The Oldest New Believer: 109 Years in Darkness, Now a Child of Light!
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.
May 8, 2025
Dear Brethren,
Lots of news. My problem is that I would rather be out making news than reporting the news. My last report was January and here we are in May!
Here at First Baptist Church things are moving along nicely. Attendance is moving up steadily. We are now well past pre-pandemic numbers. We have had several services with over 800. Sunday morning and Sunday night attendance are running neck and neck at 600 plus, which indicates to me a healthy church. We had 6 more saved last week and baptized 27 the week before.
Our missionaries are very active. We had 2 teams on the Boa Fé River last month. One team worked from Gama upstream. The other team worked from the mouth to Gama. We have nice size congregations at Gama and Generoso which are at about half the length of the river. We have a full-time missionary couple at Gama.
Last week we had 2 more teams working the Liberdade River. The Transamazon Highway crosses the Liberdade 82Km from Here. Our teams went house to house from the bridge to the mouth of the river. There were a number of professions of faith. The largest village, Santa Catarina, (over 300 people) had been closed to us until recently. One of our missionaries is José Rondisson. He won another José to Christ. That in and of itself is a big deal. But even bigger is that Sr. José is 109 years old! He lives by himself in a little house beside his daughter’s house. He gets around quite well and was sitting in his rocking chair when Rondisson came to share the gospel with him.
The river has been high for several months, so I have been out there taking advantage of the high water to visit churches and congregations. There is plenty to tell, but I will limit to just one visit.
On my last visit to the works along the Peruvian border I was at São José on the Breu River. The Breu River is the border between Peru and Brazil. The river runs from east to west and dumps into the Juruá River (our main river). I went in my larger boat. The river was high when I left, but very low when I arrived at the border. They had gone 8 days without a drop of rain. We took 5 canoes up the Breu River to get to São José which is a Hunikuim Indian reservation 35 miles upstream.
The canoe I was in had a top, so I was somewhat protected for the elements. When we reached the village, the natives were all decked out in their outfits and paint. They had their clubs and bows and arrows. They were dancing and singing on the riverbank. All friendly, by the way. It had started to drizzle a little bit, so I stayed in the canoe hoping that they would forget about me. I knew what was coming, but the chief came down and asked me if I could get out. So,alas. I had to face the inevitable! They grabbed me by both arms and paraded me around the grounds and up to the “great house”. This is a large thatch covered meeting hall with crude plank benches around the perimeter. They had planned to circle around the compound 3 times, but because of the rain they cut it back to one round. Once inside the great house they seated me in a hammock which was the white “chief’s” throne of honor. This is how they see and treat me, so that is what I have to put up with and go along with.
That night we dedicated the building that had just been finished. We gave them the zinc roofing last year. The Indians sawed the lumber (much of it mahogany!). They had to carry it piece by piece for over an hour and a half through the jungle. They had some 50 guys carrying the lumber for several days. We sent a carpenter with the plans to do the actual construction. The building was packed out for all services. I preached in Portuguese and the Hunikuim pastor, Brother Aldenir interpreted. Most of them understand Portuguese and many of them speak it, too. Their services are all in their native tongue using a translation of the Bible in Hunikuim. Many of their songs are from hymns or choruses that you would recognize. Others are their own compositions. It is an interesting situation to say the least.
These folks like to eat. Lots of food, just don’t ask questions! They have horn made out of a reed and the hollowed tail of a giant armadillo that they use to call everybody to the mess hall for meals.
On Sunday morning they blew the horn at 4:00AM. I didn’t get up. Later I asked the horn blower what that was all about. He said that was the special call to the women to get up and go to the kitchen to make breakfast. So, wake up the whole village so that 10 or 15 women can go fix breakfast!
Okay.
On Sunday morning I baptized 16 as the tribe sang “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” in Hunikuim. Now I know that this letter is way too long already, but I can’t resist telling you 2 more things about my visit to the tribe. One is an oddity, the other is a miracle. Late on the first day there somebody informed me that the schoolteacher has a Starlink satellite antenna and if I wanted, I could get on the internet. So I went up the hillside behind the village to the teacher’s house. When I got there, I saw about 15 Indians with their cell phones surfing the world wide web! This is just crazy. I whipped out my phone, pulled up WhatsApp and made a video call to Beverly. Still crazy. Years ago Bev had no idea where I was or how I was while on these long mission trips. Now I am hundreds of miles out in the bush and can talk to here and see her beautiful face. That is not the miracle though.
It had now been 10 days without any real rain on the upper reaches of the Juruá River. The river is already critically low for my boat, and I am still 2 days away from time to return to Cruzeiro do Sul.
