! PRAY for God to give direction in planting churches in unreached regions. PRAISE GOD for the young men and women who are coming to their services and PRAY as they train them to be missionaries.

BFM-Winter-Conference-2015Block these dates and plan to attend…
2015 BFM WINTER CONFERENCE
January 18-21  |  Sunday-Wednesday
PARK RIDGE BAPTIST CHURCH
Gotha FL [Orlando-area]

“SERVICE”
“With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men…”  Ephesians 6.7

For more details, contact Pastor Ben Glover
BentonGlover[at]aol.com  |  407.719.9861


ThanksgivingOffering

We have begun our 2014-15 Thanksgiving Offering with $32,590.39 contributed during November. Last year’s Thanksgiving Offering total was $49,058.41, and it fell two months short of lasting through 2014. We are praying and hoping that many others of you are planning to contribute also.

We use the Thanksgiving Offering to fulfill the commitments we have made to our missionaries for all the other benefits and services that are not supplied from our Monthly General Fund Offerings. If the funds are not given to the Thanksgiving Offering, then we have to tell our missionaries over the course of the year that the funds are not available to give them the benefits that otherwise would have been granted. Please help us respond to their requests for help!


2015 THANKSGIVING OFFERING

Philippians 4.19
And my God shall supply all your need
according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

We are in immediate need of your most generous Thanksgiving Offering…AT THIS MOMENT!

Matthew 6.8
…for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.

So, let me appeal to you on behalf of our missionaries – with all the wisdom and passion God will grant me – to respond to their needs with as generous a Thanksgiving Offering as God will enable you to give.

2 Corinthians 9.8
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you;
that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work…

Last year’s total Thanksgiving Offering was $49,058.41.  It was given over six months, but I assure you, that’s OK!  Your Thanksgiving Offering doesn’t have to be given during November!  In fact, it will remain open for as long as you need it to be open!

THE THANKSGIVING OFFERING SUPPLIES OUR MISSIONARIES’ OTHER NEEDS THAT ARE NOT SUPPLIED FROM YOUR MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS. 

Monthly General Fund Offerings
I know we have produced an attractive and informative brochure to explain how our Monthly General Fund Offering works.  It is entitled “Caring for those who care for the world” and is available in PDF form on our website and also by requesting paper copies from the Executive Secretary.  But, please allow me here to reiterate how we use your Monthly General Fund Offerings.  The Essential Maintenance Transactions [EMT] that provide for their most basic living and ministry expenses are supplied from your Monthly General Fund Offerings.  They include salary, housing and ministry expense allowances, hospitalization premiums, and Mission Sheets printing and distribution.

These total EMT disbursements add up to $43,300.54 every month.  Only one month in 2014 [January] was the Monthly General Fund Offering sufficient to cover these disbursements.  We supplied the following monthly deficits from February-March from the surplus received in January.

Extraordinary Estate Gift
Then, in April 2014, we supplied the deficit in the Monthly General Fund from the remaining portion of the extraordinary estate gift Ernest and Helen Palmer had left BFM in 2013.

Founders Day Offerings
By that time, you were giving your Founders Day Offerings from June through September.  The special contributions you made to the Founders Day Offering [in addition to your faithful regular giving to the Monthly General Fund] supplied our missionaries’ Essential Maintenance Transactions over the next four months.

I repeat, all of these every-month basic living and ministry expenses are not provided for from the Thanksgiving Offering; they are supplied from the Monthly General Fund Offerings.

And, in the event that the Monthly General Fund Offerings don’t cover those Essential Maintenance Transactions – and we don’t have other designated funds to use – then we must reduce those standard commitments we have made to the missionaries that month by the amount of the shortage of funds.  We had to enact that undesirable necessity in both November and December 2014.

BUT – THESE DISBURSEMENTS ARE NOT SUPPLIED FROM YOUR THANKSGIVING OFFERINGS.  Let’s get back to the Thanksgiving Offering now.  The Thanksgiving Offering supplies all the commitments and benefits we provide to our missionaries throughout the year in addition to the Essential Maintenance Transactions we have noted above.

Those benefits include:

  • furlough transportation expenses,
  • children’s education allowances,
  • hospitalization deductible reimbursements,
  • postage to mail the Mission Sheets,
  • maintaining the Missionary Furlough Home in Lexington KY,
  • and all the professional and legal services and supplies that are required to maintain all the activities that go on here in the States to keep their ministries going.

And, let me note here that in 2014, [1] we didn’t have the funds to disburse the Children’s Education Allowance benefit, and [2] we had missionaries who didn’t request reimbursement for their furlough transportation back to the States because they knew we didn’t have the funds.

AND SO – WE NEED THE THANKSGIVING OFFERING TO SUPPLY ALL THE OTHER COMMITMENTS, BENEFITS, AND SERVICES THAT ARE NOT SUPPLIED BY OUR MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS. I repeat, last year’s Thanksgiving Offering of $49,058.41 did not supply all the benefits we would have given during the year if we had received a larger Thanksgiving Offering – and what we did receive was exhausted before the end of the year.

Like Paul in 2 Corinthians 9, we are praying to God supply our needs with the means to give a generous offering – and also that He will plant and infuse the Grace into our hearts to give us the purpose, the willingness, and the joy to sow and reap bountifully [verses 6-8].

That is, after all, the way God Himself gives – and the way Christ gave Himself.

2 Corinthians 9.15
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift.

OUR MISSIONARIES’ MONTHLY DEPOSITS REDUCED IN NOVEMBER

First of all, we want to thank each and every one of you who contributes to the monthly General Fund offerings.  You are the ones who supply our missionaries’ essential needs each month to the degree we can fulfill them. 

If you are not contributing to the monthly General Fund offerings, please, may we encourage you for the sake of our missionaries’ essential support to begin doing so – as generously as you can?

Again, during the month of December [as alson in November], it was necessary to reduce the modest amounts we have committed to our missionaries each month for their essential maintenance.  The reason we had to do this is because our monthly General Fund support offerings were not sufficient to cover the full amounts of the modest disbursements we make to them each month for their salary and expense allowances.  So, when the General Fund offerings are not sufficient to cover those commitments, then we must reduce the amounts of the disbursements we deposit to each of their accounts.

So, the effect was – we had to proportionately reduce the amounts we deposited in each missionary’s account for their salary and housing/ministry expense allowances.  Our missionaries need and depend upon these modest commitments we make to their essential support needs each month – just like every one of us depends upon our basic essential income coming in regularly each month.

Please help us keep their monthly essential support supplied!


HOW CAN I HELP OUR MISSIONARIES TO RECEIVE THEIR FULL FINANCIAL COMMITMENTS EACH MONTH?  Is it worth $1 a day?

