God’s Promise, God’s People: A Rainbow of Redemption Across Generations
October 22, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As we were driving back from the pharmacy this morning Judy said, “Look at the rainbow.” Looking up at the sky before us I saw a beautiful rainbow.” I love this manifestation of God. First, it reminds us of the promise made to Noah, but it is also a demonstration of God in the world He created. We are here to communicate the rest of the message. God is love and God the Son came into the world to save us, give us new life and make us eternally His children united with Him.
It is wonderful to see God at work around us. This weekend Leonie is following the Lord in baptism. God used Roxane to touch her life and bring her to Christ. You may remember us mentioning Roxane in previous letters. She came to Christ through the witness of a High School friend’s mother. Since trusting Christ, she is very committed to knowing God through the study of His Word and is passionate about sharing the Good News with others through Bible studies. We are delighted to see God at work in this new generation.
Maxime came to the youth meeting for the first time last Friday. Judy taught him and his sister children’s classes in Mazere many years ago. He is now completing a Master’s program. We had only seen him a couple of times in a number of years; however, his mother has trusted Christ and is on fire for the Lord. She is an active participant in the Bible study in Mazere. She asked me about the youth meeting Bible studies expressing Maxime’s renewed interest in the Bible. He came to the last youth meeting and displayed a great interest.
So, we praise our Savior for what He is doing here and thank you for your regular participation with us.
Your fellow servants of Christ,
Judy and John
Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
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Still Sowing, Still Reaping—God Gives the Increase
September 20, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The privilege to be proclaimers of the Good News of Jesus Christ and servants of our Savior in making disciples is a wonderful blessing. Yesterday, Douceline, a hostess of Bible studies in Mazere for many years, sent me a message with the photo I have included. The gentleman in the picture was at the Museum where she works. He and his wife were present at the location to celebrate the wedding of their friends.
As soon as he spotted Douceline, he approached her to speak to her. She texted me, “I did not recognize him and then he told me who was.” I would not have recognized him either. Darrell Messer, you might recognize him. He was the teenager that translated for you at the Mazere Bible Study. He is now married and has two sons and two daughters. The family is active in a church in another city.
This young man’s mother brought him and his sister to Bible study faithfully for several years. I often think of this mother and her children as we drive in to the city for our regular Bible studies. Paula, the mother in this family, was saved before she moved from Angola to France. Douceline met her at the library/museum and invited her to the come to the Bible study and bring her children for the kid’s class that Judy taught. When they were older, they joined the adult Bible study. The seed that you helped sow is still bearing fruit!
Judy and I enjoy working with plants, but spiritual seed sowing and cultivation is much more important. Below is a picture taken a week ago at the Bible study in the city of Campagne-sur-Arize. The four children in the picture are being taught around the dining room table as the adult study takes place in the living room… still sowing the seed with your help and through the power and presence of the Lord!
Joyful moments!
Your fellow servants of Christ,
Judy and John
Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
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Surprising Connections, Lasting Fruit: God at Work in Mazère
August 16, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It is always good to have unexpected, good surprises. This was the case at the Mazère Bible study three days ago. We expected the attendance at this meeting to be low because we knew of some who were away from their homes and because a major storm hit us on the road on the way to Mazère. About the time we arrived at the home of Jean-Daniel and Jacqueline news came through another participant that Florian, the young man I mentioned getting baptized in my last letter, was going to be a bit late. However, when he arrived just a few minutes late, he was accompanied by his mother and his girlfriend.
His mother had come from her home in the Island of Reunion to attend his baptism and had met several members of the study. The girlfriend showed a great interest in the Bible Study. Afterwards, I asked her about her spiritual life, and she excitedly explained how she was thrilled to have understood and trusted Jesus Christ as her Savior three years ago. She expressed to another lady in the study how much she enjoyed it and then sent a message to the group indicating how wonderful she thought the meeting was and thanking everyone for the good reception she received. She is from Dunkirk (far north of us) and has only lived in our region for about a year. She met Florian on a hike with mutual friends. This is the way it works. Every day we have encounters. Often these encounters lead to spiritual life and fellowship.
The day before the above-mentioned study, one of the participants contacted me about her son coming to youth meetings at our home. He moved to our area for university several years ago. When he was just a boy, his mother brought him to children’s classes taught by Judy during the Mazère meetings. Patricia, the mother, trusted Christ several years ago as she had regular Bible studies with Douceline, the young lady who hosted the meetings for many years. Patricia met Douceline at the library and museum where she works. Patricia is relatively quiet, but passionate about her faith in Christ.
Disciples of Jesus bringing others to their Savior.
What a blessing to be a branch of the vine, Jesus!
