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 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.

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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!

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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]

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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!

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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”

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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.

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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.