New Missionary Family + New Ministry at Annual Missions Conference
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
The signing group at First Baptist Cruzeiro do Sul. 
The signing group at First Baptist Cruzeiro do Sul.
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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A Rollercoaster to Start the Year
February 8, 2022
Dear Brethren,
What a roller coaster. We have had joy and sadness. We have had health and sickness. There has been frenetic activity and standstills. Numbers have been up and down.
In December we had a baptism service with over 40 new members added to the church. We had a couple of services with over 1000 people present. The average over all services was in the six hundreds.
Then came January. Then came the common cold, the flu, a new variant of Covid, more dengue fever and plenty of malaria. All this illness got so bad that last Wednesday night we had to cancel services. All of the 50+ musicians, 20+ praise group singers and all 7 pastors were sick. There was a grand total of 3 people that showed up. Fortunately, we have not had any deaths.
December 2021 
January 2022
Even with all the wave of disease we still had pretty good crowds during January. There were from 2 to 8 saved every week. One of the really wonderful things about those who have been saved is that most of them are between 8 and 10 years of age.
On one Sunday night I really messed up my scheduling. I accepted an invite to be with one of our chapels, but hadn’t noticed that I was also scheduled to preach at First Baptist. Oops! So I sent one of the other pastors over to Cruzeirinho in my place and begged forgiveness of the chapel folks. God wanted me in my pulpit that night. The core of my sermon was about ways that adult Christians can really mess up a clear presentation of the gospel and how adults have a hard time grasping the simple truth of the gospel. My closing illustration was the Elon Musk interview with the Babylon Bee and his purported “profession of faith”. If you haven’t watched it, stop right now and go look it up. That night ALL 5 of the professions of faith were children. There was such joy and also many tears were shed. Even though our human planning got all twisted up by me, God had His plan working as smoothly as ever. It was one of the best services I have ever been in.
The city has put us in lockdown again, complete with mask mandates, mandates to show proof of vaccination, social distancing and all that stuff. No public gathering is to have more than 300 people. We are not following any of that. It is interesting that our last service had 297 present, even though we did nothing different to keep people away or bring them in. Our people love to be in church. We are back to livestreaming all services, because so many just can’t come.
The Creiglow gang has been sick, too. Some have tested positive for Covid, others for the flu. Bev is still quarantined. Bev and I don’t know what we had and haven’t gone to the trouble to get tested. We ruined enough swabs during our travels to the States and have had our fill of that stuff. I am back in the pulpit full time. My cough is completely gone while I am preaching. When not in the pulpit I am hacking away. We are all on the mend though.
Well this has been one strange report, but I hope you were edified at least a little.
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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Tearing Down to Build Up
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 3, 2019
Dear Brethren,
Time flies when you are having fun or when you have too much work to do and deadlines looming. Forgive me for not reporting to you lately. Our work is in a major transition right now. There is enough to report, but it seems so boring to me that I have just been lazy about telling you.
Our Christmas musical was a success and several people were saved. Now that the crime wave has subsided somewhat the crowds actually came back up. On Christmas night we had a big rain and that kept the crowd just at maximum capacity. We actually thanked the Lord for that rain as otherwise we would have had to turn away hundreds of people.
We held our first baptism service of the year and 13 new members were added. We have had people saved every week so far this year. One Sunday night I preached about the Sabbath and did not give an invitation, although I did preach the gospel. There were still 3 public professions of faith! We have had some more saved during our Wednesday night doctrinal services, too.
We sent out another missionary couple this month and approved another. Anísio and Matilde are already at Gama, Amazonas (neighbor state, east of Cruzeiro do Sul). We also approved Lucas and Diana. They have just finished seminary. For the next 6 months they will be here under our wing doing an internship that all of our missionaries are required to do. In the middle of the year we will be taking them to Santa Rosa do Purús. This town has no Baptist church and is on the Purús River on the Peruvian border. They are also expecting their first child in March. Yesterday the ladies at church gave Diana a baby shower.
Their church building was designed and built 40 years ago by Bro. Mike.
