Hello Friends of the Niteroi Mission Team! Thank you for visiting the Gotcher Blog. We arrived in Niteroi, Brazil in November and have been taking language classes and settling in as we prepare to plant a church. We will attempt to keep the blog updated as much as possible and you can also find both Wes and Carrie on Facebook. Again thank you for visiting our blog and please keep the church plant and our family in your prayers. We understand that we will not have any success apart from God's desire for this chuch so please pray that we will speak only his words and that his truth will fall on fertile hearts.
We arrived back here in Niterói on Saturday, August 21. We were delayed a couple hours in Atlanta, but we took advantage of that time to enjoy one last round of chips and salsa at On the Border before take off. We slept pretty well on the plane on the way back, in spite of my bulging belly. Once in Rio, we headed to the US line for customs and a long wait. About a minute into our wait Wes nudged me and said that a man was waving for me. I looked up to see one of the customs officials calling me to the side - he said for me to come with him and said Wes could as well. He then escorted us to the very front of the line - I realized that we weren’t in trouble, but just getting the Brazilian treatment for pregnant women! What a blessing! It was a nice welcome back.
We arrived in on Saturday and were excited to be back at O Caminho on Sunday to worship with our church family here. It was exciting to see the familiar faces and to see many new faces. While we were gone our teammates were so busy and did such a fabulous job of reaching out to our city and of integrating people into our church. It has been wonderful to see the fruits of the campaigns that we had in June and July, the outreach events that our team and campaigners hosted, and of the work done by our teammates to draw people into O Caminho. Wes and I both felt very refreshed after our 7 week visit home. We both felt excited to get back into our routine here.
The first week we were back we got to start a new trimester of small groups with a group in São Gonçalo, which is the city that neighbors Niterói and where we have many members from. Wes is leading this small group of about 12 people and we have loved getting to go out each week and study with them. This trimester our 3 small groups are reading through the New Testament in 90 days. It has been such an encouragement to dig deep in God’s Word daily and allow it to touch and speak to our hearts. Each day we answer questions about what we learned about God from the passage, what we learned about ourselves, and how we can apply it to our lives. We have had 3 meetings thus far and in each one it has been awesome to see how different passages touch each of us and to hear what others in the group learned during the week of reading. We are thankful for this group and the time we get to spend together.
The following week we enjoyed our third women’s activity at the church. Juliana is planning our women’s events and all of them have been wonderful. At this event we had lots of wonderful snacks and watched the movie “Fireproof.” Most of the women had not seen the movie and were really touched by it. We sprawled out on the floor and in chairs to enjoy the film. We had several visitors and I loved seeing all the women interacting with each other. It is exciting to see relationships forming.
This week we enjoyed one of the many Brazilian holidays - this one being Brazilian Independence Day on September 7th. On the 7th we did our first outing with the youth that we have attending the church. We rented a van and took them over to Rio to an area-wide youth meeting with other churches in the Rio area. It was so fun to take our kids and to look forward to growing with the youth that we already have. We are having our first youth get together at O Caminho at the end of this month. We are praying for it and excited to see what God is going to do with the youth in this city! Please pray with us for the start of this ministry.
Since we’ve gotten back from the US we have definitely seen my belly growing! Gibson and Graham are growing and at this point weigh around a pound each! We have a lot of fun watching little bumps and even sometimes waves come across my belly. Pregnancy is just so incredible! We love how Brazilians really cherish pregnant people. I have had so many people here come up and touch all over my belly and even many strangers kiss it! It seems that many Brazilians also love twins. When I tell people we are having twins many of them say “Oh! My dream is to have twins!” I love that attitude! It makes us feel so special and blessed with our two boys. We have run into several families with twins and have enjoyed visiting with them and hearing their experiences. One of our neighbors on our floor even has twin boys! So, apparently it’s not just giardia that’s in the water :).
We also decided when we got that we need to take advantage of the cooler weather and try to get the boys’ room together. So, last week Wes went over to Rio to pick up the crib, chest of drawers and armoir that we found for the boys. The crib and the armoir were both disassembled and Wes had planned to put them together this past weekend. We are studying with a couple on Thursday evenings and we told them about our furniture purchase and how Wes was going to put it all together. Brazilians are not nearly as into home improvement projects as people in the US and they asked if Wes really was going to try to put it all together. On Monday they sent over a guy and had payed him to put all the furniture together for us! It was the sweetest and most generous gift. We are so touched by the friends that God is sending us here!
First, praise the Lord, there is light! We have lights up at our building and they look fantastic! We have been running all over the place trying to get everything together for the launch of “O Caminho” on March 7th! It has been crazy not lately so our errands have been pretty tiring. But, it is such a blessing to see the progress. Here I am in front of the lights store making the lights purchase (and sweating )! And, below is Wes in the building with the new lights installed!
Wes with the lights and giving a shout out to our home state.
