Missionary Update: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [December 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.
December 9, 2015
Dear Brethren,
It has been exactly one month since my last letter, but it has been a short month. We have continued to have good services at First Baptist Church. We have had a few folks saved every week. Last Sunday Pastor Benjamin baptized 8 more. I served the Lord’s Supper. We had one more profession of faith during that service even though we never have an invitation on those days. Just before services a man named Ney came to me to talk. He has attended our church for 20 years, but just got saved Sunday morning and wanted to make his public profession of faith. There were 3 more saved in the evening service.
We finally got all the trusses and purlins on the building at Cruzeirinho. The roofing is going on right now.
Bev and I visited the church at Assis, Brasil a couple of weeks ago. They have a big building, but have purchased new property and are building an even bigger building. They continue to partner with us on several mission projects.
Zico is at Jordão right now. He reports that the new work there is going great. They have been averaging 55 people in Sunday services. Although we had made some trips there over the past 3 years the work was just really started this year when we sent Idevaldo and family to that field. Some have been saved already. Zico will be leaving Jordão for Santa Rosa do Purús this week. We don’t think there is any church of any kind there. I will report on his findings next month. Santa Rosa do Purús is one of the 22 cities of the State of Acre that we plan to start a church. First Baptist has sent missionaries to 7 of the 22 cities so far. We still have a long way to go.
We now have a new missionary to send to Foz do Breu on the Peruvian border. Mário and his wife came before the church for approval 3 weeks ago. That field has been without a missionary for 10 months now. During this time one of the local men has been taking care to hold services, teach and even make a few mission trips.
Our television program just celebrated 25 years. I have had a half hour program on a local station every Saturday and Sunday morning. I don’t know if anyone has been saved. The only real feedback is from folks I run into downtown who say they never miss a program. You and I have bought all the equipment, studio setup. The church here pays for the airtime. We will probably only be able to gauge results in eternity. Hopefully we will be able to keep the program on the air for a few more years.
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 [June 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.
June 1, 2015
Dear Brethren,
The middle of last month I left for a long trip up the Juruá River. Zico (Francisco Nunes), who is our missions director at First Baptist, went with me.
The river has started its end of rainy season “retreat”. It has gone down at least 30 feet already, but the rains still haven’t stopped. It rained all day the day before our scheduled departure. Then, for good measure, it rained all day the day we had set for the trip. That was Saturday, May 16th. When I am out on the river, I don’t mind too much if the rains catch me, but I hate leaving when it is raining, so we didn’t leave until Sunday. The weather was cool and clear on Sunday.
About a half hour into the trip the engine quit on me. I had taken it out on Thursday to do a test run and all was working pretty good. It took me 45 minutes to repair. I had to pull off the carburetor, tear it all down, clean it then reassemble. After that it worked fine for the rest of the trip.
We had to go all the way to Thaumaturgo where they were expecting us for the evening service. The small open boat with 25hp motor took a long time. This leg was 190 miles. We finally got in at just before 6:00PM. We had a good service even though the electricity kept going off. The church is doing very well. They have bought lots on the corner beside their new building, lots and nice house across the street and a piece of land for their camp.
The next morning we went on up another 85 miles to Foz do Breu. We spent one night with the folks there, but because the river was going down so fast we decided to go ahead a make the visit to our 2 missionaries in Peru.
Bible study with five nationalities in Tipisca, Peru (Brazilians, Peruvians, Caxinauá, Ashaninka and one American)
We spent two full days visiting our tiny group of believers in Tipisca, Peru. José Maia and family (Brazilians) serve there. We also support a Peruvian family, Brother Eduardo. He, his wife and children are also Caxinauá Indians. We already have a building up, but not many believers. The little town only has about 300 people. There is an army outpost. The soldiers spend all their time and money on liquor and prostitutes. They are in the barracks most of the time and don’t come to church. There are a few Peruvians who have government jobs. A few of these come to services. The bulk of the population is made up of Indians from four different tribes. There are a few Brazilians in the town, too. This means that 4 languages and 2 other dialects are spoken. As you can tell this is one tough field of service. We decided to not have regular services, but informal Bible studies while there. We had 5 nationalities sitting around the table in José Maia’s kitchen. Songs were sung in 3 languages and 3 musical styles. This is fun, but daunting.