Here is a simple way each one of us can help to assure that our missionaries receive the full measure of the already-modest commitments we have made to them each month.  We are talking here about the Essential Maintenance Transactions that provide for their most basic living and ministry expenses like salary, housing and ministry expense allowances, hospitalization premiums, and the printing and distribution of their monthly newsletters.

EACH ONE OF US CAN GIVE $1 A DAY TO WORLDWISE MISSIONS THROUGH THE MISSIONARIES WHO ARE FINANCED THROUGH BFM.  We realize that many of you are already personally giving way over that amount.  If you are, we thank you!  And our missionaries thank you!  You can see who are maintaining our missionaries’ essential monthly needs by going right now to the Contributions pages and look at GENERAL FUND offerings.

But, our missionaries have so many more friends than these who are listed there!  So, if you are not giving personally and regularly to the Baptist Faith Missions GENERAL FUND, then we encourage you to begin right now!

We can afford to give $1 a day – that is just $30 a month – to help our missionaries carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ into all the world.  We are talking about what we spend to get a cup of coffee at your local Speedway, convenience store, or McDonalds. Many of us probably spend more than $1 every day without even thinking about it on far more temporary and less valuable pleasures – we consume it in a moment, and it is gone!  When we give to finance our missionaries’ ministries, we are saving people for eternity – remember that!

You can give this offering a number of ways:  [1] You can give through your church’s monthly offerings to the General Fund by asking your pastor/treasurer to simply add your personal contribution amount to the church’s offering from their treasury.  [2] Or, you can give your offerings personally and directly by mailing your check to our Treasurer:  Pastor George Sledd, P.O. Box 471280, Lake Monroe FL 32747-1280.  [3] Or, simpler yet, you can go to our website www.baptistfaithmissions.org and click on the DONATE/SUPPORT page where you can give online by following the prompts.  You can give either a one-time gift, or you can contribute manually every month, or you can set up your contribution to be an automatically recurring gift.  “For the administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God…” [2 Corinthians 9.12]


KROGER COMMUNITY REWARDS

KrogerPromote

All of you do not have Kroger stores in your locality – so this won’t apply to every reader.  And if you do, not all of you shop at Kroger.  But, if you do, you most likely have a Kroger Plus card to scan when you make your purchases to take advantage of in-store discounts and fuel discount points.

Some of you have also been participating in the Kroger reloadable gift card program.  By depositing your money on the reloadable card and using the card to make your purchases, BFM received a ‘commission’ from those purchases.

Kroger has discontinued the use of the reloadable gift card.  However, they have now made it easier to continue the benefit to your favorite Non-Profit Organization [BFM].  No extra steps.  Simply register your Kroger Plus card online and choose BFM as your Non-Profit Organization.  Then, use your Kroger Plus card as you always do and Kroger will direct the benefits to BFM.

We have posted all the instructions you need here. If you’re going to shop at Kroger anyway – and still get all the present benefits of using your Kroger Plus card – then we encourage you to add BFM as a beneficiary also.

(You can also download a printable Word document of the instructions with pictures here. Or a PDF here.)


BFM BROCHURESbrochure (2)

We now have TWO very attractive and informative professionally-produced brochures.  We want you to help us get these promotional messages into the hands of anyone and everyone who is interested in the mission work the Lord is accomplishing through the missionaries who are supported by your offerings through BFM.

(1) The first of these brochures is one that will introduce you to BFM and inform you about the basic principles by which BFM functions. (click here to view)

GF Brochure(2) The second brochure is just now ‘hot off the press.’  This one is entitled “Caring for those who care for the world,” and is designed to inform and explain just how essential the monthly General Fund is to the daily living and ministry needs of our missionaries. (click here to view)

Both of them are full-color, either 6 or 8 pages 8 ½ x 11 format, pictorial, and informative.  Will you please help us distribute these brochures as widely as you can?

If you will send your name and mailing address to:
Dave Parks, 3985 Boston Road, Lexington KY 40514
email: daveparks[at]twc.com | phone: 859.223.8374 –
and tell us how many sets of these brochures you want – we will get them back to you by return shipping.

For now, you can access an electronic flip-through version of the new brochure by going to our website and clicking on the brochure cover.

Again, please serve as ambassadors for your missionaries by helping us get either single-copy sets to interested persons or bundles to distribute in our churches.  The brochures will ‘speak for themselves’ – for our missionaries.


MISSIONARIES ON FURLOUGH

Please note the new address and phone numbers for John and Alta Hatcher and Paul and Wanda Hatcher. Their address is:  15905 Mercott Court, Clermont FL 34714.  Their home telephone number is: 229-529-8497.  John & Alta’s email address is: jhatcher[at]uol.com.br.

Paul and Wanda’s cell number is: 239-227-6551 and their email address is: rphatcher[at]gmail.com.

We encourage you to pray for them and correspond with them.

bfm.MS-GRAPHIC.21.The Son of God suffered the wrath of God



Read more

FaithWORKS Report [November 2014]

PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…

  • ODALI AND KATHY BARROS— PRAISE GOD for the faithful children in Ubim! PRAY that God will open doors through these children so they can reach the adults. PRAISE GOD for the opportunities opening in Mutirão. PRAISE GOD for continuing to bless His work in Garca and using their son Titus there.
  • MIKE AND BEVERLY CREIGLOW—PRAISE GOD for new buildings going up and new sound systems being donated and installed. PRAY for the trials and challenges they are facing in so many areas, that God would give wisdom, grace, and strength.
  • JOHN AND ALTA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for the sweetness of fellowship. PRAY for their son David as he takes care of their house and cars left in Brazil. PRAISE GOD for the opportunity to travel to the Thanksgiving Conference in Michigan!
  • JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for first-time attendees at their VBS. PRAY as they continue to reach children and parents through English Classes and youth meetings. PRAISE GOD for new friendships and reconnections and PRAY they will continue to effectively use opportunities God opens.
  • JUDSON AND RAQUEL HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for a special children’s evangelistic event! PRAY for Jud as he mentors men over breakfast each week and fosters fellowship among pastors. PRAISE GOD for continued church health and growth!
  • PAUL AND WANDA HATCHERPRAISE GOD for time spent seeing family and checking on the churches in north and northeastern Brazil!  PRAY for Pastor Ivanildo Ross as he encourages and helps the church plants. PRAY for the church plants as they face the challenges of incorporating.
  • AJ AND BARBARA HENSLEY—PRAISE GOD for the couple who recently got married and PRAY for them as they continue to obey God! PRAISE GOD for saving 10 more young men through the prison ministry! PRAISE GOD for solid foundation of biblical truths being laid in the seminary and PRAY as they seek to expand to other cities. PRAY for their vehicles.
  • NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAY for them as the holiday season nears and homesickness intensifies. PRAISE GOD for the group of men at the Annex Prison who are desiring to grow spiritually and are serious in their study of God’s Word. PRAY as he and Roger Tate continue to train and teach church planting leaders.
  • ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for the opportunity to share Christ with the Pokot tribe! 5 hour church services, nightly worship gatherings, and several trusting Christ as their Savior during their hut-to-hut evangelism tour! PRAY for Roger as he seeks how God would have him minister to the people in Pokot.
  • BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAY for their young missionary Alysson who is preparing to move for a two-year mission project. PRAISE GOD for using Alek Rossi to draw young people closer to Christ and PRAY for him as he will be ordained soon. PRAY for the Projeto Vida teams as they wrap up their school ministries for the year. PRAISE GOD for helping them get all their buses back in operation.