Your brother and sister in France,
John and Judy
Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Let Your Light Shine: Stories of Salvation and Discipleship in Mazère
July 22, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We hope you are enjoying your life in Christ and seeing Him at work around you. As I was finishing an online live Bible study a few minutes ago, it dawned on me that I had not yet communicated with you about God’s work here during the past month.
A couple of weeks ago, a young man who participates in the Bible study at Mazère followed the Lord in baptism. He was touched by friends and enthusiastically expresses his faith in Christ. This is the way it works: Friends, family and fellow workers touching the lives of others with whom they have contact and relationships; bringing to Christ those who are searching.
A couple of months ago, as Judy and I were getting on the plane to be in the USA for a month, I received a wonderful surprise. Christopher, a paratrooper in the same company as the young man whose baptism I just mentioned, sent me a text asking me about the possibility of getting baptized. He just recently started coming to the Mazère Bible study. He has expressed his faith in Christ clearly during the Bible studies. He will not be baptized immediately because he is with his troop on a training mission in New Caledonia for four months.
It is wonderful to witness God at work in the lives of those who have trusted Him. Roxanne, one of the very active believers in our college-age group was saved and baptized two years ago. She is in the pictures included with last month’s newsletter (also shown below). She is an active reader and student of the Bible. She has been having Bible studies with a couple of friends who were seeking God. In a Bible study last week with our granddaughters, Camille and Emily, along with Roxane, Léonie expressed faith in Christ and a desire to follow Christ in baptism. She is one of the friends with whom Roxane has been having investigative Bible studies for the past few months.
These believers did not come to Christ through our witness alone. Most people trust Jesus as Savior through the witness of a number of His disciples. We don’t have to do it all. You don’t have to do it all. We do need to ask our Father to enable us to live out our calling, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16 – Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount)
May God bless you and use His light through you. Thank you for serving with us.
John and Judy Hatcher
Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Across Oceans, United in Christ: Back in France after Fellowship with Friends & Family
June 24, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We hope this finds you enjoying blessings from our Lord and Savior. Our last letter was earlier than usual and this one a bit late because we have had an active month and traveled thousands of miles. “Furloughs” or “stateside service” are not a part of our ministry. However, we usually try to spend 2 to 4 weeks in the USA to visit our children, grandchildren, people from our years of ministry in Indiana and some aging members of our extended family. A few hours ago we stepped off the plane back in Southern France.
While we were gone believers here continue to serve God reaching out to unbelievers, encouraging one another, and meeting together. Our Father has blessed us in ways that we can not imagine. You are an encouraging part of these blessings. A couple of weeks ago Philip and Amanda hosted the the College and Career young adults for a weekend retreat in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. These young adults are excitedly active in the ministry of Jesus Christ as they study and work.
On the third Saturday of June two of our group Bible studies, one in the city of L’Union and the other in the city of Mazère, had a picnic together in a natural bird park. These two cities are about an hour and a half apart. This is the third year that these two groups have met together for this event. There are two primary reasons they began this annual event; for fellowship and to invite all of there family members. Some of these family members are atheist. All are unbelievers. This picnic opens doors for friendships between believers and non-believers for the sharing of the good news.
Judy and I managed, with the help of believers here, to take the time to go Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana to see believers and family members. There are many hundreds that we would have liked to see but were unable to do so with the time we had available. We are blessed in these times with means to use God’s amazing created elements to visit each other at a distance. And … God has united us in His Spirit in a way that is wonderful though beyond human comprehension.
We arranged this trip so that we could see my brother Paul. Most of you know and have supported Paul and Wanda and Judson (their son) and Raquel. Paul has leukemia and is undergoing procedures for a bone marrow transplant. We were able to see them for four days. Please pray for Paul who also serves presently as a director for Baptist Faith Missions.
We are grateful that God has united us with you in His family.
In our Fathers love,
Judy and John
Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Spreading the Fragrance of Christ
May 16, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Judy and I are getting things together to head to our annual church weekend. This is a moment that all enjoy as our spiritual family spends a couple of days together in fellowship and worship. This is a great time of encouragement and sharing that is very who good for the body of believers.
I recently read two autobiographies of individuals who many would particularly find outside the likely realm of people to be saved. One was a lady born in the early sixties who was a professor in a well-known university in Syracuse, NY. She was an atheist, lesbian and ardent fighter for gay rights. She came to the Lord through gentle believers after many meals and discussions. She contacted them initially to get an opinion of “the other side” for an anti-God book she was writing. She is now very active as a believer who has been married to a pastor for a number of years. The other life story is of a high-class Pakistani lady who had been married to a general and ambassador who came to Christ. She came to Christ in the sixties when already a young grandmother.
The scriptural text that greatly touched me from this second mentioned book was, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15).
