Visiting Church Plants + 8 Saved at Christmas Musical

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 23, 2025
Dear Brethren,
Well it’s about time! That slacker missionary of yours hasn’t reported to you since some time last
year. Here is a little bit of what has happened though, even if not in much detail.
In November, Bev and I went to Rio Branco (the state capital) to hold a meeting with our church there. The building was packed and folks were standing for every service. It had been quite a while
since we last visited them. Frankly, we were very concerned about their well-being. They have
turned the corner though and are growing again. They are still VERY slow at missions, but on
Sunday morning they got an ear full. Pray that they will get back on track. Great visit.
In December, I held a meeting with Faith Baptist Church. Also an incredible reception. They asked
me to refresh them on Baptist heritage and doctrine. Did I have fun, or what? It has now been over
a month and the buzz is still happening all over town. Pray for Pastor Carlinhos. His wife is in very
poor health. Also, we had a long talk a few months ago about his future and the future of the
church. He has not prepared anyone to take over. He is ready to retire, but hasn’t done his
“homework”. The church is in good shape, but has suffered a number of splits in the past few
years. The church has several problematic members. Put them on your prayer list.
I also held a meeting for our chapel at Cruzeirinho. They are doing well and we had good crowds
and results from that meeting.
Thanksgiving was a huge success. We have had our Thanksgiving celebration in our small groups
for several years now. The last one that we held with the church all together on the third floor of
our annex we had 930 present. Since then, we had to go to smaller meetings in homes. Although
not all of our groups reported back, we still have well over one thousand members participating.
The group that Bev and I are part of had 14 couples.
You didn’t notice, but I had to stop to talk to the pastor of our church in the city of Thaumaturgo.
He wants me for a meeting in July. Talk about a missionary machine: First Baptist Church of
Thamauturgo is just that. We organized that church in 2008. They have started new works all
around and send out missionaries in a steady stream. Now back to the report.
Here at home we have had 2 more baptism services. I Baptized 31 in November and Pastor
Benjamim baptized 23 in December. We continue to have a constant flow of people being saved,
baptized and new members coming from other places. Also, newborns are being introduced to our
family almost weekly.
Our missionaries have been very active. We have been very busy on the Boa Fé River. Pastor Ezi
baptized several for our congregations at Gama and Generoso. We have 2 teams working to
share the gospel with every person along the river. One team is working from Gama downstream
to the where it flows into the Juruá river. The other team is working upstream from Gama to the
last house near the mountains in the far west of Brazil.
The Christmas Musical was just wonderful. My daughter Crissy, who writes the script and directs
the whole production, went way beyond the call of duty again. The theme was “Christmas: As told
by Jesus”. She even included the ascension of Jesus and the second coming. We had well over
1000 present every night, but one. At least 8 people were saved. I will include a picture of the cast,
217 people. This doesn’t include all the folks who work as ushers, parking lot, etc. Over 350 church
members participate directly. If you look closely at the lower left hand corner you might see the old
guy who preached 4 of the 6 nights.
Let me add a couple of things before I close. First, my health has been much better for the past
several months. I had surgery in the US in July to remove 2 squamous cell cancers from my head.
Two months ago, I had a non-malignant removed from my right arm. I finally found a cancer specialist in Rio Branco in November and he is a Baptist and ready to follow my case.
Then a word of thanks to those who have given toward the new canoe. Some have designated
funds and others gave to be used as needed. This has made it possible to purchase the motor and
the aluminum for the boat. We start the build next week! Thank you so much.
This report is way too long, but it had been so long since I wrote. I have been working long hours
and have not been in my office much at all for months, but no excuse. I must report more
regularly. My fault. Please forgive me.
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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Pray for Rio Branco