BFM-Winter-Conference-2015Block these dates and plan to attend…
2015 BFM WINTER CONFERENCE
January 18-21  |  Sunday-Wednesday
PARK RIDGE BAPTIST CHURCH
Gotha FL [Orlando-area]

“SERVICE”
“With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men…”  Ephesians 6.7

For more details, contact Pastor Ben Glover
BentonGlover[at]aol.com  |  407.719.9861


ThanksgivingOfferingPlease be planning to give a generous Thanksgiving Offering to help us supply our missionaries’ needs.  We must have a generous Thanksgiving Offering to finance the commitments and benefits we give our missionaries over the coming year.

Ask the Lord how generously He wants you to give.  And, ask Him also to supply for you the offering He wants you to give.

2 Corinthians 9.8
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you;
that you, always having all sufficiency in all things,
may have an abundance for every good work.

When Paul was on his way to visit the saints at Rome, he asked them to be prepared to help him financially so he could continue taking the Gospel on his journeys beyond them.

Romans 15.24
‘Whenever I journey to Spain, I shall come to you.
For I hope to see you on my journey,
and to be helped on my way there by you,
if first I may enjoy your company for a while.”

In other words, “When I come to Rome, please help me with your offerings to continue my missionary ministry on beyond you!”

We are pleading with you on behalf of our missionaries to please help them continue their missionary ministries on through 2015 with the Thanksgiving Offerings you will give during this giving season.  Will you help us help them on their way?


2015 THANKSGIVING OFFERING

Philippians 4.19
And my God shall supply all your need
according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Because, at the moment of this writing [18 November], we have already exhausted last year’s Thanksgiving Offering. What that means is, we are out of funds of any kind to carry us through December 2014 and on through 2015.

We will necessarily begin using Thanksgiving Offerings received this month – November – to finance our missionaries’ support services. Under ordinary circumstances, we would not begin using the next year’s Thanksgiving Offering until the beginning of the new year…in this case, 2015. If we have any Thanksgiving Offering funds left over at the end of the calendar year, those funds are also carried over to supply our missionaries’ needs for the coming year.

Looking at this situation just purely from a human perspective, this does not bode well for prospects of being able to fulfill the commitments and benefits we have committed to give our missionaries “as the Lord provides.”

Matthew 6.8
…for your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

So, let me appeal to you on behalf of our missionaries – with all the wisdom and passion God will grant me – to respond to their needs with as generous a Thanksgiving Offering as God will enable you to give.

2 Corinthians 9.8
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you;

that you, always having all sufficiency in all things,
may have an abundance for every good work…

Last year’s total Thanksgiving Offering was $49,058.41.  It was given over six months, but I assure you, that’s OK!  Your Thanksgiving Offering doesn’t have to be given during November!  In fact, it will remain open for as long as you need it to be open!

THE THANKSGIVING OFFERING SUPPLIES OUR MISSIONARIES’ NEEDS THAT ARE NOT SUPPLIED FROM YOUR MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS. 

Monthly General Fund Offerings
I know we have produced an attractive and informative brochure to explain how our Monthly General Fund Offering works.  It is entitled “Caring for those who care for the world” and is available in PDF form on our website and also by requesting paper copies from the Executive Secretary.  But, please allow me here to reiterate how we use your Monthly General Fund Offerings.  The Essential Maintenance Transactions [EMT] that provide for their most basic living and ministry expenses are supplied from your Monthly General Fund Offerings.  They include salary, housing and ministry expense allowances, hospitalization premiums, and Mission Sheets printing and distribution.

These total EMT disbursements add up to $43,300.54 every month.  Only one month last year [January 2014] was the Monthly General Fund Offering sufficient to cover these disbursements.  We supplied the following monthly deficits from February-March from the surplus received in January.

Extraordinary Estate Gift
Then, in April, we supplied the deficit in the Monthly General Fund from the remaining portion of the extraordinary estate gift Ernest and Helen Palmer had left BFM in 2013.

Founders Day Offerings
By that time, you were giving your Founders Day Offerings from June through September.  The special contributions you made to the Founders Day Offering [in addition to your faithful regular giving to the Monthly General Fund] supplied our missionaries’ Essential Maintenance Transactions over the next four months.

I repeat, all of these every-month basic living and ministry expenses are not provided for from the Thanksgiving Offering; they are supplied from the Monthly General Fund Offerings.

And, in the event that the Monthly General Fund Offerings don’t cover those Essential Maintenance Transactions – and we don’t have other designated funds to use – then we must reduce those standard commitments we have made to the missionaries that month by the amount of the shortage of funds.  We had to enact that undesirable necessity last month – November 2014.  [Please read the accompanying article: “OUR MISSIONARIES’ MONTHLY DEPOSITS REDUCED IN NOVEMBER”]

BUT – THESE DISBURSEMENTS ARE NOT SUPPLIED FROM YOUR THANKSGIVING OFFERINGS.  Let’s get back to the Thanksgiving Offering now.  The Thanksgiving Offering supplies all the commitments and benefits we provide to our missionaries throughout the year in addition to the Essential Maintenance Transactions we have noted above.

Those benefits include:

  • furlough transportation expenses,
  • children’s education allowances,
  • hospitalization deductible reimbursements,
  • postage to mail the Mission Sheets,
  • maintaining the Missionary Furlough Home in Lexington KY,
  • and all the professional services and supplies that are required to maintain all the activities that go on here in the States to keep their ministries going.

And, let me note here that in 2014, [1] we didn’t have the funds to disburse the Children’s Education Allowance benefit, and [2] we had missionaries who didn’t request reimbursement for their furlough transportation back to the States because they knew we didn’t have the funds.

AND SO – WE NEED THE THANKSGIVING OFFERING TO SUPPLY ALL THE OTHER COMMITMENTS, BENEFITS, AND SERVICES THAT ARE NOT SUPPLIED BY OUR MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS.   I repeat, last year’s $49,058.41 did not supply all the benefits we would have given during the year if we had received a larger Thanksgiving Offering – and what we did receive is now exhausted before the end of the year.

Like Paul in 2 Corinthians 9, we are praying to God supply our needs with the means to give a generous offering – and also that He will plant and infuse the Grace into our hearts to give us the purpose, the willingness, and the joy to sow and reap bountifully [verses 6-8].

