Dear Friends,
Today, Sunday,
February 9, 2014 we celebrate our 102nd Church Anniversary at First Baptist
Church LaBelle. The Lord has truly
blessed this church during that time. In
the last five years since the education building was built, God has done some
remarkable things in our midst. God has
opened and enlarged our ministry. We now
have a pre-school with 70 children and their parents to whom God has given to
us a ministry. Our Mommie and Me
Ministry has expanded to 20 - 30 mothers and preschoolers. Several of these mothers are now taking
leadership roles in Mommie and Me and others are leading Mommie and Me in other
places because of their experience here at First Baptist. We have joined with other churches in our
community in Operation Backpack where we are providing food for school children
on weekends.
Our church in the past was used
two days a week, Wednesday and Sundays.
Now our church facilities are used 6 days a week. We have groups from the community that use
our facilities for various ministries.
Groups like - Relay for Life, Early Learning Coalition, Upthegrove
Elementary School, FDLRS and others serve our community through this building.
When the decision to build our
education building was made, we knew it would be a step of faith. Our state and nation was experiencing some of
the worst economic times in a long while.
We knew this project would have to be a God thing and it wouldn’t be
something we could do by ourselves. We
found that this church community would have to walk in faith in Jesus. We also made a commitment to God that we
wouldn’t cut our giving or going on mission trips during this time. I believe because we have remained faithful
to God and our standing commitment on Missions, God is providing what we need
for the payment of our education building.
On December 10, 2008 we made
our first payment on the education building.
We pay $12,941.31 a month to finance this project. Our church sold $1,700,000 in bonds to
finance this project. As of December 31,
2013 the principal we owe is $1,120,750.00.
We have made great progress in reducing our debt and God is providing
through using our church family and their faithful giving to our Building Fund.
We have done two stewardship
campaigns which God used to pay down this debt.
Our second campaign is ending in
February 2014. Many of you have
sacrificed in giving to the education building and the ministries it allows us
to do. Your gifts to our building fund
have been a blessing. In the days ahead
we ask that you continue your sacrifices of Love that helps us continue and
strengthen these ministries.
Respectfully,
Reverend
Frank Deerey, Jr
Pastor,
First Baptist Church LaBelle
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