FaithWORKS Report [January 2015]
PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…
- MIKE AND BEVERLY CREIGLOW—PRAISE GOD for blessing their Christmas program by bringing 7 to salvation. PRAY that they will be able to expand to have more room for lost visitors who come to their Christmas production. PRAY as they work to get some disciplinary situations cleaned up.
- JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for the hope of Christ in the midst of sorrow. PRAISE GOD for you and your support. PRAISE GOD for the group in Mazere and the single Christian lady who is quite the missionary there! PRAY for those who attend meetings regularly, that they will soon publicly accept Christ.
- PAUL AND WANDA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for opportunities to preach in Florida. PRAY for safe travels to Brazil. PRAY that all they will accomplish all they need to and for the Gospel to increase.
- AJ AND BARBARA HENSLEY—PRAISE GOD for all they’ve been able to accomplish this year, such as helping the Indian Village, holding more seminary classes, growing evangelism, new small groups, expanding the prison ministry! PRAY for the Pastor’s Conference that will be held in November. PRAY for more opportunities to share the Gospel and that the legal side of starting the vocational school will go smoothly.
- NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAISE GOD for the growth of their children and for new animals to help teach them responsibility. PRAY as McKenna desires to learn Swahili. PRAY the Lord would give direction in the best way to proceed with church planting.
- ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for the promise that His Word will not return void! PRAY as they continue to minister in Kenya. PRAY specifically for the taxi drivers to come learn about Jesus.
- BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAISE GOD for an encouraging Missions Seminar! PRAISE GOD for using his co-pastor Alek during his recent absence. PRAY for their young missionary Alysson who will be traveling to another country in April and PRAISE GOD for the work He’s doing through him. PRAY as they begin discussing plans for a new church plant.
Block these dates and plan to attend…
2015 BFM SPRING MISSIONS CONFERENCE
April 27, 28, 29 | Monday-Wednesday
THOMPSON ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH
320 Thompson Road, Lexington KY 40508
“MAKING CHRIST KNOWN”
John 17.20: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word…”
For more details, contact Pastor Dave Parks
daveparks[at]twc.com | 859.223.8374
2014-15 THANKSGIVING OFFERINGS UPDATE
Our total accrued Thanksgiving Offering amount is $39,648.84: $32,590.39 contributed during November 2014 and $7058.45 contributed during December 2014.
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.
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 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!
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!
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
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 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.
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 [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.
Block 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
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
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 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.
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 [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 HATCHER—PRAISE 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.
Block 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
Please 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
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 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.
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 [October 2014]
PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…
- JOHN AND ALTA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for allowing Bro. Hatcher to complete an English translation of his book on the Holy Spirit! PRAISE GOD for blessing Sis. Alta with another birthday and good health! PRAY that God would continue to give them opportunities to share the Gospel.
- JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for a time of fellowship and making meaningful contact with new people! PRAY as they begin teaching English to children and continue meeting with teens and adults for “English Night”. PRAISE GOD for evidences of grace in the Mazère Bible Study!
- JUDSON AND RAQUEL HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for blessing their evangelistic cookouts and changing people’s hearts and PRAY He will continue to do so! PRAISE GOD for their monthly pastor’s meeting and for the pastoral mentoring that is taking place. PRAY for Jud as he has been facing some health issues.
- PAUL AND WANDA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for allowing Paul to travel to Manaus to speak and encourage the church, plan with church leadership, and catch up with family! PRAY for the works in Brazil to thrive. PRAISE GOD for a blessed time at Tabernacle in Mims, Florida!
- NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAY for them as the holiday season nears and homesickness intensifies. PRAY for them as they train qualified men to start churches. PRAY the light of the Word of God would shine in the prison ministry and many would be saved. PRAISE GOD for Carrie being such a faithful wife, mother, and encourager!
- SHERIDAN AND ANITA STANTON—PRAISE GOD for a successful building dedication! PRAY for wisdom as the church calls a Pastor. PRAY for Andrew! PRAY as they make preparations to return to the States in November, especially that the Lord will continue to give peace and encouragement.
- ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for electricity and sunshine! PRAY for the new class of church planters that has started at the training center, that those who remain will learn and grow and be committed to wholeheartedly serving the Lord.
- BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAISE GOD for prospering the trip of young evangelist Alysson to the border of Brazil & French Guyana. PRAY for the leader of Projeto Vida, Paulo Novaes, as he faces new health issues. PRAY for his co-pastor’s family after the death of his aunt. PRAISE GOD for blessing their church with new growth!
Please 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.
By the time you read this, we will be in immediate need of your most generous Thanksgiving Offering…AT THIS MOMENT!