That means I might not be able to return, so I am a little concerned. After calling Bev I decided to take advantage of the teacher’s internet service to look up a site that shows satellite images of current weather conditions. Lo and behold there was one, just one giant rain cell in Peru over the headwaters of the Juruá River. This storm was just about 20 miles across the border and centered right over the main river. The rest of the region had not one little cloud in a radius of 600 or more miles. My next prayer was not, “Please Lord, send rain”, but rather, “Thank You, Lord, for the miracle”. That night the river was still going down. The next morning, I got up at 5:00 AM and went to the riverbank to see the effects of that miracle. The river had already come up 3 feet! The God who created everything created a downpour on one isolated place that had not had rain for many days and where there was no rain in the forecast for many more days. He did that. Not an accident. Not a fluke. He loves me that much. My team and I had a leisurely breakfast with our missionary at Foz do Breu then sailed easily back to our homes on Monday morning. He loves me beyond measure.
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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Special Pizza Day for Unchurched Friends
May 21, 2024
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We pray and hope that you have had a wonderful, blessed month. We have had a great month with lots of activity at the church.
We had a special friends’ pizza day at the main church. The goal was to bring friends that were not church people to the special day. What was wonderful was that several people got involved in putting things together and helping serve the pizza. The youth help make the pizzas and help serve pizza and drinks. We had lots of people that came. There were around 200 people there. Then we also had Mother’s Day supper. That special day is put together by the fathers and the kids. That was also great. We had mothers who came from the Ubim mission. We had a sermon first then worship while the food was being served. It was fantastic.
This month, the Lord willing, we will start back working on the church building of Cacau and the camp. We have had lots of rain which makes it difficult to work outdoors. Now the rainy season is slowing down which helps.
We are also in process of training some new people to take over the mission at the village of Multirão. Kathy started there, and after a year, a group from Manaus took over the ministry. They were there for 9 years. They informed us that they are moving so they are turning over the mission back to us. So, for the next month while they get ready to move, we are taking different adults and youth to see who will take over the mission. Pray that God will place the people that will take over with a passion for God and ministry.
We want to thank each one of you for your prayers and support. You are an important part in our ministry. May God bless each one of you.
Love in our Lord and Savior,
Odali and Kathy Barros
Pizza Day
Mission of the Village of Multirão
Contact Info:
Odali & Kathy Barros
Iranduba, Amazonas
Brasil, SA
odali_kathy@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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Is this Place Cursed?
May 10, 2024
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,
Is this place cursed?
Yes, I have actually been asking myself that question this month. You may recall that just last year around this time I was asking for prayers because the area was plagued by drought, we had no water, and all the crops were drying and dying. We even had forest fires that I saw from my kitchen window and wondered how long before I would have to evacuate. We prayed to God for months for rain and it finally came, but not in time to save all the crops. Once the rain started last year, it hasn’t really stopped raining. And now? Well, now we have so much everyday, heavy rain that the country is flooding. And I don’t mean just a little flooding here and there. I mean so much flooding that it has reached international news (you may have seen it). If you have watched any international news in the last few weeks, you may have heard of a place called Mai Mahiu. Mai Mahiu is a town down in the Rift Valley. I see this town down in the valley every time I look out my back porch. Early last week, in the middle of the night, a temporary dam caused by downed trees and debris broke and the backed-up water rushed like a torrent down the escarpment. This dam was only about one mile north of our house and a few hundred meters up the escarpment. I say this because it did not miss us by very much. It was very close. Anyway, the escaped water tore down the escarpment, wiping out everything in its path. It hit the valley floor, almost like a bomb, and the water continued to pour into the valley floor all night long. It destroyed everything – EVERYTHING – in its path and wiped out an entire square kilometer of land on the valley floor before it ran across the valley and disappeared somewhere on the other side. All the trees were uprooted, all the houses it hit were destroyed, and hundreds of sleeping people were buried in mud before they even knew what hit them. Over a hundred people were killed and many more were and are still missing. Now, when I look out over the valley from my back porch, I am no longer seeing forest fires, but I see the wiped-out area where the flood hit and the ugly brown path of mud the water traversed after it hit the valley floor. I can look through binoculars and see destroyed houses, half-buried and overturned cars and buses, and rescue workers looking for survivors. It is a terrible tragedy and most everybody from up here in Kijabe knows somebody who was affected, including Julie and me. And, the rain still didn’t stop. Water is running down all the streets, the ground is saturated to the point where crops cannot be planted, and the water in our tank is muddy-brown and not drinkable. Now we are pleading with God that the rain would stop before more devastation occurs. The following scenario is very strange it is difficult to accept: Pray to God for rain; pray for rain; pray for rain; pray for rain; pray for rain; finally get some rain; thank God for the rain; get more rain; get more rain; get more rain; flooding; flooding; flooding; pray to God to stop giving us rain. Are you getting the idea of why I’m asking myself if this place is cursed?
