Posted January 3rd, 2009 by Wes
I read this today in Beth Moore’s “To Live Is Christ”.
I believe Saul set sail to Jerusalem as a young adolescent with a pure heart; but somewhere along the way the negative influences outweighed the positive, and his purity began to erode. The law became his god. That’s what happens when you take the love out of obedience. The result is the law. Without love for God and His Word, we’re just trying to be good. Nothing will wear you out faster.
Posted January 1st, 2009 by Wes
Brent and Jill arrived at our apartment at 7PM and we met up with the rest of the team an hour later. It had been hot and sunny all day so we were not too concerned about rain (foreshadowing).
- White clothes for the New Year
In Brazil it is customary to wear white clothing and new underwear to welcome in the new year. We had the white clothes part going for us as we tried to blend in. This picture was taken on our balcony. We are on the 12 floor and our balcony generally has a nice breeze. We eat all of our meals and spend a lot of time on the 6×10ft balcony.
I prefer action shots to posing for pictures.
Carrie was talking to Jill (not pictured). I originally walked out in a white T-shirt but when I saw how nice Carrie looked, I knew that I would not be leaving in said shirt.
This shirt is no longer white
An upgrade from the T-shirt. This shirt is no longer white.
Team Toasting the New Year
As you can see there is no drinking age in Brazil. Just kidding, it’s juice. We toasted in the new year as a team although not at full strength (Nathan and Sara arrive in March). We started feeling sprinkles shortly after this photo was taken.
Rain & Fireworks
At 10:30 it started pouring. The newspaper anticipated 400,000 people on the beach last night so as you can imagine there was not enough room under the trees for everyone to escape the rain. The shirts came off, the music kept playing and the Brazilians waited in hope that the rain would pass by midnight. At 11:45 the rain stopped and at midnight we had a spectacular fireworks display.
Wet Fireworks
Fogos de artificios (fireworks)
Clara & Rodrigo
These are our new friends Clara and Rodrigo. Clara works at Hotel Resedencial where we stayed for two weeks while we were looking for an apartment. She and her boyfriend Rodrigo have shown us some cool areas in Niteroi and he came over one night and helped me set up our wireless network. After the fireworks, we went to Rodrigo’s apartment where we celebrated the new year with Clara, Rodrigo and 25 members of his family. It was a great party with a lot of great food. Rodrigo’s family was so welcoming and we had a large meal at about 2 AM. We returned home very late declaring our first New Year in Brazil a success.
God has blessed our team so much in the 7 weeks that we have been here. I am excited to see what the Lord will do here in Niteroi in 2009.
Posted December 11th, 2008 by Wes
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. -Joshua 1:9
Waiting for furniture, appliances, etc to be delivered has given me an opportunity to catch up on some reading and this morning I picked up A Gentle Thunder by Max Lucado. Chapter 4 is subtitled The God of Perfect Timing, which could not have been more appropriate. Reading about the emotions he and his wife felt during their first weeks journal entries while on the mission field were a bit more severe but there were similarities to some of our feelings, especially given that we’re missing the holidays with our families. Carrie is currently out searching for curtains to block the intense 6AM sunlight that comes into our bedroom every morning but I can’t wait to share with her what I’ve read this morning. I appreciate Lucado’s summation at the end of the chapter that he learned that at the right time, God comes. In the right way, he appears. I love that he wrote this book in 1995 and now 14 years later the Holy Spirit used the text to truly deliver a message of encouragement. God is always there, he will provide what we need and it will be in perfect timing!
Posted November 20th, 2008 by Carrie
I wanted to send a quick update to all of you to let you know how things are going in “Brasil.” We are doing well and are still living in the hotel because we, or should I say “I,” am having trouble choosing an apartment. We had to move rooms last night at our hotel and ended up having to sleep together in the smallest hotel room I have ever seen, with a twin bed—it was a funny night! We are back in a regular room tonight. Please pray for us about the apartment. We really want to live where God wants us to and where we can best do our ministry. But, in the meantime, God has blessed us with getting to know the people who work here at the hotel—they are precious and are trying so hard to help us! Last night before we found the “mini suite” room one of the girls here offered to let us stay at her house!
A couple funny stories:
It has been overcast all week–they said this is pretty unusual. It is springtime here and has been raining quite a bit. We went on Monday to look at this GREAT apartment that is on a street with a little canal through the middle of it. On the way there our taxi driver told us and Georgia that that particular street floods often when it rains and that he lived by there and ended up moving because of the flooding. We went to see the apartment and agreed that it was so great. We said, “how bad could the flooding be?” We went downstairs with Ron and Georgia and looked outside to see it raining pretty hard……it kept raining….and raining….The street filled fully and cars were getting stuck! Eventually the canal began running over into the street! We had to stay there for 2 hours and wait for it to go down enough to walk back to our hotel! I love when God gives us immediate answers! (We aren’t getting that place)
Wes and I have been enjoying trying to speak Portuguese. We find ourselves trying even to speak to each other. Today we had been feeling pretty good about how our language was going. We have been able to order more easily at restaurants and even have some basic conversations. Then, tonight we were riding in a cab and the guy said in Portuguese,”You guys speak really slowly.” Thank you?? We just laughed. Brazilians can be brutally honest. Then we got back to our hotel and were talking with a girl who said, ” You guys sound like you are speaking Spanish.” So, no need to feel overly confident yet! We have a lot of work to do!
We will keep posting as things progress. Please also pray for us to find a good language teacher who will bless us and help us to communicate our best.
