May 1, 2002

Dear Brethren,

I'm back! It only took me six months, but here I am. Let me apologize for the long dry spell, with no letters. I got so caught up in work when we came back from the States that I let work take control. Today is a holiday in Brazil and this is the first day I have taken time out to rest up a little. Beverly has been telling me it is time to slow down. This morning I sat down with a book after breakfast, but only got through a couple of chapters and fell asleep. I slept for almost 3 hours. This afternoon I managed another couple of chapters in my book and another hour of shut eye. In a little while I will be off to preach at one of our churches in the interior, but that is fun, not work. Anyway, I'm sorry about the lack of letters. 

Beverly and I arrived from the States on a Saturday afternoon in late October. The next day I was already busy preaching at First Baptist. On Monday morning I was off to the mountains on the Moa River for one of our medical mission trips. Those first few days back here set the stage for the next few months of frenetic activity. The results have been really good though. On that first river trip there were 28 people saved and over 800 medical procedures performed by our doctors and dentists.

When we got back home we decided it was time to paint our house and remodel at least 3 rooms. We stayed in a hotel for the first month until all the work was finished on the house. Although we are working on building our new house, we wanted to get this one in good shape for some of our children to live in once we move. Our youngest daughter, Cristina, is married to one of our pastors. They live in the building where the TV studio will soon be installed. They will move into our old house at the same time that we move into our new one. All of this construction has really put a dent in my time. Fortunately, we are close to finishing and moving.

There is lots of news to send your way, so I will have to give you just the highlights in this letter and then send a few more letters to fill in the blanks.

Our home church, First Baptist, did very well while we were away. There were a few discipline problems that they had put off and these were preventing more growth. We were still having good crowds, but not as large as normal and not many people were being saved. Once we sorted through these problems, which was quite difficult because of the delay, then things turned around. We were able to bring some back into fellowship, but others had to be excluded. The Lord has always honored the church's decision to be pure with more growth and better unity. Over the past few weeks we have had a steady stream of people saved and big crowds in all services.

Our School has started the new school year with more students and a more refined and fine tuned group of teachers. Pastor Pedro is the head of this ministry.

We have also started a new semester of our seminary. I am teaching 2 subjects this time around and this has also put some serious pressure on my schedule. We have 27 students enrolled. Some of these are not going to make it, but we should still have a good solid group all this year.

In my next letter I will tell you more about the work in the interior and some of my trips out to some remote locations. Thanks to all of you who read the letters, send your money and pray for us. Thanks also for your patience with me. A special word of thanks to all those individuals and churches who are helping us pay for the TV equipment. There will be some more exciting news to report about this ministry. God is opening some more doors there.

May God bless all of you just as much as He has us.

In Christ,

Mike Creiglow