So, this place is NOT cursed. However, the people of Kenya DO live lives that are much more difficult than I can imagine. If it is frustrating for me to see and experience, I cannot begin to imagine how frustrating it must be for them. Despite tragedy, the faith of the believers here remains strong, though, and I am encouraged that the Christians here are leading the way by sharing and showing the love of Jesus. On the morning of the flood and mudslide in the valley, I was in a prayer meeting with some of my students at the college. We were praying for the victims of the mudslide in the valley when one of my students was overcome with grief and said: “I’ve prayed enough. I need to go down there and help those people. Why am I still up here when I can look down there and see that area covered in mud?” His comment left us all speechless. In a couple of days, these beloved students, these pastors and church leaders in training DID mobilize themselves into action. They got up early on their weekend day off, prepared food and clothing for flood victims, and hiked down into the valley to pray and help. I have provided a picture of a group of my students. They are gathered in a circle praying, kneeling in the mud, with downed trees and devastation all around them. Thank you, God, for this great group of people who love Jesus, love their fellow humans and neighbors, and want to show the love of Jesus to them. May they be an inspiration to all of us to do the same: love and trust You, love our neighbor, and share the love of Jesus with them in word and action.
Blessings to all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe
CONTACT INFO
Roger & Julie Tate
Moffat Bible College
P.O. Box 70
Kijabe, Kenya 00220
rojuta@gmail.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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Rain and Showers of Blessing
April 8, 2023
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,
First, I want to give you a quick update on the drought situation here in Kenya since I have been speaking about it in the last couple of newsletters. I want to say, “Praise the Lord!” This past month we have been getting rainfall in good quantities and the Lord has blessed us with rain. I really wasn’t crying “wolf” in previous newsletters. Kenya does have yearly dry seasons, but this season was extraordinarily dry for a much longer period. We thank the Lord that we have received rain here in Kijabe but the crop and economic situation for many Kenyans is still dire. We need the rains to continue, and I still don’t know what the drought will mean for the crops this year. We are still very much dependent upon the Lord’s blessings.
Second, it seems like there is always some kind of catastrophe to be praying about here in Kenya. Now we are facing weekly tumultuous riots, mainly in Nairobi. We went through a stressful presidential election last year and now the candidate that lost (who has been running and losing for the last forty years) has called his people to riot in the capital until some of his demands are met. So, his people have obeyed and are rioting in and around Nairobi, burning things, hurting people, causing trouble, and preventing business. Oh, what can I say? I understand so little of Kenyan politics, but I can’t see how this is helping the Kenyan people. Please don’t lose patience with me but it seems I’m always asking you all to pray for peace in Kenya, and I’m doing it again now.
School is currently on break and the students are home resting, doing ministry, and spending time with family. With school being out I have had a couple of opportunities to speak at a couple of churches. The first church was by far the biggest church I have spoken at in Kenya. It probably had six to seven hundred people in it. That’s probably close to the largest congregation I have preached to in my life. The second church was a church that one of my students is a member of. He and his pastor invited me to come and preach. It was a considerably far drive and I got to see a large portion of Kenya that I had never seen before. My student told me that there were two services with about 300 people in each service, so I was expecting a fairly large town. After I arrived and checked into my guest house I went to “town” to see what it was like. Can I just say, there was nothing there. The whole town consisted of about ¼ mile of wooden shacks on either side of the road. It certainly wasn’t what I expected. But the student was correct, and I preached to two services of about three to four hundred people each. Simple, gospel messages that focus on Jesus and salvation to a total of about 1200-1400 people. What a privilege. Now, in the meantime, I am busy preparing classes for my students returning next term. I am looking forward to teaching them 1) General Epistles of the New Testament and 2) Church Planting.
Blessings to all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe
CONTACT INFO
Roger & Julie Tate
Moffat Bible College
P.O. Box 70
Kijabe, Kenya 00220
rojuta@gmail.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: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [March 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.
March 11, 2015
Dear Brethren,
Two and a half months into 2015 and we have had only 4 days with no rain. Many of the river towns of our state have had the biggest floods in history. Thousands of families, not individuals, but families are out of their homes. Cruzeiro do Sul sits so high that we have not had as much trouble. It is wet beyond belief though. I can’t mow our grass. I had some papaya trees that were producing, but have died and papaya is tropical and likes water!
The rains haven’t hurt attendance that much though. At this point we are above last year’s averages. Thirty-five new members were added by baptism. This was our first baptism this year. We also held the Lord’s Supper for the first time. We have been praying and working diligently to get the church back in moral and spiritual shape to continue these important life activities. A few more have been saved and a few others added by letter. We still have a way to go to get back to normal, but by God’s grace we will get there.
