The Eliza Broadus Offering includes allocations for associations and special ministries. This year $130,000 has been designated to provide grants of $500 each to our 70 Baptist associations ($35,000) and a variety of grants (totaling $95,000) to ministries across Kentucky which apply to Kentucky WMU for funding.

Please pray for the Kentucky WMU Finance Committee, which meets next week to discuss the applications and prayerfully help as many ministries as possible. 100 applications have been received totaling $235,053 in requests. Pray for wisdom in this process.

Each ministry that receives EBO funding is required to complete an accountability form explaining how the funds were used. No ministry can apply for a subsequent grant without completing a form for the previous grant. We are grateful for your generous giving and consider this to be an important part of being accountable to the Lord and to you for how EBO funds are used.

I always enjoy reading the applications as well as the accountability forms. I am challenged by many of the applications and the vision for ministry that each one represents. I wish we had more funding available. The only way this will happen is to see a significant increase in our state missions giving. The offering goal has stood at $1,250,000 for several years. Will you increase EBO giving this year?

Let me share a few of this year’s stories. A woman was saved on a camping trip through the work of Land Between the Lakes Area Ministry. When she went camping again, she made a point to share with the chaplain how she had been baptized, was now attending church, and how happy she was.

A woman who had been raped went to the Life House Pregnancy Center for information on abortion. After a lot of prayer and several visits, she decided to carry the child and place it for adoption.

An inmate wrote to HR Ministries to thank them for the Rubies for Life material and for her mentor, Becky. She said, “I got saved while attending her parenting class and had the opportunity for her to mentor me…If I could be like any one woman after my incarceration, it would definitely be her.”

Please pray for these ministries as they share The Heart of the Story.

Joy Bolton is executive director-treasurer of Kentucky Woman�s Missionary Union, P.O. Box 436569, Louisville, KY 40253; (502) 489-3534; kywmu.org