That is, after all, the way God Himself gives – and the way Christ gave Himself.

2 Corinthians 9.15
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift.


OUR MISSIONARIES’ MONTHLY DEPOSITS REDUCED IN NOVEMBER

First of all, we want to thank each and every one of you who contributes to the monthly General Fund offerings.  You are the ones who supply our missionaries’ essential needs each month to the degree we can fulfill them. 

If you are not contributing to the monthly General Fund offerings, please, may we encourage you for the sake of our missionaries’ essential support to begin doing so – as generously as you can?

During the month of November, it was necessary to reduce the modest amounts we have committed to our missionaries each month for their essential maintenance.  The reason we had to do this is because our monthly General Fund support offerings were not sufficient to cover the full amounts of the modest disbursements we make to them each month for their salary and expense allowances.  So, when the General Fund offerings are not sufficient to cover those commitments, then we must reduce the amounts of the disbursements we deposit to each of their accounts.

So, the effect was – we had to proportionately reduce the amounts we deposited in each missionary’s account for their salary and housing/ministry expense allowances.  Our missionaries need and depend upon these modest commitments we make to their essential support needs each month – just like every one of us depends upon our basic essential income coming in regularly each month.

Please help us keep their monthly essential support supplied!


KROGER COMMUNITY REWARDS

KrogerPromote

All of you do not have Kroger stores in your locality – so this won’t apply to every reader.  And if you do, not all of you shop at Kroger.  But, if you do, you most likely have a Kroger Plus card to scan when you make your purchases to take advantage of in-store discounts and fuel discount points.

Some of you have also been participating in the Kroger reloadable gift card program.  By depositing your money on the reloadable card and using the card to make your purchases, BFM received a ‘commission’ from those purchases.

Kroger has discontinued the use of the reloadable gift card.  However, they have now made it easier to continue the benefit to your favorite Non-Profit Organization [BFM].  No extra steps.  Simply register your Kroger Plus card online and choose BFM as your Non-Profit Organization.  Then, use your Kroger Plus card as you always do and Kroger will direct the benefits to BFM.

We have posted all the instructions you need here. If you’re going to shop at Kroger anyway – and still get all the present benefits of using your Kroger Plus card – then we encourage you to add BFM as a beneficiary also.

(You can also download a printable Word document of the instructions with pictures here. Or a PDF here.)


BFM BROCHURESbrochure (2)

We now have TWO very attractive and informative professionally-produced brochures.  We want you to help us get these promotional messages into the hands of anyone and everyone who is interested in the mission work the Lord is accomplishing through the missionaries who are supported by your offerings through BFM.

(1) The first of these brochures is one that will introduce you to BFM and inform you about the basic principles by which BFM functions. (click here to view)

GF Brochure(2) The second brochure is just now ‘hot off the press.’  This one is entitled “Caring for those who care for the world,” and is designed to inform and explain just how essential the monthly General Fund is to the daily living and ministry needs of our missionaries. (click here to view)

Both of them are full-color, either 6 or 8 pages 8 ½ x 11 format, pictorial, and informative.  Will you please help us distribute these brochures as widely as you can?

If you will send your name and mailing address to:
Dave Parks, 3985 Boston Road, Lexington KY 40514
email: daveparks[at]twc.com | phone: 859.223.8374 –
and tell us how many sets of these brochures you want – we will get them back to you by return shipping.

For now, you can access an electronic flip-through version of the new brochure by going to our website and clicking on the brochure cover.

Again, please serve as ambassadors for your missionaries by helping us get either single-copy sets to interested persons or bundles to distribute in our churches.  The brochures will ‘speak for themselves’ – for our missionaries.


MISSIONARIES ON FURLOUGH

Please note the new address and phone numbers for John and Alta Hatcher and Paul and Wanda Hatcher. Their address is:  15905 Mercott Court, Clermont FL 34714.  Their home telephone number is: 229-529-8497.  John & Alta’s email address is: jhatcher[at]uol.com.br.

Paul and Wanda’s cell number is: 239-227-6551 and their email address is: rphatcher[at]gmail.com.

We encourage you to pray for them and correspond with them.



Read more

FaithWORKS Report [September 2014]

PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…

  • MIKE AND BEV CREIGLOWPRAISE GOD for a time of fellowship, especially with Henry. PRAY for the people being saved in Bolivia in spite of persecution. PRAISE GOD for full Sunday evening services at First Baptist and in the chapels. PRAY for Idevaldo and his wife, the newest missionaries who will be sent to the field later this year.
  • JOHN AND ALTA HATCHERPRAISE GOD for His glorious Gospel He has given us the privilege of sharing with others. PRAY that you will be a faithful witness.
  • JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHERPRAISE GOD for the birth of grandchild #10! PRAY for committed first-generation leaders. PRAISE GOD for Philip and Amanda serving in France with them.
  • PAUL AND WANDA HATCHERPRAISE GOD for always providing. PRAISE GOD for working in the life of Francisco Santiago and for the 66th anniversary of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Manaus! Through this ministry, your giving and prayers, children, grandchildren, great children, and even great-great grandchildren churches have spread in more than half of the state of Brazil. PRAY as His work continues to spread.
  • AJ AND BARBARA HENSLEYPRAISE GOD for open doors to share the Gospel at a large new school! PRAISE GOD and PRAY for 52 young prisoners who put their faith & trust in Christ! PRAY that the Lord would open legal doors for vocational classes at the prison. PRAY for their upcoming “Mission Awareness” month. PRAY that the Lord would provide the finances for their blown motor.
  • NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORDPRAISE GOD for Carrie’s permit for the hospital ministry being renewed! PRAISE GOD for answering prayers for safety. PRAY that the Lord will provide other children in Kitale who are their girls’ ages. PRAISE GOD for their new four-legged family member!
    ROGER AND JULIE TATEPRAISE GOD for a sweet time of worship in a tiny village at night. PRAY for the witch doctor’s village and for the Pokot Christians to be burdened to share the Gospel with their own people. PRAISE GOD for light in the darkness and PRAY that His Gospel will penetrate resistant hearts.
  • BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASERPRAISE GOD for His protection during an armed robbery. PRAY for the safety of new missionary Alysson, a new missionary they just sent out to the Tupi Indians, and that the Gospel would go forth with great success! PRAISE GOD for growing their church and for the volunteers who are helping work on the building.

Thanksgiving Conference 2014CHANGED DATES FOR THANKSGIVING CONFERENCE

The New Hope Missionary Baptist Church will be hosting the Thanksgiving Conference again this November – but it will not be during Thanksgiving week this year.  The new dates will be Monday-Wednesday – November 10, 11, 12.  Please note and mark these new dates – plan to attend. [You can view the full schedule here.]