Demolition has started on the old church building in order to rebuild and double their seating capacity.
Two weeks ago I began tearing down our old church building. I designed and built it 40 years ago. We outgrew it a long time ago and have made modifications to add more space. I added a mezzanine for an extra 220 people. A couple of years later I tore out 6 Sunday School rooms to add another 240 seats. We moved those rooms into our 3 floor annex. Over a year ago we built a metal structure over the top of the old building. Now I have gutted the old building and tomorrow I start rebuilding. Of course many of our members are working with me every day and into the night. Some can only come during their lunch break or at night and there is a lot of different crews almost every day. It is a strange sensation tearing down what I built personally, hands on, 4 decades ago. I have no sentimental or regretful feeling. It is just strange as each brick, bolt or nail comes down. As I work I think, “I put this bolt in this truss 40 years ago, now I am taking it out.” Just sharing the feelings that go along with this new phase.
The third floor of our annex is a covered but all open. That is where we are having services now. The area is over 5800 square feet. The crowds have been really good in spite of the lack of AC and 2 flights of stairs. We want to have the new building up by May 12th when the church celebrates her 90th birthday. We don’t have any debt and we only have $3,000.00 in the bank. We do have a crazy pastor. What matters though is that we have a very rich and loving Father. The new building will double our seating capacity.
For some time I have been working 12 and 13 hour days of manual labor. Leave at dawn and get back home after dark. Then I have church work at least 4 nights a week, besides trying to make time for counseling and other jobs related to our ministry. You get the idea. The church needs your prayers and I need 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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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 in Brazil [November 2015]
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.
November 9, 2015
Dear Brethren,
There is a little bit of everything to send your way this month. There is plenty of good news and a little of the other kind, too.
The ladies had their big retreat with about 150 women and several saved. We also had a couple’s retreat with over 30 couples. This was more of a teaching retreat than evangelism. There were a few lost couples present though who heard the gospel.
I missed one of this month’s mission trips due to an overload of work here in town and at camp. Zico and Nelson made the trip to visit our works on the Moa River. Nelson is one of our military guys who served as pastor in a church in Rio de Janeiro. We always have a few of these families who are with us for a couple of years and then gone off to some other town. Most of these come here for a 2 year tour. They can extend their time by a year and sometimes more. Once they see the church, they all put in for the extension and would stay on if their career would let them. This was Nelson’s first mission trip. He came back charged up. Almost all of these military families had heard about the church and the mission work here through the internet. We have been privileged to receive and train many over the years. We miss them when they are gone, but proud of the training and service they take to other places all over Brazil.
Pastor Dauro (Mike’s son-in-law) baptizing at First Baptist Church of Cruzeiro do Sul.
Three more ripe mangoes just came crashing down on the roof above my office. My yard is a mango lover’s paradise. There are tons of them on the trees and the ground. Although I try to keep the limbs trimmed back I still have a bunch of tiles to replace every year. Like the trees, but have come to pretty much hate the fruit. You probably really didn’t need that piece of news, but it is part of our life here in the rainforest.
The rainy season has started with heavy rains. It rained a lot yesterday, but we still had really big crowds in all services. There were 28 more baptized in the morning and 2 more saved at night. It has been like that all month long: a few saved and great crowds with many visitors.
We have been working at the camp property and new church property for several weeks now. We have had a lot of cleanup and fencing on both locations. The dry season is almost behind us and there were some urgent jobs to be done while the weather is still fairly dry.
Damage to Bro. Creiglow’s jeep. The right rear rim was completely split in two.
One afternoon a few weeks ago I had just started down the highway when a pickup came flying over a hill and rear ended my jeep. No telling how fast he was going. He left over 100 feet of skid marks and his speedometer froze at 50 mph, so he was really moving when he piled on the brakes. He spun me around 180o into the grass on the other side of the road. He was carrying patients to the hospital in Cruzeiro do Sul. Fortunately, no one was injured seriously. His truck was pretty much totaled. The rear body and suspension on my jeep were destroyed. I have been without a work vehicle for 3 weeks now. Parts are coming from all over Brazil including the factory in Fortaleza on the east coast. Since my Troller T4 is built 100% in Brazil from parts all manufactured here it will cost less than half what any other vehicle would cost to repair. It still will set me back at least $2,000.00 just for parts.
