Plenty to Celebrate

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.
Ismael, his plane, my mission team plus Missionary Lucas and his daughter Ester at the airport in Santa Rosa do Purús, Acre Lucas, Diana and Ester (Santa Rosa)
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.
Baptism Missionary Idevaldo and family (Jordão) New building at Jordão
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.
Read more
Sarah Returns from Mission Trip + A Look at Steward Leadership

August 20, 2022
Dear friends,
Thank you for your faithful financial support & prayer. Please, pray for me as I will undergo several surgical procedures in the coming weeks. 1) The removal of the port catheter from my chest (cancer-free & no longer needed). 2) Surgery on my hands/wrists due to severe carpal tunnel (I am looking forward to the pain relief). Also, pray for 3) Laura as she continues her cochlear implant hearing therapy. 4) Our return to São Paulo at the end of this year. 5) The church ministries conference at Nova Baptist Church in Manaus, where several pastors and leaders from across the country are flying in for the occasion.
Sarah returned from her two-month mission trip in the Amazon. The Lord used her mightily, and she learned so much while there. Our four children started back to school this week. In September, Raquel will attend a foster care/orphan care conference in Georgia. She is looking forward to this special event.
I have trained leaders with the “servant leadership” framework for the longest time. Within the last year, conviction has grown in my heart for the “steward leadership” framework instead. Let me share a little about “steward leadership.” One of the most outstanding steward leaders in Scripture is Joseph. What a leader and administrator! According to author Kent Wilson (2016), “A steward is someone who manages resources belonging to another person in order to achieve the owner’s objectives.” Wilson discusses the role and responsibilities of the steward. Particularly important for the steward are work ethic, personal virtues, absence of personal vices, training and experience, loyalty to the accountability structure and relationships, wise use of resources, and practical management skills.
In his book, Rodin (2010), addresses the age-old debate “nature-versus-nurture” and posits that leaders are “freed to lead”. As his primary thesis, this freedom fosters holistic transformation and renders an obedient response from born-again believers. This obedient response establishes the person’s work effectiveness. He continues, “Our call to be stewards is based on our acceptance of each as a gracious gift and our rejection of the lure to play the owner.” We are freed from self, equipped by God according to each calling. In addition, “We were created as caretakers of creation, and in Christ, we have been restored to that high and holy calling.”
Steward Leadership is a worldview mindset where a called individual is a learner who leads as a proctor administrator, free of second intentions, where with high integrity and character serves another and is responsible for resources (or an organization) with full-fledged decision-making authority and is accountable for those responsibilities, the use of power and the strategies implemented (Rodin, 2010; Simmons, 2019; and Wilson, 2016).
The steward leader is a servant at heart, but not every servant is a steward leader. This leadership lifestyle involves self-denial but not lacking confidence to influence people and outcomes. A steward leader is deeply accountable, trustworthy, and empowered to mobilize and delegate to successfully lead within all levels of an organization, selflessly empowering and encouraging people within his sphere (Simmons, 2019).
If you love to read and acquire new insights. Check out these resources:
* Rodin, S. (2010). The Steward Leader. Downer’s Grove, Intervarsity Press.
* Simmons, B. (2019). LDR 9610 Unit 1 Lecture HD. Online Studies, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOv8eyIeKSg&list=PLHAVnCRu3fmg6wLpFmZFrP80dOhf04GEs&index=12
* Wilson, K. R. (2016). Steward Leadership in the Nonprofit Organization. Intervarsity Press.
Thank you for your love!
Jud Hatcher
Contact Info:
Jud & Raquel Hatcher
São Paulo, Brazil
judsonhatcher@gmail.com
(872) 400-6522
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.
Read more
Rolling Up Sleeves at Church is Providing Discipleship Opportunities

Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
April 4, 2018
Dear Friends,
We just celebrated the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday with a wonderful turnout at our special services. One of the most exciting things to me was that we had so many unchurched folks in attendance. Our members did such a great job of inviting unsaved family and friends to hear the gospel message. We are now praying that the message they heard will be used of the Lord to open their hearts to surrender to Christ as their Lord and Savior.
One of our traveling teams is leaving today on a one-month trip to the extreme western region of our state where they will be helping in new church plants of three local churches. There are 12 young men and women who will be sleeping on mats and cots during this trip and sharing the gospel in public schools and squares. This is their second long-distance trip this year. The new vans that some of you helped to purchase are really being a blessing. With them, the trips are much more economically efficient and less tiring on the team members as well. We are praying that the Lord will bless all their efforts in sharing the gospel and that many people will hear and receive the message with open hearts.
We have been extremely busy working on the maintenance and repairs of our facilities. In order to save money, we have been doing most of the labor ourselves. That has made for some long tiring days, but it also goes a long way showing the community and recent church attenders that we are willing to roll up our sleeves and work alongside our people. I also tried my hand at cabinet making with old pallet wood that turned out to look and function very well and saved us a bunch of money. As I was doing the job, I really enjoyed having the opportunity of mentoring a few men who volunteered to help me. We got several weeks of daylong discipling sessions in during the course of the work projects and they seemed to have developed a greater sense of participation in church life.
I didn’t ask for permission to use his name, so I’ll just say that we are very grateful to an anonymous pastor for the generous donation of funds to purchase a much needed vacuum cleaner for our home and church. We are grateful and we trust that God will bless you for this gift. I also want to thank all of our supporters who give regularly so that we can be here to minister and plant churches for Christ’s glory.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279
Sobrado 1, Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR. Brasil
Phone: 55-41-99899-2333
bobbymichael_1[at]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
Read more
Missionary Update: The Tates in Kenya [February 2015]

The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is indigenous church planting.
February 5, 2015
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Wow! What an exciting month we’ve had here in Kenya. It’s been exciting because it has revolved around the visit of Pastor Darrell Messer and his dear wife Shirley. Just in case you didn’t know, Pastor Messer is one of the directors of BFM, but he also just happens to be my own pastor from my own church back in Bellbrook, Ohio. When my family moved to Ohio and started attending Emmanuel Baptist Church in Bellbrook back in 1980, Pastor Messer was already the pastor there; he and Shirley have been there ever since then. So needless to say, these people are very dear to my heart. They have been trying to get here to Kenya for a few years, but their plans up to now have always been thwarted. But, they arrived here in Kenya two weeks ago, and now as I write this report we are on the eve of them returning to Nairobi to catch a flight to France where they will visit BFM missionary John Hatcher.
We’ve packed a lot into the past two weeks. After a couple of days in Nairobi allowing them to catch up from jet-lag and allowing us to worship on Sunday in English, we headed home to Kitale. Their first morning in Kitale gave them a rude welcome to missionary life in Kenya as I looked at the water tank and, behold, NO WATER! While Pastor and I scrambled around town trying to jimmy up some way of getting water, I had visions of severe water rationing and what it might look like to our guests if we couldn’t take showers or flush the toilet for two weeks. Welcome to Kenya, Pastor and Shirley! Fortunately by early in the afternoon the water supply was flowing again and I could put that worry behind us for a while. Although the morning plans got trashed because of the lack of water, we were able to tour Kitale in the afternoon – walking through the market with its mounds of second hand clothes, piles of stinking fish, blaring music and stares from the Kenyan people who were not used to seeing that many Americans in one place. In the days to come we visited some of our Kenyan friends in their homes, and spent a day at In-Step Children’s Home as well as getting to see the ministries we are involved in. Here are some of our activities for the week: On Thursday, Pastor and I did some evangelism in town and started up a new Basic Christianity class for which we did get one student to attend. On Friday we attended one of our classes which one of our students taught. We have been trying to teach him how to effectively teach the Word of God. On Saturday we went to a new group that Nathan and I started which meets in the home of Kefa and Matilda. We had 27 people attend the group that morning where we sang, worshipped God and studied God’s Word together. Saturday afternoon we went to the prison where Nathan ministers. We were able to meet his men and hear them sing to us, and then we watched as Nathan taught them from the Word of God. Sunday found us worshipping with Pastor Kirui at Bethel Baptist Church and then fellowshipping together with the other Kitale missionaries later in the afternoon. Throughout the week Pastor and I ate lunch at my favorite dive of a restaurant in town, Mama Chiku’s. I think Pastor has found a new favorite place to eat. I had a hard time convincing anyone else to join us there though.
The highlight of the trip for me though, was when Pastor, Josiah and I were able to head up into the Kenyan bush and visit the Pokot people. The temperatures were oppressive, we slept in tents, ate rice and goat every day, and got filthy from the dust. But we preached a few times from the Word of God, encouraged the local ministers, met some new people, and showed the Jesus Film a couple of times – the result of which was that a number of people professed faith in Christ. Pastor was even asked to help a local pastor with some baptisms. We went to the river, dug out a shallow spot in which the baptisms could take place, and did the baptisms. Thirty feet away were two dead crocodiles floating in the water. They had been killed by the locals some time earlier. It made me keep looking around to see if there were any other critters swimming around that we needed to be aware of.
We love Pastor and Shirley and have thoroughly enjoyed their visit. We will be sorry to see them go. Blessings to you both, Pastor and Shirley!
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in East Africa,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Emily, Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
Read more