ThanksgivingOfferingPlease be planning to give a generous Thanksgiving Offering to help us supply our missionaries’ needs.  We must have a generous Thanksgiving Offering to finance the commitments and benefits we give our missionaries over the coming year.

Ask the Lord how generously He wants you to give.  And, ask Him also to supply for you the offering He wants you to give.

2 Corinthians 9.8
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you;
that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things,
may abound to every good work.

When Paul was on his way to visit the saints at Rome, he asked them to be prepared to help him financially so he could continue taking the Gospel on his journeys beyond them.

Romans 15.24
‘Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you:
for I trust to see you in my journey,
and to be brought on my way thitherward by you,
if first I be somewhat filled with your company.”

In other words, “When I come to Rome, please help me with your offerings to continue my missionary ministry on beyond you!”

We are pleading with you on behalf of our missionaries to please help them continue their missionary ministries on through 2015 with the Thanksgiving Offerings you will give during this giving season.  Will you help us help them on their way?


KROGER COMMUNITY REWARDS

KrogerPromote

All of you do not have Kroger stores in your locality – so this won’t apply to every reader.  And if you do, not all of you shop at Kroger.  But, if you do, you most likely have a Kroger Plus card to scan when you make your purchases to take advantage of in-store discounts and fuel discount points.

Some of you have also been participating in the Kroger reloadable gift card program.  By depositing your money on the reloadable card and using the card to make your purchases, BFM received a ‘commission’ from those purchases.

Kroger has discontinued the use of the reloadable gift card.  However, they have now made it easier to continue the benefit to your favorite Non-Profit Organization [BFM].  No extra steps.  Simply register your Kroger Plus card online and choose BFM as your Non-Profit Organization.  Then, use your Kroger Plus card as you always do and Kroger will direct the benefits to BFM.

We have posted all the instructions you need here. If you’re going to shop at Kroger anyway – and still get all the present benefits of using your Kroger Plus card – then we encourage you to add BFM as a beneficiary also.

(You can also download a printable Word document of the instructions with pictures here. Or a PDF here.)


BFM BROCHURESbrochure (2)

We now have TWO very attractive and informative professionally-produced brochures.  We want you to help us get these promotional messages into the hands of anyone and everyone who is interested in the mission work the Lord is accomplishing through the missionaries who are supported by your offerings through BFM.

(1) The first of these brochures is one that will introduce you to BFM and inform you about the basic principles by which BFM functions. (click here to view)

GF Brochure(2) The second brochure is just now ‘hot off the press.’  This one is entitled “Caring for those who care for the world,” and is designed to inform and explain just how essential the monthly General Fund is to the daily living and ministry needs of our missionaries. (click here to view)

Both of them are full-color, either 6 or 8 pages 8 ½ x 11 format, pictorial, and informative.  Will you please help us distribute these brochures as widely as you can?

If you will send your name and mailing address to:
Dave Parks, 3985 Boston Road, Lexington KY 40514
email: daveparks[at]twc.com | phone: 859.223.8374 –
and tell us how many sets of these brochures you want – we will get them back to you by return shipping.

For now, you can access an electronic flip-through version of the new brochure by going to our website and clicking on the brochure cover.

Again, please serve as ambassadors for your missionaries by helping us get either single-copy sets to interested persons or bundles to distribute in our churches.  The brochures will ‘speak for themselves’ – for our missionaries.


MISSIONARIES ON FURLOUGH

Please note the new address and phone numbers for John and Alta Hatcher and Paul and Wanda Hatcher.  Their address is:  15905 Mercott Court, Clermont FL 34714.  Their home telephone number is: 229-529-8497.  John & Alta’s email address is: jhatcher[at]uol.com.br.

Paul and Wanda’s cell number is: 239-227-6551 and their email address is: rphatcher[at]gmail.com.

We encourage you to pray for them and correspond with them.


2 Corinthians 9:8



Read more

FaithWORKS Report [June 2014]

PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…

  • ODALI AND KATHY BARROS—PRAISE GOD for the work in Ubim going well. PRAY for their Monday night services and childrens classes in Ubim. PRAISE GOD for the way He has worked in Odali’s life and for making a lasting generational change that also affected his family.
  • MIKE AND BEV CREIGLOW—PRAISE GOD for growth in Pé da Terra and plans for a new building in Porto Walter. PRAY for the church in Santa Rosa who has just called a new pastor from First Baptist Cruzeiro do Sul. PRAISE GOD for recent baptisms in the mountain works along the Moa River.
  • JOHN AND ALTA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for a blessed time in Lexington and for providing a place for them in Florida. PRAY for them as they transition to Florida. PRAY for the works in Brazil that are continuing as they are away.
  • JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for the nine committed believers in Mazere who are sharing their faith! PRAY for patience as they wait while God grows potential leaders. PRAISE GOD for how He is working in the lives of adults and children in Tournefeuille.
  • PAUL AND WANDA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for leading, guiding, and providing a place for them to rent in Florida. PRAY for Pastor Adolfo Escote who is having eye problems. PRAY for the new church plant in northern Brazil that is getting ready to incorporate. PRAISE GOD for church plants that are growing!
  • AJ AND BARBARA HENSLEYPRAISE GOD for starting to soften the heart of the chief of the Indian village. PRAY for those in the Indian Village, that they would come to know Christ as their Savior. PRAISE GOD for the team from Georgia who helped with a VBS and accomplished lots of projects on their list.
  • NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAY for their return to Kenya. PRAY that the Lord will direct them to the work permits and paperwork they need to complete. PRAISE GOD for those who “hold the ropes.”
  • ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for the room Roger has leased to start a church planting training center. PRAY for the Lord to start a church planting revolution in Kitale and that He will be glorified in that place. 
  • BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAISE GOD for one repaired Projeto Vida motorhome and the privilege of sharing the Gospel in 9 schools! PRAY for the mission team coming from Phoenix who will be presenting the Gospel in 6 schools and 3 parks. PRAISE GOD for faithful family who serves and shows the love of Christ.

CHANGED DATES FOR THANKSGIVING CONFERENCE

The New Hope Missionary Baptist Church will be hosting the Thanksgiving Conference again this November – but it will not be during Thanksgiving week this year.  The new dates will be Monday-Wednesday – November 10, 11, 12.  Please note and mark these new dates.


Founders Overbey and Clark

JUNE IS FOUNDER’S DAY OFFERING MONTH: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FOUNDERS DAY OFFERING TO THE CONTINUING SUPPLY OF YOUR MISSIONARIES’ ON-GOING NEEDS

We are appealing to you to give an extraordinary offering to our Founder’s Day Offering to supply our missionaries’ Essential Maintenance needs.

72 years ago, Hafford Overbey began appealing for and receiving offerings to assist in the support of a missionary who had returned to the Amazon Valley in Brazil.  Baptist Faith Missions has been assisting Baptist churches in sending their missionaries to the nations of the world for the purpose of church-planting missions ever since.

