Dear Partners in Mission,
This month I’d like to introduce to you a Canadian church planter, reintroduce to you a well known Pastor in the Kansas City Metro area, update you on our end-of-2011 finances and the sale of our office property.
BR-KC voted to partner with West Coast Baptist Association (Vancouver, Canada) in 2010. The Association there asked us to especially help start new churches in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver. Since we began praying for Coquitlam the Lord has raised up three church planters for that area. One of them is Conrad Au, a Canadian-Chinese church planter who lives and works in Coquitlam. Conrad has already hosted teams from BR-KC, and recently visited our Executive Board meeting and spoke at South Kansas City Baptist Church, AZ-U-R church and FBC, Buckner. We’re thrilled that the Lord would allow us to partner with such people as Conrad.
Vernon and Charlene Armitage, formerly of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, have agreed to move back from Chicago and assist BR-KC churches. Vernon pastored Pleasant Valley Baptist Church for 41 years. He and his wife, Charlene, still consult for Willow Creek Association, train churches in utilization and development of volunteer leaders and now will also voluntarily assist BR-KC in developing leaders and training churches, as well as leading their addiction ministry, “Jump Recovery.” Welcome back Vernon and Charlene.
Also, let me express heartfelt gratitude to the Lord and BR-KC churches for outstanding giving in the midst of an ongoing sluggish economy. We finished 2011 with approximately $394,000 in receipts, well over our budget of $383,000. We spent only $360,000 from our regular budget accounts and due to your strong giving were able to assist several of our churches with renovation and emergency needs from non-budgeted funds. All this while fixing the roof, air-conditioning, and parking lot of the Mission Center office property, moving into our new smaller office suite, partnering in Vancouver and assisting refugees in the Horn of Africa. Praise the Lord and thanks BR-KC!
Finally, it’s a joy to report we are in a contract negotiation with a potential buyer who is seeking to finalize their financing. We will, of course, report as soon as possible on the completed sale of the Mission Center office property. You can see our strategic plan for investing and expending the proceeds of the property sale online on our web page.
Grateful for your partnership in the gospel,
Rodney