Positives in the Midst of a Pandemic
October 19, 2020
Dear Brethren,
Greetings from gradually opening Cruzeiro do Sul.
Last month we started having a Sunday morning service. These meetings have been limited to one hour. The state will not allow us to have childrens classes yet. In mid September we started having our Wednesday service again. Now in October we have added back our Sunday evening service. For all of September and half of October these meetings have been at 50% of what they were up to March 18th when we had our last service before the pandemic.
Even though the attendance has not been as good as I would like, we still have had some surprising results. We have had 3 professions of faith, 5 requests for baptism, 4 requests to become member by letter, 1 by statement and 5 members coming back into fellowship after being out in the world. Besides these, we have presented 2 babies in the last 2 weeks. It is no surprise that these babies are pretty big kids already!
Then last Sunday we had a 27% increase in attendance in both services. We had 346 in the morning and 350 at night. That was encouraging. I am praying that we will continue to increase.
This period has been beneficial in sorting out some things in our church. We have been able to find out who is courageous and committed. We have also found out who is timid. These have been quite a letdown. As things were before they were involved and seemed to be audacious, but now they are still home cowering because of the virus. These are the ones who don’t hesitate to run a red light, but now are shaking in their boots because there is a 0.05% chance they may die of covid-19. A couple of these have received a sizeable investment in their ministries by the church. Needless to say, I am not too happy about the situation of this rather small group. They are His children though and we will do our best to get them moving again.
There are some positive things going on in our work overall. We just put the trusses on the building at Centrinho. The pastor there resigned recently, but we have already found 2 good men to take over. We also started building an annex at Miritizal. They are needing classroom space and a nursery. I drew up the plans a while ago and now we are building. This week we started paving the second half of our parking lot at church, too. Even though the economy took a hit, still many things are in short supply because of the high demand. Building supplies are really hard to get.
Today I stepped out of my office as I heard a jet going over nearby. It was the first flight after over 6 months of isolation. The news reports say that we will have 4 flights a week. We used to have daily commercial flights. That went away overnight back in March. Now they are back and hopefully the isolation is over.
We are starting to have rain now and then. Hopefully the rainy season will kick in and the pandemic subside so I can get back out on the rivers. Can’t wait!
Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.
In Christ,
Mike Creiglow
CONTACT INFO
Mike & Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
69980 Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre
Brasil, SA
mdcreig@hotmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
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Visiting Works in Gama, Santa Rosa, & Centrinho
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.
December 9, 2017
Dear Brethren,
Greetings from Cruzeiro do Sul. The rainy season has finally started for real and the river is up pretty high. It is time to get back on the river with some of the visits to our works a little further away.
Taking advantage of the prolonged dry season, I visited several works along the roads. Zico, Ezi and I visited the new work at Gama. While there I built the first trusses for their building. I took one of our men along to teach him how to build the rest. We are still praying for a couple to move there to take care of the work. Access is easy in the dry season. There is a 30 mile dirt road that winds through the jungle to the Gama River. In the rainy season the only vehicles that can get through are ATVs and with much effort and frustration!
I visited the work at Santa Rosa. We held one of our preachers meetings while I was there. The church is doing well. The pastor is Brother Sadraque. He is a young local who was saved and called right there. He accepted the pastorate after the last pastor left unexpectedly. That was a couple of years ago. Since then Sadraque has done a good job and the church has almost doubled in size. I have been working with him over the last few months to get him through a problem. He feels that he is in the position only temporarily. It still hasn’t soaked in that God put him there.
Bev went with me to visit the work at Centrinho for a weekend meeting. Pastor Marcelo and his wife Neire serve there. They have about 40 people. There were over 70 present for the services while we were there. They meet in a little wooden building, but doing well and growing slowly.
We had another baptism at church this month adding another 38 members.
Our seminary closed out the semester late November with 22 students attending classes. We offered 6 modules this last semester. I taught Bible geography. Lot of fun.
The violence here has gone down a little, but is still rampant. The state AG just put out the stats. Two things are worth quoting. First, the murder rate per 100,000 population is 56. Then if the State of Acre were an independent country it would be the 4th most violent country in the world. He went on to say that a person is more likely to be murdered in the Acre than in Syria. To top it off, the bad guys are now stopping boats on the river to rob and murder their victims. When our members heard about my next trip up river they were concerned. I can’t let this stop me though. Unfortunately, Brazil has the strictest gun laws in the world and I cannot have a weapon. The bad guys all have guns though. In a referendum 95% of the population wants the right to own a gun. Socialism is what it is though and there is not much hope for improvement here.
I am still dealing with health issues. I have continued to work long hard days, but it has not been easy. Not sure that the doctors here are going to find out what ails me. Please continue to pray.
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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Missionary Update: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [July 2014]
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.
July 10, 2014
Dear Brethren,
Bev and I went back to Pé da Terra for a few days of training with the church there. We are trying to help them with their financial teaching and management. There were over 50 members present for the 4 lessons I taught during 4 nights.
We had another baptism at First Baptist this month. I baptized another 32 new members. That has been right at the average all this year. Attendance has been a little below average for the month. That is to be expected during the World Cup. The consolation game is coming up on Saturday. Brazil will be playing after being humiliated by Germany in the worst match in World Cup history. All that to say that spirits are generally at a low ebb in Brazil, but we still have a lot of good news about the Good News.
Our annual missions conference was a huge success. We had very big crowds for all meetings. We even had 3 more professions of faith and 2 more requests for baptism, even though no invitation was given. Five more were baptized, too. We had the usual 100+ present for the annual pastors and missionaries’ meeting. Also during the conference we had a special business meeting to approve Idevaldo and family as our newest missionaries and to approve his being put on payroll, full time beginning August 1st. Zico will be taking them to visit the field at Jordão on July 21st. We hope to move them there by October or November.
It was my privilege to participate in the organization of our newest Baptist church. Three of our churches in the western region past Cruzeiro do Sul started a work at Japãozinho. The name of the place is “Little Japan” although there are no Japanese within several thousand miles! The churches at Mourapiranga, Pentecostes and Assis Brasil cooperated to begin the preaching point 16 years ago. The new church adopted the name Igreja Batista Elohim and starts out with 25 charter members. They already have a beautiful new building. Their pastor, who has already been working with them for 12 years is Pedro Mariano. Most importantly they are already participating in mission projects. Authority was granted by First Baptist Church of Assis Brasil.
I visited our chapels at Cruzeirinho and Centrinho. Centrinho has just finished putting up a little wood frame building. Cruzeirinho has moved their wooden building to the back of the lot and is getting ready to build a nice big brick building on the front of the lot. All of our chapels are growing at a steady pace. We now have 7 chapels placed strategically around town. Last year we had only 4. Our youngest is Cruzeirão and is meeting on a rented lot, but we are looking for property. One more is to open soon out near our house on the north side of town. We have property and 2 workers being prepared right now.
Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.
In Christ,
Mike and Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil 69980
mdcreig [at] hotmail.com
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