New Missionary & First Baptism Service of the Year
July 7, 2021
Dear Brethren,
Time flies when you are having fun. It has been a long time since I reported to you. For several months there wasn’t much positive to tell. For most of this year, it has been kinda rough. Things are improving a little though, so here goes.
After the last trip to the Moa the rivers went down quickly. Just as I was to go to the upper Juruá River the bottom dropped out and things opened up for us to start having public services again. For the first six weeks I put in a lot of long hours on the building and sermon/lesson prep. At first, we were having all the services streamed live until folks could get used to coming back to the in house services. Now we stream just the Sunday night service. Attendance has not yet gotten back to normal levels. However, we feel that things are looking pretty good, given the level of fear that so many people suffered. We have services on Wednesday, Sunday AM and Sunday PM. For the 2 months that we have been back there have been at least 300 people in every service.
We had our first baptism service of the year. There were 528 people present and 41 new members were baptized. Pastor Ezi baptized the adults, and I baptized the children. We also observed the Lord’s Supper.
Here is a little side story about this particular baptism. My granddaughter Kayla came to my office to talk to me. She had already requested baptism at church, but wanted to talk to me about her baptism. First she gave me a pretty good lesson on the doctrine of baptism. Not bad for an 8-year-old. Then she got down to talking to me about what she really wanted. She wanted to know if grandpa could “bapticize” her. Now I am not sure that I got the spelling right, but I got the meaning!
She is Crissy’s only girl. Later Andrew’s youngest came with the same request. So that is how I came to baptize (or “bapticize”) the 17 children, Kayla and Devin among them.
Last Saturday we had an activity here at the house. Occasionally we have what we call “Breakfast with the Pastors”. It is an opportunity for people to have some casual time with the 7 pastors. About 80 people showed up at 7:00AM. We spent a great couple of hours together. We had a surprise announcement during the gathering. One of our evangelists, who works at our chapel at Cruzeirinho, announced that he was going into full time mission work. His name is Jeverton. The pastor of the chapel and he had met with me 3 other times over the past few weeks to talk about the fields that are ready and waiting. He is going to be our itinerant missionary on the Juruá River from Ipixuna to the border. He will be checking in on all of our congregations and preaching the gospel house to house. Next, we need those other 2 missionaries, for those 2 other fields!
There have been one or more saved on all weekends since we started services again. Also, our youth (15-24) and Youth+ (25 and older) have started back. The nursery is also back. We are still not able to have our children’s programs, but hope to begin soon. The lockdown here has been severe, to say the least, but we are getting things back as soon as possible, trying not to have the authorities breathing down our necks. We still have whistle blowers reporting us all the time. We are doing our best at trying to be bold and wise at the same time.
Well, that is pretty much what is going on. Busy, tired and happy. Hope you are, too.
Thanks for all 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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Two Native Missionary Families Sent Out as First Baptist Cruzeiro do Sul Celebrates 88th Anniversary
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 8, 2017
Dear Brethren,
First Baptist Church turned 88 on May 12. The church was organized on May 12, 1929 by missionary Joe Brandon with 13 members. God has blessed her and brought growth in many areas. For many years we held our missions conference during the last week of July. This was mostly due to the weather! That is our dry season and made it easier for our workers to get to town. The roads have improved (a little) so we decided to make our conference coincide with the church’s anniversary. For the past three years we have held our annual missions conference in mid-May. This year it was May 12 through 14.
The Sunday morning service was a red-letter day. We started out by adding 26 new members by baptism followed by the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. We also had reports from more of our missionaries. The big deal though was the approval of 2 new missionaries. One is a Brazilian who will be taking care of the field at Foz do Breu on the upper Juruá River at the Peruvian border. José Costa and wife are already installed and will be taking care of the congregation there and the preaching points down stream as far as São João. The other new missionary is Freddy and Felicinda. They are Peruvian and also of the Kaxinauá people. They are now in Tipisca, Peru. They have 2 major tasks: working to win people from the several ethnic groups in Tipisca and to continue to reach the 5 Kaxinauá villages on the Breu River. We already had inroads into 3 of the villages through Cosma and Damiana’s family. Now we are in all 5 villages.
