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.
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Founder’s Day Offering 2013
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 twelve 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. You can visit our Donate/Support page to easily contribute through the options we have made available to you.
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.
Here are a couple of PDFs that might be helpful as you 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
The image below is ideal for a PowerPoint slide. To save the image, right click and click “Save Image As.”
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History of BFM by H.H. Overbey (circa 1950)
H. H. Overbey wrote this undated article or letter apparently in response to an inquirer asking about Baptist Faith Missions.
We are dating it ‘circa 1950’ because in the text of the letter, he states with reference to Brother R. P. Hallum: ‘In 1946 he made application to this mission and was accepted and went back to Peru in 1947.’ Then, referring back to the work in Brazil, he further states: ‘Just a few months ago, Brother Lawrence Smith, his wife, and baby went to Brazil as missionaries.’
He also explains in this same letter how the missionaries’ newsletters came to be called ‘The Mission Sheets’.
This text is excerpted from the fuller original letter because in it he was also describing some of the logistics employed at that earlier time (for example, correspondence between the fields and the States and how the missionaries received their support funds, etc.) which have since been updated and streamlined – but our founding convictions, distinctives, and principles all remain the same.
We believe you will find it to be still very interesting “INFORMATION ABOUT BAPTIST FAITH MISSIONS”.
INFORMATION ABOUT BAPTIST FAITH MISSIONS
by Bro. H.H. Overbey (circa 1950)
How did this mission begin?
In 1923, J.F. Brandon went to Brazil with his family as a missionary under the Amazon Valley Baptist Faith Missions, which was started by Brother H.B. Taylor, who died about 1932.
After about 5 years on the field, Brother Brandon returned to the U.S. on furlough. He resigned from the AVBFM and went back to Brazil being supported full time by the First Baptist Church—Paducah, Kentucky—of whom the late Brother D.B. Clapp was pastor.
After four years Brother Brandon again returned on furlough and the First Baptist Church had split and part of the membership had organized another church, so the First Baptist Church gave up the support of Brother Brandon.
The Benton Baptist Church—Benton, Kentucky—of which Brother Dewey Jones was pastor sent Brother Brandon back assuming his support. Other churches joined in with the Benton Church and helped in the support. Brother Jones began to want the church to give up the work and to support the Co-operative Program instead, and in 1941 got the Benton church to vote to do so. This left Brother Brandon without support.
The writer lived in Wheaton, Illinois at that time and wrote to Brother Brandon to come visit in his home and discuss the work. Brother Brandon came and stayed for about two weeks and we discussed the work every night after I would get home from work.
Finally I told Brother Brandon that if he would write a letter to me about the work, I would mimeograph the letter and mail it out to those interested and since he was going on faith we would also go on faith on this end of the line and try to get churches and individuals to support him.
Brother Brandon and I came to Detroit and discussed the matter with Brother Z.E. Clark who was then pastor of Harmony Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. Brother Clark agreed to act as treasurer, I agreed to act as secretary and editor of the paper, and Brother Brandon went back to Brazil in 1942 on faith, believing that the Lord would supply.
In 1942 we sent out the first mimeographed letter, one sheet printed on one side to about 30 people. The next month we sent out more and the next a few more. The mimeographed sheet grew to be two sheets printed on both sides which made four pages. Someone referred to the mimeographed letters as the MISSION SHEETS, and that is how the paper got its name. Finally we began to print the paper and then we enlarged the size of it as it is today.
What has J.F. Brandon accomplished in Brazil?
Brother Brandon has organized 11 Baptist churches in Brazil. He organized the first one in Cruzeiro do Sul in 1929, the second one in Japyni in 1951. Both of these are in the Acre Territory of Brazil. In 1932 he organized the third church at Coary and the fourth one in Esperanco, in 1934 he organized the fifth one in Codajaz. The sixth church was organized at Boa Fe in 1935. In 1935 he organized the church at Catua. These last five churches are all in the State of Amazonas and were taken away from Brother Brandon by the Convention in 1939. In 1943 he organized a church at Morapirango which was the eighth church, then in 1944 one at Parana and in 1946 one at Amonho for the ninth and tenth ones. These last three are in the Acre Territory, the same as the first two organized. Then on July 4, 1948, he organized the eleventh and last church at Manaus which is the capitol of the State of Amazonas.
In addition to these churches Brother Brandon had as many as thirty preaching points where he visited on journeys to take the gospel.
In 1949 Brother Brandon came back to the States with leprosy and is now a patient in the U.S. Marine Hospital in Carville, Louisiana, which is a hospital for lepers. This mission supports him and his wife and two youngest daughters, who are at home in school with their mother in Benton, Kentucky.
What about the work in Peru?
In 1935 Brother R.P. Hallum, his wife, and 15 year-old daughter went to Peru under the Amazon Valley Baptist Faith Mission, the same as Brother Brandon did in 1925. Brother Taylor had died and there were several thousand dollars left in the treasury.
Brother Hallum worked in Peru and organized the First Baptist Church in Iquitos, Peru and opened several preaching points on the nearby rivers that empty into the Amazon River.
No one took over when Brother Taylor died and Brother Hallum continued his work under the AVBFM until the funds that were left in the treasury ran out. In 1946 he made application to this mission and was accepted and went back to Peru in 1947.
He opened up a preaching point on his way back in Buenaventura, Colombia, and left it in charge of a native Baptist Colombian preacher. Since then, a church has been organized in that place also. There is also a native Peruvian preacher who is a missionary who works with Brother Hallum in Iquitos.
So as of today, we have works in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, which was started as explained above. Just a few months ago, Brother Lawrence Smith, his wife, and baby went to Brazil as missionaries and he is doing well with the language and is now ready to make a visit to the churches in the Acre territory and see how the work is coming along and to encourage the saints who have been alone since Brother Brandon left.
How are the new missionaries sent out?
They go out under the authority of the church of which they are a member. They apply to this mission and the directors of the mission. These brethren question the new missionaries and if they find them to be sound, etc., they are accepted and then they are sent out on faith with the understanding that they will be supported as the Lord provides.
How is the Mission financed?
By freewill offerings from the churches and individuals who the Lord leads to give. No one is asked to give, no one is obligated to give, and those who give can quit giving if they want to without any interference from anyone.
How do those who support the churches know what the missionaries are doing?
They read letters which are directly from the missionaries in the monthly paper telling about the work from month to month and what is being accomplished, etc. This way every supporter gets a monthly letter from all the missionaries.
How can one support the work?
All a church or individual has to do to support the work is to send their offerings to the Treasurer… The mission work is as much theirs as it is ours or anyone else’s. There is nothing to join or unjoin and no one is obligated. It is a Baptist Faith Mission work.
Isn’t it possible for a church to send out and support their own missionary without having to have a mission such as Baptist Faith Missions?
Yes. But how would they do it? Or how many would do it? That would be the ideal way if the church was large enough to support their own missionary themselves. However, sometimes when a church changes pastors, the new pastor may now want to support missions that way and lead the church to do otherwise and then the missionary is without support.
Also there is so much red tape to sending out a missionary and keeping up with the work that it is more than a church can or will do…although we believe it to be sound and right.
[Download a BFM History by HH Overbey.]
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