Back Home in Brazil

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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 24, 2023

Dear Brethren,

Greetings from hot and dry Cruzeiro do Sul. Perfect! After 6 months in the United States, I have arrived back home. Bev was with me for the last 3 months of my “vacation”. My treatment ended at the beginning of July. Our return trip was long, tiring, but went without a hitch. My parting shot as the surgeon left the room on my last checkup was, “Doctor, you did what nobody has ever been able to do: You made time stand still. These have been the longest 6 months of my life.”

Thanks to all of you who have prayed. Please don’t stop though. At age 75 I am still not out of the woods and may never be. Special thanks to my daughter Monica who had to put up with the “homeless guy” for 6 months. What a trooper, just like her Mom.

We have been back home for 10 days now. You would not believe the number of things that can break in 6 months. I am still weak, but have gotten quite a few things repaired. Of course, there have been meetings and more meetings as I try to catch up. It has all been very pleasant though.

Attendance is on the rise at church. Yesterday morning we had a baptism and Lord’s supper service. Pastor Maicom (one of our 7 pastors) performed the baptisms. We added 10 new members. We also had 3 more requests for baptism yesterday. Three more people came back into fellowship. We also reinstated a family of 6 that had been away for a long time. We had 1,089 at church yesterday.

Yesterday was one of our oldest members birthday. Sister Eunice Sá was at church to celebrate her 90th. Many of her children and grandchildren are faithful members to this day. Her husband pastored First Baptist Church back in the fifties. He went to heaven many years ago. He was a deacon when I became pastor. Many other family members were at church last night to help her celebrate.

Our missions teams have been busy these past few days. They made visits to Ramal 7, Campinas, Gama and Paraná dos Mouras. We are having a little trouble with our missionary at Campinas, but the work is doing pretty good. Gama just continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The congregation at Ramal 7 has just finished their first building. They have moved in, but haven’t held the dedication service yet.

Well I realize that this is much news, but it is a start. It is hard to express the relief and joy of being home again. Thanks again for being patient and prayerful.

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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7 from Remote Tribe Baptized in Ituí River

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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 17, 2023

Dear Brethren,

Last time I reported to you, I had been in the States for 2 months. Now it is pushing 5 months. Beverly arrived a couple of months ago, which has made my life much easier through these toughest months of this ordeal. Tuesday will be my final radiation session of 25. I saw the oncologist on Thursday and the surgeon on Friday. Both have given me the green light to return home as soon as I heal a little bit and feel up to it. The original surgery took over 6 weeks to heal then the radiation has undone much of that. However, we hope to start our journey home on July 5th. So far I have spent about $7,000.00 out of pocket. The insurance covered much of the treatment, which, as you can imagine, was astronomical. Hopefully we will get some back. Don’t be shy if you would like to help.

The reports from the field are glowing. People have been saved every weekend.

Our missions conference was in mid-May.

The 3 nights were attended by crowds of 600 plus. Three more surrendered to be missionaries. We preach and teach about how people are called and commissioned to be missionaries. The Holy Spirit performs His power in it all. The 3 new candidates are already in training by Zico (our missions coordinator) and Geverton our full-time missionary at large.

Now let me share a couple of the recent mission trips that our teams have made.

Two of our teams did house to house, village to village, evangelism on the Boa Fé River. This river runs west to east about 50 miles north of Cruzeiro do Sul. It flows into our main river, the Juruá, about 100 miles downstream from us. Since we have a full time missionary and congregation at Gama (about halfway from headwaters to mouth), one team went there overland and went upstream to the last house. The other team went down the Juruá to the mouth of the Boa Fé and worked their way up to Gama, where the 2 teams finished up. That way in just a couple of weeks the 2 teams were able to share the gospel with everyone on the whole river. I haven’t seen the final report that was given to the home church.

Pastor Ezi (one of the 7 pastors of First Baptist Church of Cruzeiro do Sul) went to visit our work among the Marubo Indians. Ezi’s son-in-law is a Marubo and went with him. Ezi’s daughter went, too, taking their 2 children (one is just a few months old)! To get to the tribe they had go down the Juruá River 100 miles to the mouth of the Boa Fé River. Then they had to hike due north for 2 days to get to the reservation. The Indians come out to help them carry their baggage. These Indians end up making this hike 4 times to get our missionaries in and back out again! While there he baptized 7 Maoubos in the Ituí River. That river is actually a tributary of the Amazon River, to give you an idea of how remote and isolated the tribe is. Our full-time missionary there is Ronaldinho. He was born there. We did much of his training, but he also spent a couple of years in a seminary in Rio de Janeiro.

