ASSOCIATIONAL OFFICERS' DIRECTORY

Associational Office Phone # : 573-359-2356Toll Free Phone # : 1-888-349-1586

Office Hours: 8:15 a.m. - 2:15 p.m.Monday Thru Friday

At other times call Bro. Tim on his cell at 573-359-4101

ModeratorVice-ModeratorClerkDirector of Missions

Mr. Bill Clayton, 1052 County HWY 217, Wardell, MO 63879Rev. Andrew Green, P. O. Box 294, Lilbourn, MO 63862

Mrs. Norma Waldrop, P.O. Box 43, Holland, MO 63853Rev. Tim Abanathy, 308 E. 7th, Portageville, MO 63873

John and JanetCompere

J. R. and MakishaDavis

1 - 041 - 121 - 181 - 221 - 231 - 31

Cindy MannPenny GreenCindee JohnsonJanet CompereDebra MoodyMichael Funderburk

1 - 11

1 - 15

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:but this one thing I do, forgetting those thingswhich are behind, and reaching forth unto thosethings which are before, I press toward the markfor the prize of the high calling of God in ChristJesus.

November

DOM Salary $1,333.32DOM Mileage $418.88DOM Housing $562.50DOM Health Insurance $2,076.55DOM Medical Reimb. $35.76DOM Retirement $187.50Secretary Salary $443.28Custodian $117.70Utilities $159.00Telephone $45.00Print Supplies $105.52Office Maintenance $79.98Postage $227.94Vacation Bible School $112.92WMU $11.40Camp Program $765.00Winter Bible Study $150.00DOM Convention Exp $394.80Annual & Board Mtng Ex. $26.96Volunteer Meals $57.39

MO Baptist Children's HM $68.77SMBA General Fund $137.54SMBA Endowment Fund $68.77

Total Expenses $7,586.48

January, 2015Call To Prayer Month

04 Youth Committee Meeting, Mission Center 3:00 p.m.05 Children's Camp Committee Meeting, Mission Center 6:00p.m.06 Pastors' Breakfast, Apple Barrel, Hayti 8:00 a.m.11 Assoc. Music Committee Meeting, Mission Center 3:00 p.m.12 & 13Caruthersville Food Pantry15 Evangelism Committee Meeting, Mission Center 6:00 p.m.17 Sno-Country Singalong, FBC, Caruthersville 9:00 a.m.18 Sanctity of Human Life Sunday22 Missions Development Committee, Mission Center 6:00 p.m.25 Day of Prayer for the Southern Baptist Convention

Nov, 2014 2014 Total

Boekerton $238.50 $2,862.87Braggadocio $112.40 $1,505.24Caruthersville, FBC $0.00 $8,957.04Catron $0.00 $2,000.00Cottonwood $372.64 $3,011.91Glass Memorial $0.00 $1,380.20Hayti, FBC $958.38 $12,369.42Hayward $0.00 $2,283.32Holland $740.00 $8,183.00Holly Grove $565.55 $8,326.43Kinfolks Ridge $0.00 $717.90Lilbourn, FBC $653.82 $8,420.78Living Stone $0.00 $4,218.50Oak Grove $0.00 $266.00Pascola $182.50 $2,243.70Portageville, FBC $0.00 $12,770.25Steele, FBC $0.00 $6,306.64Temple $0.00 $5,929.97Tyler $0.00 $0.00Wardell $761.02 $9,374.57

$4,584.81 $101,127.74

Miscellaneous $0.00 $50.94Now Interest $0.49 $5.22

Total Income $4,585.30 $101,183.90

February, 2015True Love Waits Emphasis Month

05 & 6 State Evangelism Conference, Springfield08 Racial Reconciliation Sunday9 - 15 Focus on WMU Week10 Pastors Prayer Meeting FBC, Portageville 10:00 a.m.11 Youth Valentine Fellowship. Location TBA, 6:30 p.m.14 Valentine's Day16 & 17 Caruthersville Food Pantry20 Executive Council Meeting, Mission Center 6:00 p.m.21 Pastor/Wife Fellowship 6:00 p.m. Location TBA28 Sunday School Prayer Emphasis, Time & Location TBA