Missionary José Maia’s house
José and family are still living in a primitive thatch covered house that was on the property when we bought it. It was built by an Indian. Now it is falling apart. He will be building soon. I am going to buy the roofing for them and am building him a trailer to haul the lumber out of the jungle. They are trying to break through to the village through daily work with the children and teens. José and Eduardo also have started visiting the tribes along the rivers. This is all slow, hard work. All I can say is, WOW! What missionaries!
On the way back downstream we spent another full day and night with the congregation at Foz do Breu on the Peruvian/Brazilian border. We don’t have a missionary family there right now, but hope to fill this void soon. Pray with us about sending a missionary. The congregation is doing well though.
The Maia family playing with Peruvian and Indian school kids on our church property in Tipisca, Peru.
Further down river we stopped to visit our congregation and missionaries at Vila Triunfo. We were with them for 3 days. They now have electricity in the village. We were there for the installation of air conditioning in their wood frame building! How weird is that? The first night we held a couple’s meeting with 27 couples. The next night there were regular services with 148 present. Then on Sunday we had 184 in the morning and 217 at night. There was one profession of faith and request for baptism. Fredson and Auriane are doing one great job. The village has been transformed by the gospel. The village has cleaned up in just about every way. There may not be much they can do about the clouds of blood sucking gnats by day and voracious mosquitoes by night, though. My body is nicely dotted by tiny blood blisters, but so what else is new?
Zico and I travelled 970Km (606 miles) during our 9 day trip. We got to visit 4 of our missionaries in 4 locations. We were able to share the gospel to people of 5 different languages. One person was saved. We didn’t get rained on. Not a single drop. Even though the river was dropping so fast (7 feet one day) we didn’t have to even take off our sandals one day. I can’t remember the last time when I made this kind of trip that I didn’t have to wade through all kinds of mud. We were in the sun for many, many hours (protected by 100 factor sunscreen), but no burns. What a wonderful mission trip. HE was so merciful, again.
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 [May 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.
May 9, 2014
Dear Brethren,
This year Hudson and I have traveled 2,341 miles on 3 rivers. We have visited 11 of our pastors and missionaries. We have visited and reported on 17 of our works. Last month, when it was time to write my monthly report I was at Tipisca, Peru. I used my satellite phone to ask Bev to send you a note letting you know my whereabouts.
On that trip to the upper Juruá River we visited 4 of our most distant congregations and 5 of our missionaries. The last 2 missionaries live and work on the other side of the border in Peru. Since my bigger boat and motor was still waiting for parts we had to go with the little 25HP outboard. Scorching hot tropical sun every morning and rain in the afternoon. This boat doesn’t have a top, so you know what the weather did to us. Layers of sunblock lotion in the morning and rain gear in the afternoon. It was fine though. We neither burned nor froze. The works at Thaumaturgo, Triunfo and Tipisca are all growing. Foz do Breu is stable even though several families have moved away.
This is in front of our building in Tipisca, Peru. Missionaries from left to right: Hudson, José Maia, his wife Silvania and Eduardo. Our luggage piled on the ATV is ready to head down to the river for our return trip to Cruzeiro do Sul.
After that trip I also went back to visit the congregation at Porto Walter 94 miles up stream. We are gearing up to start a new building there. Even one of our meetings with just members was on a Monday night and there were over 70 present to discuss the building project. They have been packing the old building on Sundays for some time now.
My next trip was down river to Ipixuna. The parts were still not in for my motor, so I took my smallest boat with 20HP. I had just run it a couple of weeks earlier, but it still decided not to start when we launched the boat at Guajará. I worked on it for 2 hours right about noon. Boy was it hot. That threw us behind by 2 hours, so we did not get in to Ipixuna until 8 at night. Fortunately the river was very full, not many logs floating down and my flashlight is very bright. We spent 3 days with the church. The church there partners with us to do missions in our general plan for the whole Juruá River on that section. We checked on the 4 works that we established and put into their care.
This month I also visited our missionaries and works at Guajará, Pé da Terra and Rodrigues Alves.
Here at the home church things continue to progress. There have been several saved. There were 23 baptized in March and 33 in April. We are always losing people who move away. Last month we only lost one family! That is quite a victory for us! We continue to work on the annex a little at a time as funds trickle in. Attendance was not that great at the beginning of the year, but has built back up steadily.
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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