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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Missionary Update: The Creiglows in Brazil [October 2015]
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.
October 7, 2015
Dear Brethren,
Bev and I spent 10 days in southern Brazil on vacation. This was all the time I could get off, but it was enough and it was relaxing. Pastor Pedro and his wife were in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina. He was there finishing up his masters degree, so we met up in Rio Grande do Sul for the short vacation.
We have had a very busy time since then. I have been helping two of our missionaries work through some problems. Bev and I have been meeting regularly with our missionary at Guajará, Amazonas. He and his wife have got out of control with their finances, so we are walking them through the process of getting out of debt and restoring his testimony in the community. The other missionary has been working at Profeta on the upper Jurua River for 5 years. He has been struggling since the beginning of the year with deep spiritual and mental frustrations. The congregation there just sees him as their “hired hand”. They refuse to help with anything. They won’t even help with the spreading of the Gospel. Now some of you pastors are saying, “Well, what else is new?” To me this is NOT normal and I would go crazy, too, if my church did not pull their load with me. So pray for Antônio. We have brought him in from the field for treatment and possibly deploy him to a new field.
A few of the men from church who showed up to do fencing last Saturday.
As some of you may recall, First Baptist Church bought 18 acres of land for expansion in the near future. It is about a mile past where we live. On one of my evening runs I decided to swing in there and check up on things. I discovered that a man had just cleared about 3 acres of land on our neighbor’s ranch and planted some new manioc on his place and in ours, too. The rancher paid the guy some cash to get him out of his hair and not have to take him to court. Since the church doesn’t feel that it would be appropriate to pay the man, we have decided that now is the time to get all of our fences and gates up to par. I have been working out there for several days now. Several of our men have taken time to help out, also. We have been cleaning out brush, did some plowing and fencing. I could tell you more, but let me just say: September and October are our hottest months of the year. This afternoon I decided to sit in the AC of my office and write you. Thank you very much for stopping my machete!
We have been having huge crowds at church for weeks now. We have actually had 48 more in September on average over August in our evening services. The morning services added another 146. We have had 3 people saved in each evening service for the past 5 weeks (all of September and the first Sunday of October). We have had several more requests for baptism. Of course several have moved away, too. Levi and Eliane just retired from Bank of Brazil and moved to Curitiba, Paraná to take care of her elderly mother. Levi was still single when I became pastor. He married a Presbyterian, who I baptized many years ago. Hard to lose such faithful people. He was one of those original 40 members that I had when I became pastor 37 years ago.
Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.
In Christ,
Mike 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 [March 2014]
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.
March 8, 2014
Dear Brethren,
The state of Acre has 22 “county seats” (municipalities). First Baptist Church has planted churches in 6 of those, including the 2 largest -Rio Branco (347,000) and Cruzeiro do Sul (80,000). Most of the others have some kind of Baptist church, so we have not done much to get into those cities. There are still 2 of these cities that do not have a Baptist church. They are Jordão on the upper Tarauacá River and Santa Rosa do Purús on the upper Purús River and right on the Peruvian border.
We have taken the gospel to most of the cities through Projeto Ide (Project Go). This year we took Ide to the city of Jordão. Usually we take as many as 70 people. Since Jordão is so remote and hard to get to, we only took 35 people.
Projeto Ide gives medical and dental assistance to the local population, with free medicine. We also have haircuts, hygiene classes and dental hygiene classes. There are arts & crafts classes, as well as culinary classes. Sometimes we distribute used clothing and have a soup kitchen. There are activities for the kids. We do door-to-door evangelism and hold services every night.
The first service held by a Baptist Church in the town of Jordao, Acre.