From Your Director of Missions

I learned a valuable lesson as a teenager plowing soybeans for mygrandpa. Without waiting for instructions, I got on the tractor and beganplowing with a rear cultivator. I began to plow by looking both backwardand forward. All of a sudden, my dad stopped me because I wasplowing up the beans. He instructed me to look forward and keep thestrap hanging from the front axle over the row of beans. When I quitlooking backward and followed his instructions, I quit messing up.This is a lesson that many of us must learn in our personal lives. Thereare limited changes that we can make to our past. It is a great thing thatwe serve a God that will forgive us and put our past behind us.However, even as God has forgiven us, we need to forgive ourselvesand each other. Then we begin to put those things that we have learnedinto practice and do a more effective job in the future.Churches need to learn the same lessons. We can celebrate the past,which we should do, but we cannot live there. Most of those Christianswho were a part of the dynamic church of the past have gone on to bewith the Lord. We cannot bring them back! We must not look back anddwell on what they did and not understand that there is work for you andI to accomplish today.We must take what we learned from them and apply it to the ministry oftoday. The equipment may be different. The circumstances may not bethe same. But the task is still out in front of us.As we are entering into 2015, there are still people in this world that donot understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of them live in thedeepest jungles of Africa, South America, or other remote areas on thisplanet. However, many of them live in the Bootheel of Missouri. Ourfuture and their future depends upon us putting the past behind us andrecognizing the task before us and putting our hands to the plow toaccomplish the work of the Kingdom of God.I believe that God is coming up to us and wants to show us how to dothe job correctly. We can listen to Him and learn how to do it or we cango on doing things our way and messing up the field.When we finished plowing the soybeans for my grandpa, he still had acomplete crop in the field. But only because we put the plowed cropbehind us and looked to the front to the field that was ahead that neededplowing. What are you as an individual and also your church looking todo in the year ahead?As we look at the new year, let us celebrate what God has done.However, let us also look at what God can do with and through us andour churches in the days, months, and years ahead.Remember Jesus said that there would come a day when our work isdone. So, we must work, while we have the opportunity.

RECIPE FOR AHAPPY NEW YEAR

Take twelve whole months. Clean themthoroughly of all bitterness, hate,and jealousy. Make them just as

fresh and clean as possible.

Now cut each month into twenty-eight,thirty, or thirty-one different parts, butdon't make up the whole batch at once.

Prepare it one day at a time out ofthese ingredients:

Mix well into each day one part of faith, one part of patience, onepart of courage, and one part of work.

Add to each day one part of hope, faithfulness, generosity, andkindness.

Blend with one part prayer, one part meditation, and one gooddeed.

Season the whole with a dash of good spirits, a sprinkle of fun, apinch of play, and a cupful of good humor.

Pour all of this into a vessel of love.

Cook thoroughly over radiant joy, garnish with a smile,and serve with quietness, unselfishness, and cheerfulness.

You're bound to have a happy new year.

L G K Q E N O T S G N I V I L M F K E K L GN O T R E K E O B R C R R Q N O H A X L Y YE O H S Y T C T M D B O K S R L C T E K T ER L V Y K K H Y M V J M T T I H E D Y R T LH L P N F O U R T E E N Y T O X R I O N W LB I L M W C Z C E V Z S N I O A T F G R E IR L B N E A V D K E E C C E W N V Y V H N VN B Z W X T T M M V Q O L L T C W Y T G T SE O J R S R T D E B D W Y H K Z P O T W Y RV U Z Y L O N N V A M T P F R H O Q O Z O EE R L V A N F T G T H I R T Y Y W J N D T HS N K T T G N G Y G C F I F T Y T T L X N TY F F R O T A C S N T W Z D L J Y X D M I UT B R U T R P M D A C E E X L F T K I G N RR C B O B N K R M H M R V D O N R V K S E AU S P F M L A D R L D A T O T B I T P N T CO T G J M W N I L N K W R W R T H B U T Y CF E T N Y A S G U R E L E I L G T Y R H O BM E L A S T T H W N C L T B T C K D S L N FL L H U M E E J T J V N J B M A F A E T E CC E O A L N V Y R E J M Q F V G N D O X T MK H S D O G T E R R Z L I T Y A H C B F N YT R H R F H G W N K I N F O L K S R I D G EM V D T R R G T C H C A N D T K B K C F J MJ Z Z E E L L I V E G A T R O P C B F K C PV H E L C Z G T W E N T Y F I V E C P M B N

TWO THOUSAND FOURTEEN SAMARITAN PURSECHRISTMAS SHOE BOX TOTALS

BRAGGADOCIO AND COTTONWOOD - TWENTY EACHBOEKERTON - TEN, FBC CARUTHERSVILLE- ONE HUNDRED

THIRTY THREE, CATRON - TWENTY THREE,FBC HAYTI - SIXTY FOUR, HAYWARD - TWENTY FIVEKINFOLKSRIDGE - SIXTY TWO, LILBOURN - TWELVE