Because, at the moment of this writing [17 October], we have maybe just enough funds left over from last year’s Thanksgiving Offering to carry us into mid-November. Then, we will be out of funds of any kind to carry us through December 2014 and on through 2015.
We will necessarily begin using Thanksgiving Offerings now during October and November to finance our missionaries’ support services. Ordinarily, we don’t begin using Thanksgiving Offerings received at the end of the year until the first of the following year.
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] 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. It appears we will be faced with that undesirable necessity this month of November 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 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 to God for His indescribable Gift.
KROGER COMMUNITY REWARDS
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 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.
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 [July 2014]
PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…
- MIKE AND BEV CREIGLOW— PRAISE GOD for time to train in Pé da Terra. PRAISE GOD for the 32 baptisms at First Baptist Cruizeiro do Sul last month! PRAY for the 7 chapels around town—especially the new one that is about to open. PRAISE GOD for a great missions conference and new missionaries being sent out! PRAISE GOD for the organization of a new church!
- JOHN AND ALTA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for the opportunity to visit faithful prayer supporters and giving friends in Florida. PRAY for their continued health and strength. PRAISE GOD for time with family and opportunities to witness.
- JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for reconnecting with some people and making new friends at their annual neighborhood dinner. PRAY for their new English Club ministry they will be starting within the next year. PRAY for Philip, Amanda, and their family, and also Wendy who all serve in France with them.
- PAUL AND WANDA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for evangelistic opportunities in Manaus during the World Cup. PRAY for those who professed faith in Christ, that they may grow in the Lord and be steadfast. PRAISE GOD for improving Pastor Adolfo’s eye problems. PRAISE GOD for visits with family and friends.
- AJ AND BARBARA HENSLEY—PRAISE GOD for fruit from the group dedicated to evangelism! PRAY for these new believers and for their church members as they learn to be disciplers. PRAISE GOD for the youth who served at the orphanage and lives that were changed. PRAY for the inmates and the visitors that are planning to minister to them this month.
- NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAISE GOD for a safe return to Kenya. PRAY for them as they wait to hear a response on Carrie’s permit so she can continue the hospital ministry. PRAY also for their church planting plans and the prison ministry.
- SHERIDAN AND ANITA STANTON—PRAISE GOD for continued progress on the new building for the Calvary Baptist Mission-Church! PRAISE GOD for 40 years of marriage, a memorable trip, and a visit from the Griffins! PRAY for those Sheridan continues to counsel and the pastors in the Monday night Bible class.
- ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for the promise that “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” PRAY for Bro. Roger as he seeks to be a more wholly surrendered servant. PRAY that God would do an even greater work in his heart—and in your own!
- BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAISE GOD for opportunities to share Christ at World Cup venues and PRAY for the seeds that were planted! PRAISE GOD for the team from Arizona who ministered to the homeless. PRAISE GOD for the third anniversary of their church.
LABOR DAY MISSION CONFERENCE
AUGUST 31 – SEPTEMBER 1
EAST KEYS BAPTIST CHURCH
2150 East Keys Avenue, Springfield, IL
[Directions]
Pastor Dan Hillard
(dhillard51[at]yahoo.com)
(309-265-2974)
Everyone is invited to attend the Mission Conference Labor Day Weekend
at East Keys Baptist Church on behalf of Baptist Faith Missions.
An offering will be received during the meeting to help with the general expenses and missionary support.
We recommend Howard Johnson Motel,
1701 J. David Jones Parkway, Springfield, IL 62702 (217) 541-8762.
Tell them you are with East Keys Baptist Church to receive a discount for your room.
SUNDAY
10:00 a.m. – Brother Bob Jones, Evangelist
11:00 a.m. – Brother Joe Head,
Pastor, Winton Place Baptist Church, Cincinnati OH
LUNCH
6:30 p.m. – Brother Kenny Hurst,
Pastor, Storms Creek Missionary Baptist Church, Ironton OH
7:30 p.m. – Brother Jonathan Turner,
Pastor, Richland Baptist Church, Livermore, KY
MONDAY
10:00 a.m. – Brother Paul Reynolds,
Assistant Pastor, Independence Baptist Church, Foristell MO
11:00 a.m. – Brother Joe Head,
Pastor, Winton Place Baptist Church, Cincinnati OH
LUNCH
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 DAY OFFERINGS
We know June is past now – at least the calendar month June has come and gone. But, the need for the Founders Day Offering goes on and on…month by month.