This weekend after our big week of purchases and errands for the building we decided to go out for a date. We hopped on bus 31 right in front of our building and headed to the mall. We were planning to go to the mall and walk around a little in the fantastic air conditioning and then have dinner. We got off the bus and walked a little ways when Wes started feeling for his wallet–he couldn’t find it and realized it must have fallen out of his front pocket on the bus. We ran back to the bus and asked if they had any way to contact the bus we had just left. Being Rio, they did not so we hopped on the next bus 31 and rode it to the end of the line where we spoke with the manager of the bus line. We gave him our phone numbers and asked if he would call if anyone found it. We returned home for Wes to call and cancel our credit card and I stayed in front of our apartment and stopped every bus 31 that passed to ask if they had found a lost wallet. Several of the bus drivers sort of laughed when I asked them and gave me a “boa sorte” (good luck). We were thankful that Wes had no money in it, but we were just so disappointed thinking about having to re-do his documents here and even his driver’s license from home–plus trying to receive his credit and debit cards! We felt like it was probably gone for good but I just kept asking the Lord to allow it to get in the hands of someone honest who would try to get it back to us. We had a nice day Sunday worshipping at Santa Barbara and then getting together with our team for a football game in the evening. Then Monday we spent half of our language class talking with Charbelle about how to replace Wes’ documents. I went out to run errands Monday afternoon and Wes called saying a lady had called to say her son had found the wallet on the bus! She had tracked us down from a couple of phone numbers that were in Wes’ wallet! Wes went and met her husband and he gave back the wallet saying that he found it with no money in it and he was so sorry if money was taken! Wes wanted to give him a little money to thank him for getting it back to us and blessing our week so much! He said he was a man of God and couldn’t accept any money, but after Wes encouraged him to use it to help his family or to help someone in need, he finally agreed and said the money would be used to help someone in the name of the Lord. Praise God for His people who are still so prevalent in this world! We were both so blessed by seeing God’s hand in this.
We have had a wonderful month of November with my birthday, celebrating our 1 year on the field and lots of work on our upcoming church! This is a picture of Wes doing his first Bible Study/class with our group at Santa Barbara! He has led this study twice and has done a fantastic job! We praise God for bringing us to the place to feel ready to share His Word in our second language!
This picture was taken right after a Girl's Bible Study--It was my first study as well! Praise God, I really enjoyed it and there were about 15 girls there! All of these girls are so precious and we hope to have them at our church when we open in March. We are thankful for these opportunities and look forward to many more!
1. I’m thankful that my salvation is not dependent on my accomplishments but wholly based on what Christ has already done for me.
2. I’m thankful for our Park Plaza family that is making it possible for Carrie and I to live our dream of sharing Christ with people in Niterói.
3. I’m thankful for Carrie.
4. I’m thankful that God uses Carrie to reach and show love to so many young ladies here in Niterói.
5. I’m thankful that the owner of the building we are trying to rent for the church is being very considerate and that we could possibly have the lease signed by next week.
6. I’m thankful for the small group currently meeting in Santa Barbara that wants to join our church when it “officially” starts on March 7th.
7. I’m thankful for the Holy Spirit helping me communicate my first lesson in Portuguese to our small church this past weekend.
8. I’m thankful for prayers from our friends and supporters on our teams behalf.
9. I’m thankful for God’s wisdom in putting our mission team together with different skill sets and personalities that will glorify him.
10. I’m thankful that both of our parents have been able to come and visit us here and that my entire family will be here for Christmas.
This is a picture of one of the buildings we have been looking into for renting for the church. This particular location was really appealing because it is on a main street. I called about it a couple weeks ago and we got so excited because the rent was incredible and I thought he said it was 500 square meters, which would be very large! Sadly, one of our fluent portuguese speakers called back for us to double check and it was only 75 square meters....the joys of communicating in our second language! Please do pray as we continue to try to get our documentation in order and find the right place to begin this work for the Lord.
The first weekend in September we enjoyed a wonderful long weekend (along with you all in the states) for Brazilian Independence Day. That Saturday one of the families that we worship with from São Gonçalo had our whole team out for a churrasco (Brazilian Barbeque)! It was fantastic! Here I am with all but one of the ladies from the sweet family that had us out: Dona Lúcia, Louise, Jessica and Francine.
Here is the whole group from the churrasco–we were all very full in this picture. It was a special day and we are so thankful for the way these people are reaching out to us and trying to make us feel at home.
Thursday nights in August we met in our apartment to learn new songs in Portuguese. We worked on lots of praise songs that have been translated from English and many others that were written here in Brazil. It has been fun to learn some of the Brazilian worship songs and see how beautifully the texts express love and worship to God. We are thankful for God accepting our praise in any language.
Bowling with our friends Nelson and Michelly. We are blessed to have these special friends.
During August we faced several medical issues that were not fun! Wes broke his nose in a football game and we saw several doctors trying to resolve the situation. I got a pretty rough case of bronchitis and had several doctors visits as well. Needless to say, our medical vocabulary increased! We decided that when we got to feeling better we would climb the rock at Itacoatiara, one of the most beautiful beaches in Niteroi. Praise God, last weekend we were able to enjoy a beautiful weather and a great little hike!
Here Wes is looking out at the view of Itacoatiara and Niteroi. It really is incredible to see God’s creative beauty so present here. We sat up there trying to take it all in. Thank you for your prayers and support for us as we are continuing on the path with this work. You all do not know how much it helps us to know that people are lifting us up to the Father.
)! And, below is Wes in the building with the new lights installed! 