LIVINGSTONE - THIRTY TWO, OAK GROVE - FORTY SEVEN,FBC PORTAGEVILLE - NINETY ONE, FBC STEELE - FORTY

SEVEN,TEMPLE - FOURTY SEVEN, WARDELL - FIFTY EIGHT

TOTAL BOXES FROM OUR ASSOCIATION -- 691

I pray that everyone had a very blessed Christmas and a Happy NewYear! Did you make any New Year Resolutions?I am making resolutions to be more productive inmy missionary work and being a better servant. Itseems that just "keeping up" is a full-time job. Ifind myself struggling to be the perfect Christianand then seem to fall short constantly. I believethe answer comes in the form of prayer. My goal for this next year isto prayerfully seek God's will for my Christian Walk. If we all focusedon God's will, we could actually make a difference in spreading theGospel.This next year the focus for WMU is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD), helping rather than hindering. PTSD is a disorder caused bysome type of trauma, for example, experiencing combat duty, abuse,natural disasters, terrorism, assault, neglect, etc. It is not easy tohelp sufferers of this disorder but offering love, compassion andencouragement is very important. It is also important to help themestablish spiritual well-being as well as mental and physical health. Iwould like to dedicate one of our meetings this year on PTSD. If youknow of anyone that would be interested in providing information onPTSD or telling their story, please contact me.

I encourage everyone to come to the 5th Annual Sno CountrySing-a-long at First Baptist Church of Caruthersville on January 17th

from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m with lunch to follow.This is going to be a wonderful time of singing, skitsand fellowship. Come and enjoy some of ourassociation's wonderful talents. There are sure tobe a few door prizes again this year. If you orsomeone you know would like to volunteer to sing,do a skit or dramatization, please call me at870-278-3143 or Bro. Tim Abanathy. Thank you somuch for this opportunity to serve you.

Hope you have a Blessed day,

Kim McCartyAssociational WMU Director

O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth.Psalm 96:1

2015 VBSJourney

off the MAP

Unknownto us,

Known to Him

Isaiah 30:21

This is the way.Walk in it.

Get ready to travel with VBS 2015.We will be traveling into the unknown with Daniel.

Associational VBS TrainingApril 14, 2015

FBC Portageville Family Life Center6:00 p.m. soup & sandwiches

Training from 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.Get your team together & let's have some fun

Vonnie SnellingFirst Baptist Church, Caruthersville

9:00 a.m. - Noon

Singing, Skits, and Fellowship

Lunch at Noon

Come And Bring Your Friends

South Missouri Baptist Assembly(church camp)

We will be planning the work detail for camp this month. I will begetting in touch with the ones who signed up before February.That's when we plan on starting the clean up.

REMEMBER MAY 2, 2015, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.Fun, music, games, and food

Vonnie Snelling

Caruthersville FBC: Congratulations to church members!The youth and WOM filled 135 Samaritan Shoe Boxes this year.WOM raised money for the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. Theirgoal was $10,000.00 this year. Their Merry Christmas Mart wasa huge success on December 6, raising approximately $1100.00.They also sold 160 poinsettias in honor of or in memory ofsomeone. Money from these fund raisers went toward theLottie Moon goal. Their December meeting was held at thehome of Bro. Doug with fellowship and snacks enjoyed byeveryone. The church received recognition certificates for theircontributions to the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offerings in2013. The Children’s Christmas Program was presented onDecember 14th. The sanctuary choir presented their Christmasmini-cantata “Memories of Christmas Past” on December 21st. Anight of music, food, and fellowship was enjoyed by all attending.Many enjoyed the Christmas party at the home of ElizabethHardesty on December 12th. This has become an annual eventthat everyone looks forward to attending. Hundreds of scarveswere donated by Lou Franks and Theresa Jean and handed outduring the Caruthersville Christmas parade on December 4th.The youth helped prepare Christmas Food Baskets this year andattended the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis production ofthe Singing Christmas Tree” on Saturday December 13th.HAVE A BLESSED DAY!!!

HOLLAND: This month we celebrated Brother John and Mrs.Barbara Dunavant's 50th Wedding Anniversary. We had acornbread and soup dinner fundraiser to help with our WMUmissions. We had our WMU Christmas party on December 19thand our Christmas program on December 21st. With all of thehustle and bustle let us remember the real reason for the season,the BIRTH OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR!

COTTONWOOD: Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmasas we celebrated the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!!We are continuing work on the new building. Have ran into a fewbumps in the road but nothing that our God cannot handle! Hadour annual Children's Christmas Program during the morningworship service on Dec. 21st followed by a lunch fellowship andpassing out treat bags to all kids at heart!! We wish everyone aHappy and Prosperous New Year!! May many souls be won forthe Kingdom!!!

