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.
Brent and I have been playing American football on a team from Niteroi that plays in a 12 team league. The pictures below are of our recent game in Cabo Frio. Zane, who is known for good camera work, caught the exact moment that my nose was broken. It’s feeling a lot better now and I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning. Enjoy the pics.
Niteroi Corsarios
Good-bye straight nose
Close up
Click on the above link to view our latest newsletter with stories from our life here in Niterói. We decided to share some stories from our experiences here in the month of June. Please do pray for our team and our work as we continue to move forward. Love and blessings to you all!
We had an excellent time hosting our first family guests to Brazil. We enjoyed showing the Seats around Niteroi, introducing them to our language teachers and enjoyed a day visiting a beach across the bay in Rio.
Normally our newsletters and video reports will have updates on our work and preparations for starting a church here in Niteroi, but this footage is of our time with the Seat family. Please come back to our blog in the coming weeks for more info about the church.
Enjoy our most recent home video.
David & Mary Seat Visit 2009 from Wes Gotcher on Vimeo.
At the end of April into the beginning of May we had a retreat with Ron and Georgia Freitas from Continent of Great Cities. It was such a wonderful time that encouraged our team and gave us such excitement for what God has for the future of this work.
The Niteroi Girls
You may need to start the video then pause it to allow it to download fully.
Gotcher Video - April, 2009 from Wes Gotcher on Vimeo.
Finally all together after picking up Nathan and Sara at the airport!
Our first Sunday night worship as a complete team! We followed this by our first team potluck. We are expecting more of those to come!
An evening with Zane and April and one of our Portuguese teachers, Julianno, and his girlfriend Anaua. We had dinner and learned a couple Brazilian card games. One of them was the exact same as one of Wes' grandfather's favorites, Hand and Foot.
At Brent's Birthday Party! His party was a fantastic Brazilian churrasco (Brazilian barbeque)!
Our first Niteroi Survey Meeting--A committee from the team has been compiling data about each of the neighborhoods in Niteroi and last Thursday night they presented the material with requests for where we go from here. Pray for God's guidance as we make this incredible decision.
We had the wonderful opportunity to visit a local orfanage this past weekend. We got spend lots of time playing and talking with the kids there. It was a wonderful blessing and we are going to go back each week to spend time with them. Be watching for video footage of our time with these kids!
Wes loved getting to play soccer with the kids!
Our most recent church visit--We took the boat over to Rio and enjoyed a wonderful time of worship with one of the Churches of Christ there. It was a blessing to see how they worship and seek to serve the Lord and allow His Word to guide their lives.
Sunday Night from Wes Gotcher on Vimeo.
Niteroi Missions Update from Wes Gotcher on Vimeo.”>
Carrie - A Day in the Life from Wes Gotcher on Vimeo.
I obviously need some editing work because this video is almost 10 minutes. If you choose to watch this video, I would encourage you to pause the video and wait a few minutes so it can download and you can view without pauses.
Enjoy a day in Carrie’s life in Niteroi, Brasil.
Today Carrie and I left the apartment at 7:15AM and traveled by bus to meet the rest of the team at the bus terminal in downtown Niteroi. At the terminal we caught a bus that took us across the bridge into Rio where we exited, crossed the street and caught another bus. 1 hour and 52 minutes after departing we arrived at the front door of the church of Christ in the Tanque neighborhood of Rio. We met up with Larry and Connie Zinck (Nathan’s parents) and enjoyed a Bible Study and worship with the believers in Tanque. This was the first time Carrie and I have been to this church and we enjoyed meeting everyone and greeting women with a kiss on both cheeks (I’m still getting used to this). After church we went to lunch with the Zincks and and enjoyed traditional Brazilian food… okay, we had pizza. After another bus ride we caught the ferry across the bay and returned to our apartment exactly 9 hours and 43 minutes after leaving (I timed our journey). Although it’s a far cry from our former 4 minute church commute, it was encouraging to meet with other believers and our team had a few funny events that will not soon be forgotten.
Speaking of funny events, last Saturday we went to the beach and Carrie was filming Brent, Zane, several Brazilians and I swimming around at the beach in Piratininga. As you can see from this video (posted below), the sea was angry and for some reason especially angry with Zane.