You see, the contributions we receive from your Founders Day Offering go toward supplying the monthly commitments we make to our missionaries to provide for their essential living and ministry expenses. Every month, we must disburse at least $43,300.00 just to maintain the standard essential commitments we have made to our 11 faithful, full-time missionary families.
When the monthly General Fund offerings do not cover those commitments, then we must reduce the amounts we disburse to the missionaries that month. What it always comes down to is reducing the amounts we disburse to them for their modest salaries and personal/ministry expenses allowances.
You should be receiving soon your special Founders Day Offering issue of the Mission Sheets (click here to read online) along with one of our new brochures: “Caring For Those Who Care For the World” (click here to read online) which will explain the need and function of the General Fund to supply our missionaries’ monthly needs.
Please read both of those pieces and respond as generously as God enables you to give. Whether it is June, July, August – or whenever – just designate your offering “Founders Day Offering” and we will apply it to keeping your missionaries’ proverbial heads above the proverbial financial water for that month! I promise you: they will need 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.
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
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 HENSLEY—PRAISE 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.
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 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.
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 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.
JUNE 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 [February 2014]
PRAY AND PRAISE in this issue…
- MIKE AND BEV CREIGLOW—PRAISE GOD for several professions of faith, baptisms, and church letters. PRAY that they will be able to come up with the funds to buy new camera equipment for their TV program.
- JOHN AND ALTA HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for the opportunity to witness on a cruise. PRAY for the young man who does not believe in Christ, but heard the Gospel. PRAY that we would all be faithful to share the Gospel wherever we are.
- JOHN MARK AND JUDY HATCHER—PRAISE GOD for faithful ladies who hold a weekly Bible Study on their lunch break every Thursday. PRAY for leaders who are starting new Bible Study groups. PRAY that the Word would pierce hearts, especially as it is being read by unbelievers.
- AJ AND BARBARA HENSLEY—PRAISE GOD for the growth of their mission church at its one-year anniversary. PRAY for the many physical and spiritual needs in their church and their personal ministry. PRAISE GOD for the opportunity to help at an orphanage.
- NATHAN AND CARRIE RADFORD—PRAY about how the Lord would have you involved in the harvest. PRAISE GOD for His harvest in Kitale and all around the globe.
- SHERIDAN AND ANITA STANTON—PRAISE GOD for answering prayers about a drywall teacher and for continued progress on the Calvary building. PRAY for the families of three saints killed in a car wreck. PRAISE GOD for the faithfulness of those in the Ladies’ Bible Class and Pastors’ Theology Class.
- ROGER AND JULIE TATE—PRAISE GOD for uplifting visits to supporting churches. PRAY that God would prepare their hearts and minds for their upcoming return to Kenya.
- BOBBY AND CHARLENE WACASER—PRAISE GOD for young ladies with zeal for reaching others for Christ! PRAY for them as they adapt to life without kids at home. PRAISE GOD for new converts after teams were sent out. PRAY for two more teams that will be sent out this month and for their school ministries to be effective.
YOUR JANUARY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS…
When you review the Contributions page in this issue, you will note that the monthly General Fund Offerings total given in January is $26,723.10. 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.
The way we were able to NOT reduce their deposits this month is because last month, the Lord supplied us with an extraordinarily generous monthly General Fund offering. (These were offerings given in December 2013 and disbursed in January 2014.) So, with the ‘surplus’ we received last month, we carried it over to supply deficits in future months – this month, February, being one of them.
But, when those ‘surplus’ balances are depleted, if the monthly General Fund Offering doesn’t increase to meet the disbursement threshold [$43,300.00], then we will do what we’ve had to do before – we will reduce the amount of disbursements to our missionary families by the proportionate amount we did not receive in General Fund offerings.
Please help your missionaries by increasing your offerings to the monthly General Fund.
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.
2013-14 THANKSGIVING OFFERING UPDATE: $48,638.41.
We have received three months’ Thanksgiving Offerings:
November 2013, $17,036.91
December 2013, $26,701.50
January 2014, $4,900.00
That brings us to a total of $48,638.41.
Just to give you a little comparison perspective – the 2012-13 Thanksgiving Offering was $52,348.17 and we ran out of those funds before 2013 was completed. This year’s offering so far – where it stands now – is still below last year’s total amount.
So, will you please help us with your continued offerings to the Thanksgiving Offering? We use the funds we receive from the Thanksgiving Offering to supply the other services, benefits, and commitments we make to our missionaries which are not supplied from the Monthly General Fund Offering.
When we don’t receive sufficient Thanksgiving Offering funds, we cannot grant the missionaries’ requests for those benefits we otherwise would give them to help relieve that additional financial burden on them.