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.
February 12, 2020
Dear Brethren,
Grace and peace from us in fairly peaceful Cruzeiro do Sul. It looks like the rainy season is finally going to get under way. Most of the rain is falling in southern Brasil though and we are still waiting. I had to cancel a river trip in January because the bottom dropped out of the river. I was able to send our bricklayer by canoe to the last congregation at the mountains on the Moa River to continue the work on their new building. In fact, it worked out that because the roads dried up, he was also able to spend a few days at Gama, Amazonas (opposite direction by almost a hundred miles) to finish the parsonage for missionary Anísio.
Bev and I made a mission trip to the state capital Rio Branco. Let me tell you what that is all about. Almost 30 years ago we started a church in Rio Branco. Only after much prayer and reluctance on my part that I agreed to start a new church there. At the time there was one rather solid Brazilian convention church and a sprinkling of Regular Baptist churches. Most of them were dying. At the same time, we had dozens of folks who had been saved here in Cruzeiro and had moved to Rio Branco and were begging for a church with solid doctrine and evangelistic spirit. Three times a group of them bought their own tickets and came to Cruzeiro do Sul to beg me to start a church. My reluctance was because ethically I did not want to infringe on a region that already had churches. Nevertheless, I finally acquiesced. We had a good pastor from Brother John Hatcher’s work in Manaus who was in Rio Branco at the time, but was poised to return to Manaus. We started meeting in a school in a neighborhood that had no church of any kind. I visited them once a month. We eventually found property and I helped them build their first building. They grew quickly and soon we organized the church.
Over the years the convention church finally became charismatic. It is now the largest “evangelical” church in the state. They dragged 25 of the 27 convention churches in the states into the prosperity gospel movement. Many of the Regular Baptist churches died. The 2 or 3 that survived are just hanging on. They are extremely legalistic and reaching no one. Our church, Igreja Batista Memorial, grew steadily. They got up over 200 members. They built a bigger building and were doing great, then the pastor left. He put in his place a guy who is a hypercalvinist (without consulting our church). The new guy is a good teacher, but very arrogant. Recently he has been calling himself Rabbi Lopes! The church quit preaching the gospel a few years ago. We have reached out to them in several ways, but there is no longer any interest in reaching the lost. The church is dying. They now have 50 or fewer people in their Sunday services. I know this because one of our members who has stayed faithful puts videos on Facebook of the Sunday services. I have seen 3 of these videos and can count the number of folks present.
For about 3 years now I have been struggling in prayer about what to do. Recently unchurched people from Rio Branco have been begging me to start another church. Bev and I went to meet informally with a few of these folks a couple of weeks ago. Looks like we are going to have to bite the bullet and do what has to be done.
First Baptist Church of Cruzeiro do Sul continues to take the gospel to the most remote places. During 2019 we sent out two more missionary families. We will continue to do this until we have planted churches in all the cities of our state, neighboring states and countries. BUT, Rio Branco has half the population of our state. There are almost 500,000 people concentrated in one spot and the gospel has been abandoned by the local churches.
Thanks for staying with me through this long read. I need you to pray with us about this challenge. Frankly I don’t know exactly how to proceed, but we cannot wait any longer. So please help me with your prayers.
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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Back Home in Brazil; Pray for Andrew

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 31, 2019
Dear Brethren,
Well Bev and I finally made it back to Cruzeiro do Sul. It seems like every time we try to get home, we have some big adventure. What should only take us 2 days always ends up being 5 or even a week! I won’t bore you with the blow by blow. We are just really glad to be home.
Of course, when you are away from your “stuff” for a few weeks, the “stuff” gets messed up. The batteries on my jeep and motorcycle both gave up the ghost. I went everywhere in town and couldn’t even find a battery for the motorcycle. Not even available in the capital, Rio Branco. So, much of my daytime hours have been spent trying to get things up and running again.
Things at church are going great though. My first week back, they had me very busy. On Sunday morning I did a “Sermon in a Sack” for the little ones. This was done in the main auditorium. The adults enjoy this almost as much as the kids. Then I had all the youth and adults for a lesson about some basics for the family. It was VERY basic, but when I finished, they responded with loud applause. This happens now and then, but always catches me off guard. I preached the evening service and there was one lady coming to move her letter from a church in Rio Branco and three people were saved.
We have been able to do a few little things on the building. Right now, we are really concentrating on paying off a few bills from the first stage of the rebuild.
Please pray for my son Andrew. He is back in Manaus and it looks like he will be having major surgery again. He has seen at least 4 doctors already and will be seeing another tomorrow. His body produces stones in his liver. He has had a number of procedures. He had major surgery in 2015 and we almost lost him. I was with him through the whole ordeal. If he does have to go through another surgery, I will be going to Manaus to be with him again. He does not have any kind of insurance. The socialized medicine (Brazil’s version of Obamacare) doesn’t work. Please 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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