Missionary Update: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [August 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.
August 13, 2014
Dear Brethren,
This month I spent 2 weeks on a motorcycle trip leaving Brazil and visiting Peru, Bolivia and Chile. This was for adventure, but the Kingdom is ever present. One of the things I wanted to do in Chile was buy a new computer at the Free Zone in Iquiqui. Baptist churches are not as prevalent or visible as in Brazil. The Andean culture is ancient and dominant. Very different from what I am used to here in Brazil. Nevertheless, while in Puno (city on the shores of Lake Titicaca) I met a great Baptist named Henry. He was saved at age 20 and is a member of a Baptist church of about 200 members. He teaches a Bible class 3 times a week. He went to Copacabana, Bolivia with us. There are no more American missionaries in Bolivia, or so I was told. The president there hates all Americans. Henry says that many Bolivians are being saved in spite of the persecution by the president who he described as “tonto” or CRAZY! My good friend Sherman Smith was along for this trip and we almost got caught in “no man’s land” for Americans on the border between Bolivia and Peru. It was tense. I won’t be going back to Bolivia any time soon. Anyway we traveled 3500 miles through the Andes. Much of the trip was at 15,000 feet. One mountain pass was 16,000 feet. The winds were violent. We were in temps at or below 0º much of the time. We stayed one night at a little town called Macusani which is almost 16,000 feet. There was no heat in the rooms and no water in the communal bathroom. Most of our guys were fainting, vomiting, dizzy and out of breath. I was fine. Like I said: adventure!
We had a good month here at church. There was another baptism with 26 new members. Last weekend we had 3 days of special services. The main feature was the tenth anniversary of our theatre group. Each night they presented a play which they created around a pirate theme. The message was about the true treasure of salvation in Christ. There were 9 people saved just this weekend and 5 more requests for baptism.
The five pastors of First Baptist Church have been busy working with our chapels and chapel pastors. At the beginning of this year we allowed our chapels to have Sunday evening services. For a short time this put a dent in our attendance at the mother church. Now it looks like we have already grown back the ones who now attend the chapel services. Sunday night we were at capacity again. This past weekend the Catholic church had their biggest festivity of the year, but had no impact on our attendance.
Zico, our missions director, took Idevaldo and wife to visit the town of Jordão on the upper reaches of the Tarauacá River. They are our newest missionary couple and we will be sending them to the field later this year. The church has already approved them and put them on full time salary.
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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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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