Jordão is a LONG way from anywhere. Thirteen of our team went by truck to Tarauacá. That is 150 miles from Cruzeiro do Sul. Then they took all the supplies and went up the Tarauacá River for another 215 miles in a big flat bottom boat. It took them 4 days. Hudson and I trailered one of my small boats with 25HP outboard to Tarauacá where we spent the night. The next morning we left early and it took us 10 and a half hours to Jordão. The next day we flew 20 more team members in on 4 MAF flights.
After all arrived and setup finished we started work. 800 people received medical and dental attention over 3 days. We had big crowds for the all the activities. The gospel was shared in every home. Our members had to wade some major mud to reach some of the houses. There were 157 professions of faith. 34 of those were made publicly during evening services.
The total population of Jordão is 7,147. Over half of these are Kaxinauá Indians. The need for a church there is great. At the close of our final service, after my message, Zico (our missions director) asked for a show of hands of those who wanted us to plant a church there. Every hand went up. Then a surprising thing happened. The crowd broke in to spontaneous applause. I think they want a church!
Last night we presented our report to almost 400 people during our prayer meeting. The church is excited about sending a missionary there. It was one great service. We are praying and fasting that God will give us the right folks to send.
The trip was hard on me and the equipment. I had to order $958.51 of parts for the outboard. A new prop shaft, props and seals. Ouch! It is worth the effort though. Thousands heard the gospel and 157 saved.
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 [December 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.
December 2, 2013
Dear Brethren,
The first higher waters of the new rainy season have arrived. The river came up a little in early November. Hudson, Manuel and I made a visit to our work at Porto Walter. This trip had been planned a couple of months in advance, but we were not sure which boat we would go in. The Lord sent enough water for me to go in my bigger boat, one with a top on it to keep us out of the sun and rain. It was smooth sailing with no sudden encounters with stumps or sandbars.
The building was packed for all 4 services. Hudson took the boat on up river for a couple of days to visit 3 other preaching points. There were 2 professions of faith at Novo Horizonte. Meanwhile, back at Porto Walter we had 4 more saved. We also had the biggest baptism service in the history of the work there. I baptized 26 on Sunday morning. Our missionaries there are Alexandre and Rejane. They are doing a great job.
Mike Creiglow baptized 26 people at Porto Walter, the biggest baptismal service in the history of the work there.
Also, in November I visited 2 of our chapels here in town. The first visit was to Cruzeirinho. This is our work on the west side of town. They are still in their wooden building, but are to start a new brick building early next year. The other visit was to Avenida São Paulo. This is on the north side of town. They, too, are doing very well. Right now they are putting in the ceiling and soon will be putting AC in the main auditorium.
Since we are packed out on Sunday night at First Baptist Church we decided to let the chapels start having Sunday evening services. We have still had mostly capacity crowds on Sunday night. It has now been 2 months that we did this change. So far we have had just 2 services with a few empty seats in the balcony of the home church. I have gotten so used to seeing the building completely full on Sunday night over the past 20 years that this new phase seems strange and a little scary to me. Gotta fill those seats!
We have works on the North, South, East and West sides of town. Not too long ago we added 2 more chapels. One is on the other side of the Juruá River and the other on the Northeast side of town in a neighborhood called Centrinho. Both of these already have property. Miritizal, across river, has already started their building. Foundation and slab are finished.
Bro. Creiglow helped build the first truss for the church at Guajará that is currently bursting at the seams in their old building.
Bev and I went to visit the congregation at Campinas. Luiz Alberto and Alcinete take care of this work. They have had some opposition from within over the past couple of months, which I have tried to help them with. We have met a number of times to walk them through the problems. Seems to be under control. One of the original members from when the work was first started is feeling threatened now that the work is finally taking off. They have outgrown their wooden building and will be starting a big brick building soon. There were over 200 present for the Sunday night service. They had almost that many in the morning.
Last week I visited the work at Guajará 5 times. Now that there is a road there I have been able to go just to work during the day. I have been helping them with the next stage of their new building. They are bursting at the seams in their old building. This week I built the first truss for them. Their carpenter will take over from here.
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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