August 22, 2024

Dear Brethren,

Greetings from….Lexington, Kentucky? That’s right. I am back in the States for more cancer surgery. Was under the knife for 4 and a half hours a few days ago. All is well and I am recovering nicely. Hope you will be patient with me and continue to pray. One extra blessing is that I get to go over and see Dad every day. He just turned 98 and is in pretty good shape. Also, I am getting rested up and I am already desperate to get home and back to work. Patience is needed though as I still have 2 weeks of recovery before I can go back home.

Just before coming Stateside I was able to get one more river trip in. Missionary Geverton used our latest addition of boats to take me to the Nukini Indian reservation. Francisco (our canoe builder) just finished a new 8-meter aluminum canoe for the church. We took the 22HP Honda tail motor off of the much bigger 10-meter canoe and put it on the brand new boat for this trip. The river is at record low, so this new boat was just what we needed. It took us just 10 hours to get to the reservation.

We were there for just 4 days. We did a special service to dedicate the new building. It was full for all services and people who could not get in were standing outside. They are getting ready to do a 10-foot extension to their brand-new building. Rather than interpret this as lack of vision, I prefer to see it as “surprise” growth!

For the regular Sunday morning service Pastor Amós preached. He is pastor at the Poyanawa reservation at Barão. He brought a nice group of the church members from Barão for the weekend. While he was preaching, I taught a group of 9 candidates about what scriptural baptism is. Right after all of this I performed the baptism in a little creek down the hill from the new church building. We had a cold front come through a couple of days earlier and the water was COLD. The candidates were all young. The youngest was 8 and the oldest 13. It is still a thrill to be able to go to these places and serve these wonderful people.

You know that I don’t do this often, but I have a couple of projects that I need your help with. Of my 5 long river trips this year I have had to pull people, resources and equipment from the church here for 4 of these trips. Our missionary Geverton has taken time from his busy schedule to take me to places that I needed to go. He has been a huge help and made my life, in old age, much easier. He has been a God send. Hopefully this arrangement will last for a long time. However, I don’t like to take the church’s boats off their regular trips to cater to me. I am buying a 35HP tail motor and am ordering the materials to build a 20-foot jon boat for these hard-to-reach places. The motor costs just over $1,500.00 and the aluminum also costs $1,500.00. Andrew is going to help me with the plans. Francisco will help me with construction. I will build the tail and cover paint, labor, prop and whatever other expenses come along. I need your help with the engine and the aluminum. Please pray and give as He leads.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.

In Christ,
Mike Creiglow