For lack of space, I am holding one more great piece of mission news for my next letter. Sorry about the suspense, but you’ll just have to wait!

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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Answered Prayer after 30+ Years!

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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.

April 21, 2023

I am writing this from Lexington, Kentucky. Mike and I are here taking care of some health issues. Our beautiful daughter, Monica, has been gracious to put up with us!

Some thirty years ago I started praying that God would open a door for us to be able to reach the deaf in our town. At the same time, I started nudging Mike. Finally, after all those years of praying and seeking years it has happened! I believe our church is the only one with this ministry in the state of Acre. There are 23 people who have finished the three courses (one year each). These courses were made possible through one of the women in our church who felt called to implant this new ministry. Tatyana had been the nursery leader for years. She trained another lady and team to take her place. Now a signing course for children has started. My granddaughter, Kayla, ten years old, is one of the students. Since we began last November, there have been at least six deaf people who have made a profession of faith. There are times when they “sing” along with the congregation. I found out recently that sign language in Brazil is different from in the US.

A couple of weeks before I came to the States a group of ladies from the women’s ministry asked to meet with me just to talk. They were curious about how I came to Cruzeiro do Sul. They wanted some input about raising children, being a missionary and pastor’s wife, among other things. I hope I was able to be of help. This is one of the many ways I get to participate and help out in the work here.

Not many people outside our church know this, but I am known at our church for giving the best hugs! Hugs are one of my favorite things. There is a group of children that come for a hug almost every service.

I arrived in the US just over two weeks ago. From what we have been hearing from many of the members of First Baptist things are going very well and souls continue to be saved.

Mike and I have no idea of how long his treatment will take, but we are anxious to get back home. I miss my church and kids/grandkids.

Love,
Beverly

Part of the deaf ministry

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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God’s Kingdom Bursting Along the Breu River

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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.

March 23, 2023

Dear Brethren,

Well I have now been here in the States for two months. It looks like I will be here for a while. I have been through many visits to the doctors, many tests and two surgeries. The recovery will be long and even once that is finished I still will have 6 weeks of daily radiation treatments. It could be another three months, so please continue to pray. So far the expenses have been low and some friends and family have been helping out. I am so thankful that Baptist Faith Missions has provided such good health coverage.

Here is some really good news, at least for me. The church down home has paid for Bev’s tickets to come and be with me for the coming months. She will be leaving Cruzeiro do Sul in a couple of weeks. The news from my doctors has all been pretty good. News that Beverly will be here with me is very, very good news.

Things are going well in the work. Attendance has been growing over the last weeks. We are now consistently over 600 in both morning and evening services. We had been just over 500 each in January. February was better. Now in March almost every service has been 600+. Last Sunday 2 more were saved including another young lady from our deaf folks.

Two weeks ago, our deaf ministry started having discipleship classes. We have 4 basic training courses for all new converts. These are now being ministered to our new deaf members.

Last Sunday 2 newborns were presented to the church. We also found out that 6 more couples are expecting. Over the past weeks 3 couples have done “reveals” out at our house and property. This is an honor for Bev and me. Shame I am not there to participate.

As a reminder, our church has a team of 7 pastors. I am the senior pastor. While I am away the others pick up my slack. Pastor Ezi Lopes went to visit our congregation on the Breu River. This river runs along the border between Peru and Brazil. He baptized 22 new members at the Hunikuim tribe.

We sent a missionary there several years ago. José Maia was forced to leave by a federal judge. That is when one of the young girls, Damiana, went to live with Maias in Tipisca, Peru. She got saved and she was the first person that I baptized in Tipisca in 2017. She later returned to the tribe and was used to reach them with the gospel. A couple of years ago I baptized the first 9 converts there. Among them was Cosma, Damiana’s twin sister. One of the young men who was baptized is now their pastor. Aldenir is his name.

When Christ’s kingdom bursts out no one can stop it. The judge kicked out our missionary. One girl left with him. She got saved and went back to her people. Many others got saved. God called one of the young men to shepherd them. I baptized some, but am not there to care for them. Ezi went and baptized another large group. I didn’t tell him to go. One of the videos I saw of the baptism service showed the congregation singing “I have decided to follow Jesus” in the Hunikuim language as they made their way to the river. Who taught them that? Where did that come from? How can that be? It’s not me. It’s not José Maia. It’s not Ezi Lopes. You know who it is! To God be the glory.

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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Plenty to Celebrate

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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 13, 2022

Dear Brethren,

It has been a while since I have reported to you. My bad. Over the past three months it seems that I have been ill more than well. In and out of the doctors’ offices regularly. Even had some pretty serious surgery. Not an excuse. Not a complaint. Just letting you know that my motivation is pretty low right now. There is plenty to celebrate though, so here goes.