Posted November 17th, 2008 by Carrie
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Here we are on our way to DC--then on to Rio! Our faces are saying, "I can't believe this is really happening!"
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Here are the guys on Ben's balcony. Ben and Ju have found a wonderful apartment! We may all be staying there if we don't find our own soon!
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Here we are at Parque de Sao Bento--this park looks like a rainforest in the middle of the city! Look at the beautiful green water
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We have already had several questions about what this is that Wes is eating....It is our favorite fruit called Acai--we love it! It is blended into something like a smoothy and is delicious.
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Here I am with the huge Christmas tree at Niteroi Plaza Shopping (The malls here are simply called "shopping")
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The view from The Belvedere building
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Just a typical taxi ride
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Enjoying the "boa vista" beautiful view!
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April, Jill, Carrie and Georgia around the bay looking back at the center of Niteroi
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Here are Brent, Zane, Wes and Ron--now known as "Brente," "Zanao," "Weslinho," and our mentor, "Ronaldo"
Posted August 25th, 2008 by Wes
Carrie and I had a great vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama with our Seat family a few weeks ago. We spent a lot of time on the beach and at the pool. On our last night there, the family competed in the first annual “Thunder on the Track Racing Series” and I’ve posted a few pictures below. Mary was my logical driving partner and below you can see us hugging a turn and bracing for impact with the conservative driver in front of us. The second picture is of David shortly after the first race. David, although hesitant at first, loved the go-kart experience and possibly found a new hobby.
Thunder on the Track
Possibly my favorite David Seat picture ever!
The trip to Gulf Shores was a lot of fun and very memorable.
This past weekend Carrie and I drove down to Fort Worth to visit Nic and Jennifer in their new city. We had a great time with them and enjoyed spending time downtown as well as at their country club. Nic and Jennifer have only been there for a few weeks but they already have some friends in FW and Nic is really enjoying his job. God used Nic and Jennifer in Stillwater to help make a difference in the lives of Micah and Marcel and I’m anxious to see how he will use them in Fort Worth. Below are a few pics of our time with Nic, Jennifer and Mitch.
Nic & Jennifer in Fort Worth
Carrie and Nic
Posted August 5th, 2008 by Wes
The last two weeks have been very busy for Carrie and I. On 7/23-7/25 we attended the Global Missions Conference in Arlington, TX. It was great to meet up with our team after being apart for 3 weeks. We got a lot done in our team meetings and had a lot of fun spending time with our teammates and meeting people interested in Brazil.
Last week Carrie and I had the opportunity to work as counselors at Camp Pettijohn, which is located on the surface of the Sun in Southeast Oklahoma. We had a hot great experience and had a lot of fun with the Park Plaza Youth Group despite the record temps. Carrie and I both got to teach classes individually using the books “Wild At Heart” and “Captivating” as our guides. We had such a good time at camp and were encouraged by the 6 campers that were baptized during the week.
We are two months away from moving to Brazil and it is hard to believe that it is almost here.
Posted July 14th, 2008 by Wes
Gonna set my watch back to it
’cause you know that I’ve been through it.
Living on tulsa time.
- I posted “Living on Tulsa Time” as the title of this blog simply because we are living in Tulsa for the next 3 months and because it’s the only song I know that is about Tulsa. After completing the 6 month internship with our team in Dallas, we are in Tulsa where the air is cleaner, the grass is greener and even in rush hour, traffic is never bad.
- Because of the Owsley’s generosity, Carrie and I have a great house that is only a few blocks from the church. It’s good that it is close because I sold my truck a few weeks ago and we are now down to the Montero and riding bikes. Our first few weeks in Tulsa have been great, working at the church during the day and meeting members for dinner, activities at the church or participating in Bible studies at night. One of the activities that we participated in last week was filling in on a volleyball team that was in the semi-finals. Some of the regular team members couldn’t play so Carrie and I were asked to step in. Neither of us are good at volleyball so we pretty much submarined the team we were playing for.
- Over the 4th of July weekend, we were blessed with sunny skies and good times with our family at the lake. It is hard to imagine not being at the lake for the 4th next year but it will make us even more excited to get the family down to Brazil.
- This past weekend we went to Beaver Lake with our KC friends and enjoyed golfing, skiing and boating. Our time in KC and our friends there are very special to us and we had a great time hanging out this past weekend.
- Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to Memorial Rd. COC in OKC and participate in their missions Sunday. Memorial Rd. is a special place and they have been generous with us by contributing to our one time moving fund.- I am anxious to see how God is going to use us while we’re here at Park Plaza for these 3 months, and I am hopeful that we can set up a weekly Bible Study at the Normandy Apartments near Park Plaza. Please keep this possible opportunity in your prayers.
Posted June 19th, 2008 by Wes
Our time training with our team has quickly come and gone. On June 30th Carrie and I will be moving to Tulsa to begin 3 months of work with Park Plaza before heading to Niteroi on October 13th.
The last several weeks of training have been very busy and in keeping with our Gotcher family tradition, we have traveled during the last 5 weekends. One of those weekends was spent with our entire team in Tulsa visiting Park Plaza. It was great to be able to introduce our team to the church and I preached for the first time in my life. Actually for the 1st, 2nd & 3rd time in my life because there were 2 AM services and I gave a team report during the evening service. You can hear the sermon at this link below if you scroll down to 06/08/2008.
http://parkplaza.org/pages/sermons.html
We will attempt to be more active in the blogosphere now that we’ll be moving to Tulsa. Also, you can see our first team newsletter at the link below:
http://www.niteroimission.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/The_Bridge_Vol_I_Iss_I.pdf
