A Trip up the Juruá River into Peru, Training Leaders
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
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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