We have a young man in our church who owns an air taxi company (2 planes. His dad started the company). Ismael flies us on some of our mission trips to more remote locations. We pay just the gas. He took me and 3 of my guys to visit our missions at Santa Rosa do Purús and Jordão. These are the two most remote and isolated cities of the 22 official municipalities (counties) of the State of Acre. We have sent already sent missionaries to all of the towns that had no Baptist church.

We sent Lucas and Diana to Santa Rosa do Purús 3 years ago, during the pandemic. They have won some souls already and are meeting on a porch along one side of the house that we bought them. We have asked Lucas to start looking for property for us to put up our first building. They are also helping the small group of Kaxinauá Indian believers that we had contacted before we actually sent our missionaries there.

Idevaldo and Queila have been at Jordão for 6 or 7 years now. They just finished their brand new building. All services had between 60 and 70 people. There were 4 professions of faith. On Sunday morning I baptized 7 people in the very shallow waters of the Tarauacá River.

Our trip covered about 1200 miles. This took just a few hours of travel time. I can reach both towns by trailering my boat then going up two different rivers. This would take a combined 68 hours just of travel time. Our work has expanded so far that the plane is a life saver.

At the same time that I was baptizing at Jordão, our home church also added 15 more members by baptism.

In mid-November I held a three day meeting for our church at Assis Brazil. It was their 60th anniversary celebration. Dad organized this church on November 15, 1962. Originally the church was located beside the lake at Humaitá do Moa. Later they moved to terra firma inland at Assis Brasil. They are in a beautiful and big new building. They have a vibrant mission work, too. Five children were saved on Sunday night. I waited until the last night of the meeting to reveal that I was the musician who played my accordion for the organization service 60 years ago. If I had told them that prior to the meeting they would have tried to convince me to play again now. Fortunately, none of us were subjected to that torture! The meeting ended well.

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

In Christ,
Mike Creiglow

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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Great News from Church in Mato Grosso

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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.

September 21, 2022

Dear Brethren,

Hope you are all well. Right now, I am not. I have been down for almost a month. Last month I went to Manaus for our conference and on the way home came down with the flu and later another virus. I am getting better, but still very weak and will have to take it easy until I can get back to my usual self. But let me tell you about that conference.

A number of years ago Paul Hatcher, David Hatcher, Bobby Wacaser, Hershael York and I got together for a fishing/work getaway outside of Manaus. During the day we reeled in the peacock bass and at night talked shop. One of the things that we discussed was the need for a practical get together, rally around, for independent Baptist pastors and missionaries in Brazil. We have our annual missions conference here every year, but we are too far off the beaten path and hard to get to for it to be practical. Bobby is way down on the other end and still doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle this kind of event. So, David and Paul took on the project.

The conference happened a few times sponsored by Nova Igreja Batista where David is pastor. It was a huge success. Then…the pandemic.

This year we are back! It was a miracle that David was able to pull this off. Air travel and logistics in general are far from back to normal. Nevertheless, there were hundreds of workers from all over Brazil and even a couple of foreign countries.

Our group from Cruzeiro do Sul is usually the biggest, but this year there were only 4 of us. We had to drive to Rio Branco (9 hours of potholes) then flew to Manaus. Flew back to Rio Branco then bus to Cruzeiro do Sul (14 hours). On this last leg is when I came down sick, almost a month.

Our group took full advantage of all the workshops and seminars they could jam in.

It was my privilege to speak at Nova Igreja Batista on Saturday night to a crowd of over 2500. Then on Sunday I spoke at Tabernacle Baptist Church to, I think over 2000. Tabernacle had been down, but boy are they back! That was one of the highlights for me.

Let me share a couple of more bright spots. Of course, it was great to run into pastors that I have known for years from all over Brazil. One of those is Pastor Gilberto from Marília, São Paulo. He is writing a book to commemorate the century mark of Baptist Faith Missions (1923). I spent a lot of time with him sharing as much as time would permit from the history of the mission work here.

Then on the very first night, a young pastor introduced himself to me. He knew me, but he was a new acquaintance to me. His name is Manoel. He pastors one of the churches that my Dad started in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Dad had asked me many times if I ever heard anything about those churches. Well briefly, here is the great news: The church had gone off the deep end into Pentecostalism and prosperity gospel. Then after one of their usual scandals the pastor called in Manoel to take over. Pastor Manoel brought them back out of their errant ways and back to sound doctrine and true evangelism. Today they are back up to 40+ members and doing fine.