We recognize that many of you do not remember Hafford Overbey or Z. E. Clark, the first Treasurer of Baptist Faith Missions.  But, what you do need to remember is that your missionaries who are currently serving the Lord in the nations of the world are carrying on with the same missionary vision and ministry that prompted the very first missions offering in 1942.

So, will you please help us?  Last year [2013], it was the Founder’s Day Offering that enabled us to NOT have to reduce our missionaries’ monthly funds.  We devote the Founder’s Day Offering to supplying our missionaries’ monthly Essential Maintenance Transactions.  What that means is: we will supply any deficits in our Monthly General Fund Offerings with Founder’s Day Offering funds.

So, by giving to the Founder’s Day Offering, you are helping your missionaries receive the full commitments of monthly funds they must have to maintain their living and ministry needs.

[Click here to download the BFM Founders Day Offering Appeal 2014]


BFM BROCHURESbrochure (2)

We now have TWO very attractive and informative professionally-produced brochures.  We want you to help us get these promotional messages into the hands of anyone and everyone who is interested in the mission work the Lord is accomplishing through the missionaries who are supported by your offerings through BFM.

(1) The first of these brochures is one that will introduce you to BFM and inform you about the basic principles by which BFM functions. (click here to view)

GF Brochure(2) The second brochure is just now ‘hot off the press.’  This one is entitled “Caring for those who care for the world,” and is designed to inform and explain just how essential the monthly General Fund is to the daily living and ministry needs of our missionaries. (click here to view)

Both of them are full-color, either 6 or 8 pages 8 ½ x 11 format, pictorial, and informative.  Will you please help us distribute these brochures as widely as you can?

If you will send your name and mailing address to:
Dave Parks, 3985 Boston Road, Lexington KY 40514
email: daveparks[at]twc.com | phone: 859.223.8374 –
and tell us how many sets of these brochures you want – we will get them back to you by return shipping.

For now, you can access an electronic flip-through version of the new brochure by going to our website and clicking on the brochure cover.

Again, please serve as ambassadors for your missionaries by helping us get either single-copy sets to interested persons or bundles to distribute in our churches.  The brochures will ‘speak for themselves’ – for our missionaries.


MISSIONARIES ON FURLOUGH

Two of our longest-serving missionary families are on furlough in the States together at this time: John and Alta Hatcher and Paul and Wanda Hatcher. Paul has written in his Mission Sheets newsletter, “Wanda and I have been in Brazil for 40 years.  During this period, we have taken only one full-year furlough.”  But, they all have come together to the States for a year’s furlough.  John and Alta Hatcher have been serving our Lord in partnership with Baptist Faith Missions for 60 years and wanted to come Stateside for this furlough.  Paul and Wanda have come with them to accompany and help them.  Also with them is Wanda’s mom, Willa McGary.  ‘Miss Willa’ and Wanda’s deceased dad, Wilford, served as church-planting missionaries in Eastern Kentucky Appalachia for 35 years.  Willa has also been living with Paul and Wanda in Manaus since December 2013.

So, they are all living and traveling together.  They plan to set up their residence in Florida during this time to give them better access to Brazil, especially for family and friends in Brazil to come and visit with them during this year.

Paul says: ‘We will be available to speak and share missions.  We can be contacted at: (239)227-6551 or rphatcher[at]gmail.com.’  We encourage you to pray for them and correspond with them.

Their present address is: 615 Key West Avenue, Davenport FL 33897-3600
Telephone: (863) 438-6922


Founders Month 2014FOUNDERS DAY OFFERING APPEAL AND RESOURCES

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 eleven faithful missionary families who are currently serving the Lord in Brazil, Peru, 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.  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.

You can visit our website’s Donate/Support page to easily contribute through the options we have made available to you.  Or, you can mail your offering to: Baptist Faith Missions, Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer, P.O. Box 471280, Lake Monroe FL 32747-1280

You will find on our website [Faith Works Blog] some PDF resources that will be helpful as you help us 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 PowerPoint Slide


Read more

FaithWORKS Report [April 2014]

PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…

  • MIKE AND BEV CREIGLOW— PRAISE GOD for good visits 290 miles up-river with five missionaries in four villages.
  • JOHN AND ALTA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for being able to celebrate nearly 60 years of service in Brazil with the pastors and people in Urai. PRAY for them as they transition to a year-long furlough.
  • JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for the ways He’s blessing their investment (and your investment!) in France. PRAY the believers there would be encouraged. PRAY for those who are seeking truth.
  • PAUL AND WANDA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for one new church organized in Coroado and one ordained to pastoral ministry. PRAISE GOD for one family who moved to a capital city in a northeastern state of Brazil to start a new church plant. PRAY that this family will fully rely on God to overcome all challenges and as they seek the best location to rent, make new friends, evangelize, and disciple new believers. PRAY for them as they transition to a year-long furlough with their parents.
  • NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAISE GOD for insight on raising “third culture” kids. PRAY God would give them wisdom as they raise their children. PRAY as they prepare to return to Kenya, all the logistics of packing and what to take and what to leave behind. PRAY Carrie would be able to obtain the permit that is necessary to continue the hospital ministry upon their return in June.
  • SHERIDAN AND ANITA STANTON—PRAISE GOD for the help of three from the States to train Peruvians how to drywall. PRAISE GOD for how they were also able to help a church in a mountain town with their building.
  • ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for time they were able to spend with family and friends while on furlough. PRAY for them as they adjust back to life in Kenya. PRAY for God to lead them to a rental house to train in and to send them faithful men they can teach to teach others.
  • BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAISE GOD for working through the team of young people from Brandon, Florida to share the Gospel in parks and with over 6,000 students and teachers in public schools. PRAISE GOD for using Charlene to share His love through ESL Classes—and especially for His work in the heart of Ana Paula.

YOUR MARCH GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS…

When you review the Contributions page in this issue, you will note that the monthly General Fund Offerings total given in March is $25,634.71.  First, we thank God and commend every one of you gives to the monthly General Fund.  Without your faithful and sacrificial giving, our missionaries would not be receiving month-by-month what we are able to provide for them.

However, that being said, our total monthly commitments to our missionary families – which must be supplied from the monthly General Fund – amount to $43,300.54.  Every month, that same amount must be disbursed just for their essential maintenance.  If each of us will remember that number as we give to the monthly General Fund – $43,300.00 – it will help remind us of the gigantic financial responsibility just to ‘keep them on the field,’ ‘keep the lights on,’ and supply their essential living and ministry expenses.

When the monthly General Fund Offering doesn’t meet that disbursement threshold [$43,300.00], then we have no other choice but to reduce the amount of disbursements to our missionary families by the proportionate amount we did not receive in General Fund offerings.