2014 is shaping up to be a demanding year for those needs – so please help your missionaries all you can!
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.
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.
“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!
______________________________
THANKSGIVING OFFERINGS YEAR-BY-YEAR
1996-97 $73,380.83 2005-06 $66,313.44
1997-98 $66,118.67 2006-07 $99,246.86
1998-99 $59,498.19 2007-08 $64,650.57
1999-00 $56,026.50 2008-09 $87,588.47
2000-01 $67,251.50 2009-10 $92,264.30
2001-02 $56,906.13 2010-11 $63,720.13
2002-03 $55,164.30 2011-12 $56,365.38
2003-04 $62,195.80 2012-13 $52,348.17
2004-05 $77,347.47 2013-14 $48,638.41 [To Date]
2014 SPRING MISSIONS CONFERENCE
April 28, 29, 30
Thompson Road Baptist Church – Lexington KY
“BEHOLD…NOW…IS THE DAY OF SALVATION!”
2 Corinthians 6:2
Please mark these dates and plan to join us for times of refreshing from the Presence of the Lord, challenges from His Word, and opportunities for commitment and participation in taking Christ’s Gospel to the nations of the world!
TRIBUTE TO GLENN ARCHER
Glenn Archer passed through the valley of the shadow of death – from this life into the Presence of his Lord and Savior – on Friday, January 31. He had suffered from pulmonary fibrosis for the past year or so.
Glenn served his Lord and the missionaries who are supported through BFM as a Director for 34 years and as Treasurer for 11 years. He was a pastor of Baptist churches for 50 years, serving church families in Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.
For those of us who served with him in the service of our missionaries, Glenn was our friend, brother in Christ, confidante, counselor, and our ‘true yokefellow’ [Philippians 4.3] in the ministry of the Gospel and missions.
He was always the model of impeccable integrity, a ‘sterling character of a man,’ and the consummate voice of wisdom, reason, and grace. We could always depend on Glenn to be faithfully insistent on his convictions and principles, and yet be a moderating influence. He was always “easy to be intreated’ [James 3.17], and deliberately so. He often quoted the Scripture “Speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4.15) as one of his cardinal rules for wisdom and counsel – and he lived by it.
Glenn taught us how to live in the faith…and he modeled for us how to die in the same faith. And, he was a life-long lover of missions and missionaries.
Here is, in full, the daily blog he sent out to many of us for years as he led us through the Bible with his Daily Devotions. Listen to his faith in Christ in his dying days and his continuing love for Gospel missions:
11.4.13
Dear Friends:
Death is an ugly enemy. “The last enemy [that] shall be destroyed [is] death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26). However death is ours. “All things are yours: life or death. All are yours.” We are in everything to give thanks unto God. How we handle death will either resound to His honor and His glory or to our shame. We can die grumpy old men and women, or we can die counting our blessings, knowing that we have received better than we deserve.
Just now, we are waiting for the adoption, to wit: the redemption of the body. (Romans 8:23). When Christ died, He paid the price of our redemption. This old body that once served sin, has been by the presence of the Spirit of God made to serve righteousness. Yet, we are confined to this body of death (Romans 7:24). It is as though Christ has put us on lay-a-way, but He did so while we are still in this corruptible, mortal body. But this is not the body He bought. The body He bought will greet Him at the resurrection, when this mortal shall have put on immortality, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption. In that day we will have a body like unto His glorious body (Philippians 3:21). “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)
Just now I ask an interest in your prayers, not that I might not see death, but that I will handle this approach to death in a manner well pleasing in His sight. Ask that God grant me the favor of His grace to live for Him during all these struggles. Pray for Judy. She is a gracious soul. Many are her labors because of my sickness. Both of us need the grace of God to carry on for Him. I am glad I am saved.
Don’t spend more time praying to keep saints out of Heaven than you do praying to keep sinners out of Hell.
I am yours in Christ, Glenn
Glenn’s family would like to express their thanks to our BFM fellowship with this note:
“Our family would like to express our gratitude to BFM, its directors, missionaries, and supporters for their love, encouragement, and prayers during the last several months. We also give thanks for the basket that was sent to the funeral home and to the directors who were able to attend the funeral and serve as honorary pallbearers despite the weather.
Glenn Archer’s greatest desire was for people all over the world to come to know the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
May God continue to bless the work of BFM.
Judy and the entire Archer family”
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@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’ FURLOUGH SCHEDULE
Harold Bratcher has retired from active and faithful missionary service in Brazil and has relocated to live here in the States. His mailing address is: 1950 Falling Leaves Lane, Lexington KY 40509 | telephone: (859)806-9827.
Read more
