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