Mike and Beverly Creiglow have served the Lord in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil together since 1971. In addition to pastoring First Baptist of Cruzeiro do Sul, Mike builds his own boats and frequently travels up and down rivers to share the Gospel with those who have never heard.

January 13, 2015

Dear Brethren,

December was one crazy month. Every year the program that the church provides at Christmas time keeps growing and getting more complex. We manage to keep all the other programs running right up close to time for the presentations. This year we had one more night – six in all. We put out 4,000 less printed invitations. We had rain on 5 of the 6 nights, but the building was packed out every night. There was much more media coverage this year. It has become a fixture in Cruzeiro do Sul.

We don’t permit our members to be in the auditorium. They have to watch on a big screen on the third floor terrace of the annex. Many visitors ended up on the terrace, too! We also have many, many visitors from other Baptist churches and from other denominations. It would be nice if these folks would stay home and leave more room for lost visitors. There are hundreds that cannot get in and turn around and go home. We urgently need to do something to remedy that. It is in the works, but not in reach just yet. Please pray that we will be able to expand.

There were over 350 of our members involved in the program. There are 2 choirs, adult and children’s. There are all the actors and all the huge team that is back stage. We have black light and shadow presentations that help tell the story.

Every year my daughter Crissy creates an original story that goes back and forth between present and past to tell the story of Christ’s birth, life, death, burial and resurrection. We have to build an extension to our stage, extra screens, more curtains, a motorized rotating section on one end of the stage, special lighting, sound and all the props. Practice starts in the middle of the year. It is a lot of hard work. The thing is that we get the gospel to hundreds of folks who have never really heard. Now some of these are very religious folks (priests and nuns) and know the story of Christ’s birth, but they have never really heard the gospel. One year the governor was even present.

This year there were 7 people saved. All of the work and dedication is worthwhile.

The first services of 2015 have been really good. The building has been full for every service. There were 5 saved the first Sunday and 2 more last Sunday.

We are still working through some disciplinary problems, but God is blessing our efforts to get things cleaned up. Besides the professions of faith of the past 2 weeks, we have had members confessing sin. Some more of the recently saved have requested baptism. We also have more folks joining by letter. In fact, whole families are coming our way. Pray with us that we will be able to get things cleaned up and running as He wants it to be run, soon. I have had many sleepless and tearful nights of late. There has been a lot more fasting and praying. I need your prayers, too.

I have made some more visits to our works in the interior, but more about that at another time.

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

In Christ,
Mike Creiglow

Mike and Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil 69980
mdcreig [at] hotmail.com

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