Headed Home after a Couple Months in the States
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 13, 2018
Dear Brethren,
On May 1st I was visiting our church at Santa Rosa. They were celebrating their 19th anniversary. The house was full and overflowing. Really enjoyed preaching to them. During the message some of our members noticed that my voice sounded different. The next day I was down with the flu. I already had some other health issues, so this really hit me hard.
Two weeks later I was still down while our church was having her missions conference and 89th birthday celebration. I missed out on all the fun. Sunday morning, I missed out on the Lord’s supper and baptism. In fact, I was supposed to baptize my granddaughter Melany. Instead my son-in-law performed the baptism. We added 37 new members.
The next day Bev and I went on a 3-day journey to the United States. We have been here for almost 2 months. Since arriving I have been treated by 9 doctors and countless nurses. I have had 2 surgeries and a bunch of other procedures. My recovery period will be finished in another month. On Monday, July 16th we will be returning to Brazil, God willing.
Many of you knew about this and Bev and I are so grateful to all who have helped in so many ways. For those of you who knew nothing about all of this, let me reassure you that all is well, as far as I know! To all of you: I will not bore you with all the details about the stuff that has been bothering me. Just pray that I will be well enough to carry on what God has called me to do. Once again, thanks to all.
While here in the States I have been able to get some much needed rest. Most of the time I have been reading, walking and watching the World Cup! However, I have been in touch with many of our workers and leaders scattered over a wide area down home. Things are going pretty good. In fact, the church baptized another group of over 30 new members. They also had our annual month of intense Bible study, Scripture memorization and personal evangelism. More about that later. I have even been doing marriage counseling online!
Thanks to all for your understanding during this time of absence from the field. Please continue to pray for my complete recovery. There is a ton of work waiting on me when I get home.
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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Visiting Works in Gama, Santa Rosa, & Centrinho
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 9, 2017
Dear Brethren,
Greetings from Cruzeiro do Sul. The rainy season has finally started for real and the river is up pretty high. It is time to get back on the river with some of the visits to our works a little further away.
Taking advantage of the prolonged dry season, I visited several works along the roads. Zico, Ezi and I visited the new work at Gama. While there I built the first trusses for their building. I took one of our men along to teach him how to build the rest. We are still praying for a couple to move there to take care of the work. Access is easy in the dry season. There is a 30 mile dirt road that winds through the jungle to the Gama River. In the rainy season the only vehicles that can get through are ATVs and with much effort and frustration!
I visited the work at Santa Rosa. We held one of our preachers meetings while I was there. The church is doing well. The pastor is Brother Sadraque. He is a young local who was saved and called right there. He accepted the pastorate after the last pastor left unexpectedly. That was a couple of years ago. Since then Sadraque has done a good job and the church has almost doubled in size. I have been working with him over the last few months to get him through a problem. He feels that he is in the position only temporarily. It still hasn’t soaked in that God put him there.
Bev went with me to visit the work at Centrinho for a weekend meeting. Pastor Marcelo and his wife Neire serve there. They have about 40 people. There were over 70 present for the services while we were there. They meet in a little wooden building, but doing well and growing slowly.
We had another baptism at church this month adding another 38 members.
Our seminary closed out the semester late November with 22 students attending classes. We offered 6 modules this last semester. I taught Bible geography. Lot of fun.
The violence here has gone down a little, but is still rampant. The state AG just put out the stats. Two things are worth quoting. First, the murder rate per 100,000 population is 56. Then if the State of Acre were an independent country it would be the 4th most violent country in the world. He went on to say that a person is more likely to be murdered in the Acre than in Syria. To top it off, the bad guys are now stopping boats on the river to rob and murder their victims. When our members heard about my next trip up river they were concerned. I can’t let this stop me though. Unfortunately, Brazil has the strictest gun laws in the world and I cannot have a weapon. The bad guys all have guns though. In a referendum 95% of the population wants the right to own a gun. Socialism is what it is though and there is not much hope for improvement here.
I am still dealing with health issues. I have continued to work long hard days, but it has not been easy. Not sure that the doctors here are going to find out what ails me. Please continue to pray.
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 [June 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.
June 12, 2014
Today is a big deal any way you look at it. Today is “Valentines Day” in Brazil. Today is the opening game of the World Cup soccer tournament, which is being held in Brazil. The tournament returns to Brazil after our loss in the final match in 1950. The really big deal today though, is that Bev and I have now been married for 44 years! Time flies when you are having fun and boy are we having fun.
Last month I made 2 river trips and 2 road trips visiting our works in the interior. The first trip was to preach a couple of times at Pé da Terra. The church there has really picked up since Aésio took over as pastor. This church is on the road to Mâncio Lima. They are having an attendance over 100 in a very rural setting.
Bro. Creiglow and Pastor Alexandre with floor plans for the new building at Port Walter on the upper Juruá River.
The next trip was up the Juruá River to work with the congregation there on their plans to build a new building. Their old wooden building is shot. They have such crowds that the floor is starting to sag. Even so they are going to shore it up and add another 12 feet to the length of it until they can get the ball rolling on their new facilities. We came to the consensus that they should build a 2 story brick building with 8 classrooms and other rooms on the lower floor and the second floor will be their new auditorium. They will have access to the auditorium directly from street level via a ramp, since the property is on a slope. Upon my return home I drew up the floor plans and virtual views. Last week I took those up to present and explain to the congregation. I have included a picture with Pastor Alexandre and me holding up one of the sets of drawings. They don’t have much money, but they are excited.
PMy next visit was to Santa Rosa. They called one of our guys from First Baptist to be their new pastor. They had been without a pastor for a few months and we had been helping them by sending someone every weekend and sometimes during the week, too. They called Alquimar, nicknamed “Guima”. He and his wife, Isabel, have a little boy called Douglas. Their building is very nice and even has AC! It was packed for the Sunday night service when we officially “installed” him in the pulpit.
Somewhere in there Hudson and I made it back to the mountains on the Moa River. There was still quite a bit of water in the river, so the trip was long but a breeze. We didn’t even get rained on! We had the congregations from República and Serra together for the weekend. On Sunday morning we held a baptism and 14 were baptized.
Last week Hudson and I went all the way back up the Juruá River to the Peruvian border where we gathered 4 of our missionaries and had a 3 day visit with our congregation, too. The river is now very low. We went in my 16’ shallow water boat with 25HP outboard. We managed to get there with the prop drive. However I took the jet drive, just in case. Well it was the case. The river went down another 12 to 18 inches during the days we were there. On Sunday afternoon it took us a couple of hours to switch out the prop drive for the jet pump. We got it all checked out and tested before the last service that evening. We got up at 4 something in the morning and were already on the river by 5:00AM. It was still pitch dark, but that is not a problem for the jet drive as long as you can keep the boat between the river banks. It took us 15 hours to come down stream. It is over 455Km (284 miles) from the border to Cruzeiro do Sul. After we got past the last set of rapids we stopped and switched back to the prop drive. It took us only 28 minutes to make the swap. Otherwise we would have been on the river for 18 hours. By 8:00PM I had the boat out of the water. That was an ordeal, which I am trying to forget. We still have no boat ramp in the largest city on the Juruá River! Beverly was waiting to make me some supper after the 24 hour fast.
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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