We know you have heard this before – and we also know that we keep repeating ourselves – but the first of every month, it comes around again!  Please make a generous offering to your missionaries’ General Fund right now – or increase your present giving!

You can give online by going to our website: baptistfaithmissions.org and click on the ‘Donate/Support’ tab.  Designate your offering for ‘General Fund’.  Thank you on behalf of our missionaries! 

Click here to make a one-time donation.
Click here to set up a recurring donation.


 

Founders Overbey and ClarkJUNE IS FOUNDER’S DAY OFFERING MONTH

We are coming up on June again, and we are appealing to you to give an extraordinary offering to our Founder’s Day Offering to supply our missionaries’ Essential Maintenance needs.

72 years ago, Hafford Overbey began appealing for and receiving offerings to assist in the support of a missionary who had returned to the Amazon Valley in Brazil.  Baptist Faith Missions has been assisting Baptist churches in sending their missionaries to the nations of the world for the purpose of church-planting missions ever since.

We recognize that many of you do not remember Hafford Overbey or Z. E. Clark, the first Treasurer of Baptist Faith Missions.  But, what you do need to remember is that your missionaries who are currently serving the Lord in the nations of the world are carrying on with the same missionary vision and ministry that prompted the very first missions offering in 1942.

So, will you please help us?  Last year [2013], it was the Founder’s Day Offering that enabled us to NOT have to reduce our missionaries’ monthly funds.  We devote the Founder’s Day Offering to supplying our missionaries’ monthly Essential Maintenance Transactions.  What that means is: we will supply any deficits in our Monthly General Fund Offerings with Founder’s Day Offering funds.

So, by giving to the Founder’s Day Offering, you are helping your missionaries receive the full commitments of monthly funds they must have to maintain their living and ministry needs.

[Click here to download the BFM Founders Day Offering Appeal 2014]

SPECIAL JUNE ISSUE OF MISSION SHEETS
In addition to this regular monthly Mission Sheets, we will also be mailing to you an additional issue of Mission Sheets in June designated exclusively to Founder’s Day month and the Founder’s Day Offering.  Be watching for it!


BFM BROCHURES
We now have TWO very attractive and informative professionally-produced brochures.  We want you to help us get these promotional messages into the hands of anyone and everyone who is interested in the mission work the Lord is accomplishing through the missionaries who are supported by your offerings through BFM.

(1) The first of these brochures is one that will introduce you to BFM and inform you about the basic principles by which BFM functions. (click here to view)

(2) The second brochure is just now ‘hot off the press.’  This one is entitled “Caring for those who care for the world,” and is designed to inform and explain just how essential the monthly General Fund is to the daily living and ministry needs of our missionaries. (click here to view)

Both of them are full-color, either 6 or 8 pages 8 ½ x 11 format, pictorial, and informative.  Will you please help us distribute these brochures as widely as you can?

If you will send your name and mailing address to:
Dave Parks, 3985 Boston Road, Lexington KY 40514
email: daveparks[at]twc.com | phone: 859.223.8374 –
and tell us how many sets of these brochures you want – we will get them back to you by return shipping.

For now, you can access an electronic flip-through version of the new brochure by going to our website and clicking on the brochure cover.

Again, please serve as ambassadors for your missionaries by helping us get either single-copy sets to interested persons or bundles to distribute in our churches.  The brochures will ‘speak for themselves’ – for our missionaries.


Read more

FaithWORKS Report [December 2013]

PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…

  • HAROLD BRATCHER –  PRAISE GOD for his [and his wife, Marie’s] 55 years of faithful missionary service to our Lord in Brazil. PRAY that God will continue to prosper the churches they have planted and cultivated in Brazil. PLEASE NOTE: his new permanent Stateside address: 1950 Falling Leaves Lane, Lexington, KY 40509.
  • MIKE AND BEV CREIGLOWPRAISE GOD for the reports of ‘seeing the Grace of God’ in their river churches and preaching points and in Cruzeiro do Sul. PRAY AND GIVE to help them with their home church building project needs.
  • JOHN AND ALTA HATCHERPRAISE GOD for His church plants which are growing and increasing. PRAY for their co-workers’ needs. PRAY for them as their closest child is moving 3000 miles away.
  • PAUL AND WANDA HATCHERPRAY fervently for their family’s needs: Wanda’s mother is coming to live with them – and they have just suffered the bereavement of Mrs. McGary’s son and Wanda’s brother, Ross McGary.
  • JOHN AND JUDY HATCHERPRAISE GOD for the friends they continue to make and cultivate – and PRAY that God will save many more through their ministry of the Grace of Neighboring.
  • A.J. AND BARBARA HENSLEYPRAISE GOD for the many outreach works and ministries they are conducting. PRAY for the supply of all their needs, and for the many physical afflictions of their people – especially for Gloria.
  • NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORDPRAISE GOD for providing their needs for a vehicle and housing. PRAY that God will protect, encourage, and strengthen them as they travel and report on their ministry.
  • SHERIDAN AND ANITA STANTONPRAISE GOD for their ministry and work which continues on – and for the missionaries who have gone before them also. PRAY that God will supply the needs they have for finishing works they have begun.
  • ROGER AND JULIE TATEPRAISE GOD for the provisions He has made for them since being Stateside. PRAY that God will hear and answer the prayer he concludes his letter with.
  • BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASERPRAISE GOD for giving them fruit and responses from their various outreach ministries. PRAY for them and for their children as Jesse and now Brennen pursue their educations here in the States.

Block these dates and plan to attend…
2014 BFM WINTER MISSIONS CONFERENCE
January 19-22 | Sunday-Wednesday
PARK RIDGE BAPTIST CHURCH, Gotha FL [Orlando-area]
“LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS”
For more details, contact Pastor Ben Glover
BentonGlover[at]aol.com | 407.719.9861


NOVEMBER MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERING – RECORD LOW

We want to thank everyone of you who faithfully and regularly gives to the Monthly General Fund offerings. Your offerings literally keep our missionaries on their fields of service and ‘keep the lights on’ for their daily living and ministry expenses. You sustain and maintain them. “Thank You!” again and again!

The Monthly General Fund offerings are necessary – and are used – to provide the Essential Maintenance Transactions [EMT] that our missionaries must have to sustain their most basic and essential expenses: salary, housing, ministry expenses, hospitalization premiums, and correspondence. Without these provisions, they cannot continue doing what they do.

November’s Monthly General Fund [$23,197.61] was the least Monthly General Fund Offering we have record of receiving – and our present accounting system goes back more than 10 years. This is a most unenviable record to set. If our Monthly General Fund Offering does not meet the threshold amount of the above monthly disbursements, then we must reduce those same committed disbursements proportionately and equitably among our missionaries to make up for the deficit. This month’s deficit [December’s disbursements are made from November’s offerings] was $12,359.92. We thank God that this month we had extraordinary gift funds available to make up that deficit so we didn’t have to deduct it from our missionaries’ monthly deposits. [See the article “GRATITUDE FOR A GENEROUS BEQUEST”].