Since I fired my maintenance man, I have been working long hours trying to get all of the neglected work and repairs caught up. Things are shaping up nicely. It has been a challenge though to keep up preparing quality sermons, daily meditation sheets for the church, preparing lessons for membership classes, counseling, visitation and lessons for seminary classes while hanging doors and mopping floors. This week the Lord made sure I took a day off to rest. I caught some kind of bug and was so sick for a while that I was balled up on the floor in the bathroom. That last sentence was probably more info than you really wanted.
Since we are into more detail than you want….A couple of weeks back I went to teach about security of the believer at one of our congregations way out in the bush. The congregation is past the church at Assis Brasil. After the asphalt ends I continued on a wet messy dirt road for a few more miles then turned right on an even narrower dirt road, then right again, narrower still. The congregation has over 60 members. After introducing the subject and reading the first 2 texts I became suddenly sick and had to excuse myself. I asked them to sing some songs. I rushed out into the bush to “recover”. This all took me by surprise as I had been feeling great. For perhaps the first time in my many years on the mission field I did not have a wad of TP in my hip pocket. Well after my “recovery” I went back in and finished my lesson as if nothing had happened. The folks were very gracious and acted like they didn’t even notice. This had never happened to me in 49 years of ministry. New experiences happen all the time in missions. Most are fun, others not so much.
Please pray for Brazil. You think the US is messed up? Take a look at Brazil. The socialist government of the past 12 years has managed to destroy all the gains made in the brief 8 year experiment with free markets that preceded the present administration. Besides the biggest corruption scandal in human history that is unfolding right now the country has been dragged relentlessly down the social reform path. Brazil is way “ahead” of the US on issues like abortion and gay marriage. Unrest is high and a potentially big nationwide protest is being planned for this coming Sunday. There are even many people calling for the return of the military regime! It’s bad.
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: Mike & Beverly Creiglow in Brazil [November 2014]
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 20, 2014
Dear Brethren,
Hello from under water Cruzeiro do Sul. We have had more rain in November than I can ever remember. The Tarauacá River is already out of its banks with hundreds of people driven from their homes. Even the Juruá River, which is much bigger, is almost to the top of the bank.
Speaking of under water and banks, let’s use the same words for different things. Brazil’s banks are making record amounts of money, but Brazil is “under water”. We are officially in a recession. Cruzeiro do Sul is really in trouble. Our inflation is always 3 times higher than the rest of the country. Last month our church was over $4,000.00 in the red in a budget of $20,000.00. We have 9 missionary families to support besides a few other staff members. Since my return to Brazil after a month’s vacation in the US, we have been able to recover much of the loss. We have 2 new missionaries to send though. I know many of you are going through much the same thing, so that will help you as you pray for us.
We are also having some tough times in our struggles with sin. The wife of one of our chapel pastors fell into adultery and she has not told him yet. One of our single missionaries has fallen into fornication with a lost friend who is now pregnant. We are dealing with other similar cases inside the home church. This has hit us as a wave. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Our missionary at Foz do Breu has decided to resign and become the associate pastor at Thaumaturgo. Pray for a replacement. This is a strategic, very important field right on the border with Peru. One of our Brazilian missionaries, José Maia, who we sent to Peru had his work visa cancelled and is in a huge battle to try to get a permanent visa.
Now, after all the gloom and doom, let me finish with some good news. This month I visited Cruzeirinho. They are growing steadily. They have moved their old wooden building up on the hillside and are building a new brick one. They already have the foundations, slab and some of the walls up. I started this building just before vacation. Porto Walter has finished their foundations and they are gearing up to pour the slab. I started this building program in late August. The work there is also growing. They have been caring for one of our congregations further up river at Vitória. They had been meeting in the school. They just put up a big wooden building and it is already under roof. I was supposed to raise the money for the roofing, but they did it on their own!
Last week we held a Family Workshop and couple’s retreat. At one stretch during those 5 days we had 48 hours of nonstop torrential rain. We still had good turnout. Besides the camp team, there were 42 couples at Salém (our camp).
Then a couple of weeks ago I presented and dedicated my youngest grandson at church. Devin is Andrew and Eline’s fourth child. He is 3 months old today.
Then to cap off the good news I got a call a few days ago from a brother in Rio Branco who decided to donate a brand new state of the art sound system to the church. He bought it at Brazil’s biggest technology fair in São Paulo. It is the most modern system in the world. He put the pile of boxes on a truck and sent a technician by plane to help us do the install. The tech, a half dozen of my guys and I took all day Friday and Saturday to tear out all of the old system and do a complete install from the ground up. I was skeptical about all they said it would do, but it works as billed!
Thanks for all of your prayers and support. Please take some extra time to pray for me as I deal with the huge problems and challenges we are facing. 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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