This morning Judy and I were having our weekly discipleship encounter with a new believer, and as she shared about encounters with others in her extended family of broken relationships and the opportunities that our Father gave her in the last week, I was touched by the reality of how God is using her to touch broken lives with which she has connections. We don’t have to make things happen. We just get doused with God’s perfume and it permeates the world around us.
I will close with another example of the power of God’s fragrance. Laure, the mother and wife in the family who hosts Bible studies in their home in a small rural town, told us in the meeting last Saturday about her surprise reception of a letter from a fifteen-year-old girl thanking her for impact Laure has had on her life. She had just trusted Christ as Savior. She is not from a Christian family and not in Christian circles. Laure had been praying for the girl’s mother who has gone through great difficulties. Laure was surprised that she had had any influence on the 15-year-old daughter…My answer was from the text I quoted above. God’s perfume…
John and Judy Hatcher
Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Doors God is Opening
April 23, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings from Southern France. We hope that your Easter Sunday was as enjoyable as ours. Sunday was a good day of rejoicing with the church at Plaisance du Touch. Emilie was here for the first time. She is the second child of parents who trusted Christ a few years ago; faithful participants in the church of Jesus that meets in our home each Sunday.
A few weeks ago, while Judy and I were out on our regular walk, we crossed a gentleman walking his dog. He was friendly and we exchanged phone information and discussed getting together. His wife is a High School English teacher. Last week we had them over for a snack and a friendship is developing. A door to connect with a couple who needs Christ.
Last week I was working in the front yard when a man about my age stopped and said, “Bonjour”. It was obvious that he was interested in chatting, so I stopped my flower planting and spent a few minutes getting acquainted with him. Yesterday afternoon a lady knocked on the door and invited us to come and snack at their home in a couple of hours. It was the man’s wife. He is a retired teacher and High School principal. God has opened another door.
On Monday afternoon another couple from further up our dead-end street spoke to me when they paused on the lane up the other side of our home. She was anxious to get better acquainted. Her husband is 93 years old. He did not talk as much but seemed to enjoy the conversation. God opened yet another door.
Each week Judy and I spend a bit over an hour speaking English with a couple of ladies. The last two times the subject has been primarily about Christ and the gift of life He offers us; walking through the door to share the Good News of Jesus.
This is our life here in Southern France. Praying for God to open doors and walking through them when they are opened.
The connections our Father gives us has led to many opportunities in the past and opened the doors to establish the Bible studies we have in seven different cities. The Word is the seed and the fruit is Eternal life. Rejoice with us in the work God is doing here as you partner with us in God’s work.
Your sister and brother,
Judy and John
Contact Info:
John Mark & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
jmhatcher@aol.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
A Delight to See God at Work
March 19, 2025
Dear Fellow Disciples of Jesus Christ,
We thank God for you and your participation in what God is doing here. The past few days have been extremely windy here. It is a reminder of a verse that Judy and I quote often “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) God is at work in ways that are invisible like the wind, but the results are obvious.
Last night, we were at the regular Bible study meeting in Mazere about an hour and a half drive south of us. This is a group of believers who would have to drive an hour and a half to participate in a Baptist or similar church. We have been holding meetings in this city for about 20 years. Douceline, a believing young lady, moved to this city at that time. She was very discouraged because she knew no other believers in Christ with whom she could fellowship in that region. Judy and I decided to offer coming to her home weekly for Bible study and fellowship. Douceline loved the idea and soon began seeing herself as a light for Jesus in the area. She is the director of a History Museum in this city and has contact with many people. She began inviting people to the weekly Bible study we were having in her apartment. Over the years we have had scores of interested people participate. The group now is mostly believers growing in the Lord and we meet in the home of a couple on a farm just outside the city. Just one example of how the many outreaches God has given us began.
Tonight, we will be in a Bible study hosted by Blandine, Douceline’s sister, in a city about an half hour drive north of us. We will be meeting on a Wednesday instead of the typical Thursday night meeting because this is the beginning of the New Year in Iran. Blandine’s husband is Iranian and they will be celebrating the Holiday with Iranian friends on Thursday. God has saved individuals in this Bible study during the last couple of years. It is delightful to see God at work.
As I close, I want to tell you about two wonderful blessings among many for which Judy and I are especially thankful to our Heavenly Father. March 3rd was our 52nd marriage anniversary. We are so thankful for the children, their spouses and the grandchildren He has given us. What a delight it has been and is to serve the Lord in three continents and experience the way He has worked around us and the great number of friends and brothers and sisters in Christ God has given to us. Judy had cataract surgery on both eyes during the first couple weeks of March and she is doing very well and can see much better. Thank you for your prayers.
Your sister and brother in Christ,
John and Judy Hatcher
Contact Info:
John & Judy Hatcher
2 T Impasse de la Picardie
31830 Plaisance du Touch
France
JMHatcher@aol.com
Present USA phone 1-812-416-1033
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