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

In Christ,
Mike Creiglow

Bro. Mike with Pastor Manoel from Mato Grosso

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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New Missionary Family + New Ministry at Annual Missions Conference

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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.

August 22, 2022

Dear Brethren,

We’re still here. It has been a while, but here we are with some more news from Cruzeiro do Sul.

We had all our missionaries come in with their families for a little break and to be honored during our annual mission conference. We started off on a Thursday night with a dinner for all our pastors, chapel pastors, missionaries and their wives.

For the next 3 days we had lots of training during the day and services with the whole church every night. Bringing everybody in from so far away is a big expense, but worth every “Real” (Brazilian dollar).

On Saturday night we gave all our official workers a new ID card issued by First Baptist Church. All of Latin America is big on formality (red tape, too). We decided to renew the credentials of all of our workers, for two reasons. 1. There are so many fake and false preachers around now that we wanted ours to be identified as approved by the home church. 2. Then, believe it or not, our ID card is even accepted at border crossings! We now have 33 workers officially under our authority. There are many other evangelists in our many congregations and mission points who did not get this official sanction.

Also, during the conference, we were able to present a longtime desire and dream to the whole church. For many years we have wanted to have a way to share the gospel with the deaf. For the past year and a half, we have had a big group in training to learn their language. The group has already been through three levels of training. They are in the fourth and final advanced course right now. We were able to present them and let them show the church more of how it works. They have been active for months, but this was another opportunity to get the whole church behind this important ministry. Just last night there were a few hearing impaired and our folks were preaching to them. The official launch is scheduled for November, but fortunately they are already serving this group in most services and during the week on a personal level.

During the last service of the conference, we took on a brand-new missionary family. Ronaldo, wife and daughter are now sponsored and authorized as missionaries out of First Baptist Church. They are from the Marubo tribe. He was first evangelized and taught by one of our long-time members who married a Brazilian lady from here. Ronaldo spent some time with us and then went to Rio to go to seminary. He came back and went right back to the tribe. He has started preaching points in 13 villages among his people. These villages are deep in the rainforest north of us. To get there it is a 6-hour boat trip down the Juruá River then a 2 day hike due north to the Ituí River. This is another tributary of the Amazon River. Very remote! Recently Pastor Ezi (one of our 7 pastors here at First Baptist) went to see what Ronaldo is doing. He was amazed. We now have works in 6 tribes. Two of our ten full-time missionaries are Indians.

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

In Christ,
Mike Creiglow

Mike Creiglow and his son-in-law Pastor Dauro in front of the church approving Ronaldo (left) as their newest missionary.
A few of the 30 plus workers who received their ID cards.
All the missionaries and their families at the close of the conference.

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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Mission Work on the Moa River

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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, 2022

Dear Brethren,

Here is some news about the mission work on the Moa River. Zico (our mission director) went with me to visit 3 of our congregations on the Moa River a few weeks ago.

Our first stop was at the very last village on the Moa. There is a low range of mountains called Serra do Moa and sometimes Serra do Divisor. The latter because the hills follow the western border between Peru and Brazil. My last report was about our visit to the southern border.

As usual, got there under a tropical rainstorm. Again, as usual, after a long winding river trip we had services that night. This time we went further upriver in a dugout canoe to the home of one of the families who are part of our congregation. We left just after dark. It was misting. There was plenty of lightning and a stiff wind. Even so, people came from all around. We had over 50 people present. Quite a few were in chairs, others standing, and most were sitting on the floor. In this kind of setting, I sit and teach them.

Rivaldo and Leila are our missionaries there. He was our second full time missionary sent back in the early 90’s. He is my age and still going strong. We held a couple more services there before starting back downstream.

Next stop: Nukini Indian reservation at República. Our missionary there is Aldenísio. They just built a new church building and parsonage. They did a really good job with both. They have also started some new preaching points on República River and other locations on the reservation. We held services there on Saturday and Sunday. After the morning service I baptized 11.

Our last stop was a surprise visit to the church at São Salvador. The village has seen some major growth. There are now over 300 people there. Unfortunately, the church has taken a Pentecostal twist. The women have pretty much taken over and “spiced” things up. Over the last few months, they have loaded up the whole church and made a number of trips. These aren’t mission trips though. They are just social events. So, I have been trying to woo them back to sound doctrine. The pastor there is Francisco, better known by his nickname “Pipi”. The services were much more orderly than the last time I had been with them. We had a great visit, and I am encouraged.

Here in town at First Baptist, things are looking up. Our attendance is now averaging over a thousand every Sunday. We have had people saved every week. Several more were baptized, too. Still not back to pre-pandemic levels, but steadily improving.

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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