PORTAGEVILLE: It is hard to believe that another year hascome and gone. We here at First Baptist are excited about themany ministry opportunities that are before us in 2015.We completed our first six week Discipleship Training Classes onNovember 16th. We had great attendance in each of the classesoffered. We are excited about the new Discipleship TrainingClasses starting in February. We will be having January BibleStudy each Sunday night at 6:00 p.m. throughout the month ofJanuary. The study will be "Deuteronomy...A Challenge To ANew Generation".On November 16th during the morning service we collected ourHarvest Sunday Offering. The Lord blessed through this offeringand we will begin work on our new Children's Church area alongwith updating the Sunday School Entrance area and some muchneeded repairs on the outside of the Sunday School Wing.On November 23rd we hosted the Community ThanksgivingService. There was a great turn-out from the community and wehad a great time worshipping our Lord and Savior together.On November 25th we had our Church-Wide Thanksgiving Meal.The Family Life Center was almost completely full. It waswonderful to feel the excitement in the air as people began toarrive. Mary Ada's provided the chicken eden and then several ofus prepared the rest of the meal. Everyone enjoyed beingserved by the youth of First Baptist. And wow, did they do a greatjob. You would have thought you were in the fanciest restaurantaround. We also had rolls from Lamberts. Bro. John and Bro.Steve had a good time "passing" them out.We had our Christmas Musical, "Gather At The Manger" onSunday morning, December 14th and then we had a CandlelightService on Sunday night, December 21st. We will give a reporton these in the February issue of The Voice.Continue praying for us here at First Baptist Portageville and alsopray for our sister churches in our Association.

In Memory ofRev. Joe Smith

Served as a Baptist Minister for 58 yearsWas current Pastor of the Braggadocio Baptist Church

July 19, 1937 - December 6, 2014

CHURCH NEWS

BRAGGADOCIO: Our Harvest Day was November 9th. A specialoffering was received to do some maintenance on our churchproperty. We had a gospel concert with the group "Full Circle"The WMU ladies put together 16 boxes for the Samaritan's Purse.All the members brought different items to pack the boxes forchildren around the world. On December 7th we received theLottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. Our own"Cookie Lady" gave out tea cookies. On December 14th we hadour Christmas dinner. That night, the children performed ourChristmas program, "Boys Can Be Angels Too".Our hearts are saddened in the loss of our Bro. Joe. He passedaway on December 6th after a battle with cancer. Be in prayer forthe Smith family. He will truly be missed.

HOLLY GROVE: Happy New Year everyone from our family toyours. May God be a part of everything we do in 2015. May Healso change hearts and minds all over the world to come back toHim. We had a busy and fun month in December at Holly Grove.On December 10th and 11th, we honored, celebrated and said ourgood byes to a wonderful man of God. Our Own Bro. Joe Smithpassed away on Saturday the 6th . He was loved and respectedby so many family and friends. We know that Bro. Joe is homewith the Father and will be waiting on us.On Sunday the 14th we had our service at the River Oaks CareCenter. We helped in the C.D.H.S. Food pantry on the 18th and20th.Our Christmas program was during the morning service onDecember 21st. The evening service on this Sunday was ourCandlelight Lord's Supper service. Our WMU ladies presentedtheir gifts to the Haven and completed our other Christmasprojects. On Wednesday the 24th and Thursday the 25th wecelebrated our Saviors birthday.We pray for you and your family and hope that you had aWonderful Christmas and a Happy Healthy New Year. May God'sfamily grow as we start the new year. God Bless you all!

CHURCH NEWS

BRAGGADOCIO: Our Harvest Day was November 9th. A specialoffering was received to do some maintenance on our churchproperty. We had a gospel concert with the group "Full Circle"The WMU ladies put together 16 boxes for the Samaritan's Purse.All the members brought different items to pack the boxes forchildren around the world. On December 7th we received theLottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. Our own"Cookie Lady" gave out tea cookies. On December 14th we hadour Christmas dinner. That night, the children performed ourChristmas program, "Boys Can Be Angels Too".Our hearts are saddened in the loss of our Bro. Joe. He passedaway on December 6th after a battle with cancer. Be in prayer forthe Smith family. He will truly be missed.

HOLLY GROVE: Happy New Year everyone from our family toyours. May God be a part of everything we do in 2015. May Healso change hearts and minds all over the world to come back toHim. We had a busy and fun month in December at Holly Grove.On December 10th and 11th, we honored, celebrated and said ourgood byes to a wonderful man of God. Our own Bro. Joe Smithpassed away on Saturday the 6th . He was loved and respectedby so many family and friends. We know that Bro. Joe is homewith the Father and will be waiting on us.On Sunday the 14th we had our service at the River Oaks CareCenter. We helped in the C.D.H.S. Food pantry on the 18th and20th.Our Christmas program was during the morning service onDecember 21st. The evening service on this Sunday was ourCandlelight Lord's Supper service. Our WMU ladies presentedtheir gifts to the Haven and completed our other Christmasprojects. On Wednesday the 24th and Thursday the 25th wecelebrated our Saviors birthday.We pray for you and your family and hope that you had aWonderful Christmas and a Happy Healthy New Year. May God'sfamily grow as we start the new year. God Bless you all!