As you may recall, we already have a Brazilian couple working in Tipisca: José Maia and Silvânia. The work is really tough there. The town is only a thousand or so people. There is a Peruvian army outpost there. The soldiers make very meager salaries. Most of them spend their money on drinking and prostitutes. None of them come to church. They are isolated and hard to reach. There is a handful of native Peruvians who work mostly in government jobs. These, too, stay closed away. Then there are the folks from the tribes. There are Ashaninka, Jaminauas, Kaxinaua, Amauaca and Arara. The Ashaninka have one linguistic line. The other 4 tribes speak different dialects of a completely different language strain. You walk just a few feet in the town and hear Spanish and the indian languages. What a mess. These different tribal groups are open to the Gospel, but how to communicate? Progress is being made, but very slowly.
It had been some time since I checked on the works on the lower Juruá River. Pastor Rondisson went with me to visit Ipixuna. This town is in the state of Amazonas and is over 150 miles downstream. The river is still pretty high, so we had an easy 5-hour trip. There is a Baptist convention church there, but it is Pentecostal. The pastor is from the Assembly of God! We don’t have any contact or involvement with them. There is also an evangelical church that is identical to us in every way except it just isn’t Baptist. They are mission-minded and we have encouraged them and got them going on several mission projects. We started 3 congregations that they visit regularly. We don’t have a missionary to send there, so we do what we can to help. There is a large village called Pernanbuco a few miles further down the river that has over 100 families. We plan to take our medical team there soon as a first step to getting a work started in the village.
Thanks for all 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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Missionary Update: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [September 2013]
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.
September 10, 2013
Dear Brethren,
Things have been going pretty good around here, but I have not been producing as much as I would like. I have had a kind of flu that set me back for a whole month. Most of that time I had fever, pain and a really bad cough. My lungs were stuffed. The doctor had to put me on antibiotics. Better now, but not fully recovered quite yet.
During that time one of my mission trips down river had been set several months back. I got the boat ready and had my backpack and gear setting by the back door. On the day of the trip I was really weak and dizzy, so I had to back down. Nevertheless, I encouraged Hudson, Ezi and Eliésio to go on without me. The river had come up a little, so they had clear sailing with my bigger boat. They visited 4 of our congregations and the church at Ipixuna. There were 4 professions of faith and good attendance. We have been working to get the church at Ipixuna involved in the mission work. They have finally caught the excitement and are visiting the works every month. They even bought one of Andrew’s boats and a new motor. We have been meeting with them regularly since 2009 to train them and get them going. It is finally working.
The Creiglows have started a new congregation across river at Miritizal, where they are pouring the slab for a building. Right now the congregation has about 20 baptized members. The attendance is in the 70s. They are still meeting in a nearby school and they hope to have them under roof before the rainy season.
Pastor Pedro is in southern Brazil for several months working on his masters degree. At present that leaves 4 of us to pastor First Baptist. One of the ministries that he took care of was couples. One of our elders is taking care of the events that were on the calendar. The general supervision and starting of new projects with the couples has come my way. We have started a new 4 week, 16 class course for the young couples who are engaged and about to marry. I invited several other young couples who are already married and 2 older couples (married longer) to take the classes as training for their marriages and as future teachers/counselors. This is a ton of work right now, but should make this kind of counseling lighter in the future.
Since our building is full and overflowing every Sunday night, we are now permitting our chapels to have services at 8:00PM Sundays. Up until now the 6 chapels only have services on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I was at Avenida São Paulo for their first Sunday evening service. They had a really big crowd and 2 professions of faith. I spoke and coughed for 15 minutes, but the Lord got me through it and blessed.
Zico just got back from a visit to the works on the upper Moa River. All is well. The new building at the mountains is almost finished. Not being able to go on these trips is killing me!
We had another really good service on Sunday night. Overflow crowd and many visitors. This is normal. There were 3 people who had been out of church who came back, one request for baptism and 5 professions of faith. One couple (both are doctors) who I had invited were there for the first time. Many other first time visitors, again.
We have paid R$200.000,00 (about US$100,000.00) on the new property, so far. Still have another R$300.000,00 to go. Please pray. We need to finish paying off the 18 acres for our future expansion.
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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