Please give to the General Fund so your missionaries can pursue their daily lives and ministries without this distraction. Give by the Grace of God – to the Glory of God! You can give online by going to our website: baptistfaithmissions.org and click on the ‘Donate/Support’ tab. Designate your offering for ‘General Fund’. Thank you on behalf of our missionaries!


2013-14 THANKSGIVING OFFERING UPDATE: $17,036.91

We have begun giving to our 2013-14 THANKSGIVING OFFERING with last month’s offerings. Those offerings listed in this month’s Mission Sheets are just the ‘firstfruits’ and initial offerings we have received to date. We are asking God to multiply this amount several times before it is completed. NOTE: the Thanksgiving Offering is always open any time for your contributions. Just designate your offering: ‘Thanksgiving Offering’ and it will be applied and included. We must receive a very generous Thanksgiving Offering to give our missionaries the services and benefits we have committed to give them “as the Lord provides”. The Lord provides through our sharing of the Grace He has given us.

“I speak not be commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love.” [2 Corinthians 8:8]

“For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the Gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; and by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding Grace of God in you.” [2 Corinthians 9.12-14]

You can also contribute online at baptistfaithmissions.org on the ‘Donate/Support’ tab. Designate your offering for ‘Thanksgiving Offering’. Thank You! on behalf of our missionaries!

Click here to make a one-time donation.
Click here to set up a recurring donation.


PLEASE PRAY FOR GLENN ARCHER
We encourage you to pray with us on behalf of a very dear friend, Pastor Glenn Archer. He is suffering from Pulmonary Fibrosis and his health and strength is growing progressively weaker. His disease is irreversible and incurable. Glenn served as a Director of Baptist Faith Missions for 34 years (1978-2012) and as our Treasurer for 11 years (1991-2002). He has also planted and pastored churches in Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. His physical condition has so weakened that he is on oxygen-assist 24/7 on maximum output most of the time. He struggles for every breath. Every movement and activity exhausts him. But, he continues to be an encourager to all of his brothers and sisters in Christ. Please ask our Lord to give him daily strength according to his needs – and Grace to strengthen his heart of faith in Christ. You may correspond with him at: 502 Nuckols OBCC Road, Calhoun KY 42327 / glennarcher0[at]gmail.com. He may not have strength to respond, but he will appreciate hearing from you. Please ask the Lord also to strengthen and encourage Judy, his loving wife and faithful caregiver.


GIVING GOD THANKS FOR A GENEROUS BEQUEST

Baptist Faith Missions was blessed recently with a very generous gift in the form of a bequest. Ernest and Helen Palmer were members of a long-time supporting church in Lexington KY and have known, loved, and befriended the missionaries associated with BFM for over 50 years. During their lifetimes, they invested some of their funds in Certificates of Deposit (CD) and designated Baptist Faith Missions as the beneficiary of those CDs. Those same funds were available to them while they lived if needed to provide for their own needs. Mr. Palmer went to be with the Lord a few years ago, and then Mrs. Palmer was called Home to Heaven this year.

When their estate was executed, those CDs were presented to BFM. After we fulfilled some specific requests which accompanied the bequest (for our missionaries), we are using the remainder of this gift to provide other needs to benefit our missionaries. [1] We have reimbursed our missionaries for the $10,872.74 we had to assess on their monthly deposits over 2013. During three months of 2013, when our monthly General Fund offerings were not sufficient to meet their monthly support disbursements from the General Fund, we had to reduce their monthly deposits proportionately among them to cover those deficits. We kept careful records of how much was reduced from each missionary’s deposits for each of those months – and those reductions were reimbursed to them out of this gift. [2] We have covered that same deficit in this month of December for their monthly deposits. Our General Fund offerings for this month lacked $12,359.92 to meet the threshold for what we must receive in order to give our missionaries the full amounts of the monthly support commitments we make to them. So, rather than additionally deduct and reduce their monthly deposits again this month – we supplied that deficit from this same gift.

Not only do our missionaries deeply appreciate this gift, but GOD LOVES THESE CHEERFUL GIVERS ALSO! [2 Corinthians 9.7]. And, SO DO MULTITUDES OF ‘ETERNAL FRIENDS’ WHO WILL BE IN HEAVEN THROUGH THE GOSPEL MINISTRIES CONDUCTED THROUGH THE USE OF THESE OFFERINGS! Please read Luke 16.9. When you give to missions and the ministry of the Gospel, God uses your offerings to bring the lost to faith in Jesus Christ. And, when you go Home to Heaven, those who were saved through your giving will welcome you into our Everlasting Home!

THIS IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO, TOO! WILL YOU?


THANK YOU! THANK YOU! “TEXAS GIVING FRIENDS”!

We want to give a tribute to some of the very best and most gracious “Giving Friends” BFM has ever had. We won’t use their real names because they have never wanted to be known or recognized by their names. But, years ago, I asked them if we could call them “Texas Giving Friends”, and they said we could. So, for years, they have been listed in our Mission Sheets Contribution Record as “Texas Giving Friends”. They began giving personal offerings to BFM over 50 years ago and have continued that ministry of generosity over all these years.

Generous offerings. Sacrificial offerings. And not just to BFM, but they have also given equally generously to a number of other Gospel missions ministries, especially in Mexico. And the fruits of the churches and ministries to which they have contributed are still growing, still producing, and still bearing fruit for eternal life and the Glory of Christ.

Over the course of 2013, it became necessary for both of these dear ‘Giving Friends’ to receive long-term elder-care in private nursing and assisted-living facilities. [Our Brother ‘Texas Giving Friend’ was called Home to Heaven in October]. At that time, much to their own regret, it became necessary to suspend their giving to BFM. But, their son wrote me at that time with these words and prayer: “This was a very difficult decision for the family to make, so we will be praying and expecting that God will raise up someone new; not just to fill the void they leave, but will multiply their giving in an unusual and abundant way in Jesus’ Name.” 

God has kept very careful records and has tracked everywhere their offerings have gone, and the souls that have been saved, and the works that have been done through their investments in the Kingdom of God. “Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.” [Philippians 4.17] God knows – and only God knows – the numbers of those who have heard the Gospel through the ministries financed by their offerings…and have come to faith in Christ…and are in Heaven – or will be in Heaven – because they gave. In Luke 16.9, our Lord made this promise and gave us this assurance: “And I say unto you, ‘Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness [our giving]; that when ye fail [die from here, and go Home to Heaven], they may receive you into everlasting habitations.’ ”

IS GOD CALLING YOU TO COME AND TAKE THEIR PLACE AND STAND IN THIS GAP BY GIVING TO THE BFM GENERAL FUND? WILL YOU ANSWER ‘YES!’?


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