Missionary Update: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [January 2016]
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, 2016
Dear Brethren,
What? Half way through the first month of a new year already! Closing out the old year was busier than ever. Besides making the rounds taking care of churches and congregations, counseling pastors and missionaries, I helped out with the Musical de Natal (Christmas Musical) at our home church. Fortunately my part is building the stage and props. My daughter Crissy and her team write the script, select the songs and produce the whole thing. There are teams that do advertising, direct traffic and parking, care for the motorcycles and helmets, crowd control, reception, nursery, children, reception, ushers, decisions, counseling, stage hands, refreshments, besides all those who participate directly in the production. We have over 350 people working.
The preparations start out a year in advance. Every year is a new story and all original materials. The last three months are crazy. Then with a month to go we have to alter our services and all activities at church. There are activities going on for 20 hours every day right up to the last dress rehearsal. I put in some 16 hour days along the way.
This year we had one night just for members. Since the whole program is visitors only we have had quite a bit of griping from some members over the years. That night was Saturday, December 19. It rained and yet the building was full. Then we began the official program on Sunday, December 20 and ran it through Christmas night. It ended up being a whole week this time. From Sunday through Friday we did not have any rain at night. It rained almost every day, but not at night. The main building was standing room only every night. We have overflow on the third floor of the annex. We can seat 600 there. It too, was standing room only on Sunday and Christmas.
We can gauge the crowds by counting the number of motorcycles in our parking garage. I’m sure that sounds strange to all of you. Small motorcycles are still the most common kind of personal vehicle in Cruzeiro do Sul. Our previous record had been 122. The first night we had 136. The last night we had 181. Since we can’t really count people in the two venues, we count motorcycles. Cars also line the streets for blocks from the buildings. It was tough to see hundreds of people turning around and going home, because they could not get in. The good news is that 37 people were saved. Some of these are already in discipleship, small groups and have requested baptism.
In January we give folks a break. We only have Sunday night services. That means that five other regular weekly services are put on hold. All the training programs stop. There is still a lot going on, because this is when we do all of our planning and preparation for the year. The two Sunday services of the year have been overflow crowds. Pastor Pedro and I are doing all the preaching this month. The other pastors, all the ministry leaders and teachers are all resting up. We have already had 5 more saved, 3 new members by letter and several requests for baptism.
Please pray for Beverly. She has been diagnosed with diabetes and a couple of other things. Her treatments start today. She is really tough, but right now she is discouraged.
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: The Creiglows in Brazil [January 2015]
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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Missionary Update: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [January 2014]
Mike and Beverly Creiglow have served the Lord in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil together for 40 years. 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.
Dear Brethren,
The new year has started at a little slower pace. Thank the Lord for that. There is so much to be thankful for that happened in the year that just ended. It was way too busy though. This year will probably get that way soon, but for now I am grateful for a couple of days of rest.
In early December Bev and I made a quick trip to the state capital, Rio Branco. We drove in my all Brazilian made “jeep”. Its real name is Troller. The road is in pretty good shape by our standards. You wouldn’t agree, by your standards. This was the quickest we have ever made this trip. It is exactly 400 miles. On the return we made it in exactly 7 hours. We needed some parts and equipment that we can’t get here. The church was in bad need of some new microphones. Things are still very, very expensive in Brazil, so we drove another 140 miles to Bolivia to do some of our shopping. One of the wireless systems we were looking for costs $1,350.00 here in Brazil. In all, we bought 7 different mics (same brand) for $1,179.00. Some of these were regular wired mics, but still a huge savings.
Once back home we continued the preparations for our Christmas program. This is a lot of work. Fortunately my part is more construction and a little oversight. The church does most of the heavy lifting (working with over 150 people!). Crissy and Andrew are the ones that actually put this together and pull this off. This year we had 6 nights from Friday through Wednesday the 25th. The crowds were way past overflow. We only permit visitors in the main auditorium. All the members go to the third floor of our annex and watch the program on the big screen. Because of the extension I put on the stage we have to trim our seating in the auditorium back to 800. We still had over 1000. Those who cannot sit down, stand shoulder to shoulder in the aisles and along the back and sides. Some nights we even had over a thousand in the annex. Every available chair and pew from every room is either in the main building or the annex. Still hundreds stand for an hour and a half. They don’t seem to mind. We do have a few members who complain about not being able to see it “live”, as in the auditorium. One of our elders even “invited” one of these complainers to find another church. He or she won’t, of course, but I understand the frustration.
Mike Creiglow holding the title for their new church property.
Every year there is a different story line and all new songs. The birth, life, death, burial and resurrection is worked in and depicted every year. We even have one of our newborn babies in the manger and Mary’s arms. This year 3 different babies played Jesus! Before the final act and closing song one of the pastors brings a 10 minute message. This year we had 45 professions of faith. Lots of creativity, talent, hours and money go into this, but it is more than worthwhile.
During our watch night service I was able to present the title to our new property to the church. Now that was a celebration and a half, just a week after the Christmas celebration. Because of this purchase, we have some bills to get caught up on. These are mostly “in house” and hopefully will be paid off soon. We now have over 18 acres just 3 miles from our present location. Please pray that by next Christmas we will be able to get a roof over a space that will seat a few thousand.
Thanks for all of your faithful prayers and support. May God bless you greatly in this new year.
In Christ,
Mike and Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil 69980
mdcreig [at] hotmail.com
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