March 21, 2024

Dear Brethren,

Another wonderful mission trip this month. This time up the Juruá River. For this trip I prepped my boat. It took a couple of days to get the engine running after the long stoppage because of my health issues. Pastors Ezi and Benjamim went with me for the very long run to Tipisca, Peru.

On a Sunday night I preached to a crowd of over 600 at First Baptist Church. On Monday morning at 5:00AM I was up and getting my boat down to the river. We got away after 6:00AM. Just before 5:00PM we pulled up at Foz do Breu on the Peruvian border. Our congregation at the village there is almost 300 miles upstream.

We spent next 3 days with our missionary José Costa and the congregation there. We held a baptism service on Tuesday afternoon.

On Thursday we continued on into Peru, still on the Juruá River. This short section took less than an hour. For the first time in a long time, I was able to get there without some kind of interruption. Many times I have had to stop to rescue or help somebody in distress. The last trip a group of Peruvian soldiers’ boat had sunk and I hauled them back up river to their post.

We spent the next 5 days with missionary José Maia and Silvánia. We three pastors spent the next 3 days teaching a small group of Hunikuim Indians from our congregations on the Breu River. Let me explain why we had to do this training in Peru rather than at their villages on the Breu River.

We have a large congregation on the mid-section of the river and preaching points on all the middle and lower river. However, there are 5 small villages on the upper section of the river that we had not reached yet. Our Hunikuim pastor is in poor health and has his hands full taking care of the villages where we already have a presence. A Pentecostal group got into these 5 villages and stirred up trouble with the federal government. They wanted to tell the women what kind of clothes they have to wear, putting women on one side during services and men on the other and forbidding the Indians of singing or praying in their own language. A judge heard about this absurdity and laid down the law that until further investigation no more “white” people are allowed into the tribe.

For this reason, we had the leaders come to Peru for us to teach them who and where the Baptist came from and what we believe (basic doctrines). We also needed to inform them of the origins of the Pentecostal movement and what they believe. We sat around a table for 3 days teaching and fielding their questions. We were pleased to see how Baptist these young Hunikuim leaders are.

On the weekend we held services for the folks at Tipisca. The building was packed for the 3 services. There were a few saved.

The river was at mid bank when we started our trip. In fact, it was the same level all the way, which is very rare and a huge blessing. The rains came in a deluge just after we got there. It rained for 4 days non-stop. By the time we left 8 days later the river was raging and out of its banks. This happened across the whole state and has been hard on the river folks. Even so the people came out to hear the Word. Some even came through chest high water at night. Awesome.

In fact, I wish I had space to tell you about an Ashaninka Indian named Joana who came to visit me. You will have to live with the tease until I can tell you her story someday.

Thanks for all your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.

In Christ,
Mike Creiglow

Mike & Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
69980 Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre
Brasil, SA
mdcreig@hotmail.com

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P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
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