Growth 

Once again, we want to thank you for your prayers and support! The Lord has been very faithful in supporting and guiding us in the mission He called us to! Thank you for partnering with that calling.

We continue to see the Lord work in subtle but significant ways in this new church plant in Palmas. During the last two months, we have started to receive a number of visitors. That first started on Sunday, July 28 when we had 9 visitors representing 5 families. During worship, they just kept appearing. Since then, we have had several visitors over the weeks. Sunday, September 22^nd, we had a family visit for the second time. We’ve had other visitors along the way, but this recent activity has been cold contacts via our social media activity, suggesting we are having some success in communicating the Kingdom in an accessible and relevant way.

Though visitors are important, we know the process of finding a church that aligns with a family’s present needs is a bit of a process. We also know that our current phase as a group is not for everyone. For example, we don’t have an active children’s, youth, or young adult ministry. Even so, our group has been noticeably encouraged, as if they are excited that the group that has become relevant to them is also generating interest among others. 

Please, pray that God will direct the right people towards us, and that we will have the discernment to receive and care for them well.

Transitions

In general, we have been transitioning to a more traditional service setting and format, verses our original home group style. This has been gradual based on the size and needs of our group. A big change was moving from Wednesday to Sunday in April. Now with the constant expectation of visitors, we have moved from our living room to our veranda which allows us to set up chairs in a more traditional congregational style with the preacher now standing, and in front. This change was necessary to allow us to receive visitors more discretely as they come in at various points during the service.

This flux of visitors brings additional confirmation to our sense that we need to find a more commercial setting soon. This has intensified our search for an adequate space to rent. Subtly, these developments have encouraged our existing members and given rise to opportunities for them to take active ownership in the group. We have seen them subtly and naturally seeking to engage and receive visitors and actively express interest and ideas about a future facility. This is all very organic and exciting. The Kingdom is at work!

Outreach

Finally, we recently did our first outreach event as church. We wanted to engage the public in a relevant and natural way. During Father’s Day (in August here) weekend we set up a table at the waterfront park and gently engaged folks while handing out thermal cups to all the fathers and briefly praying for them. The gesture was well received and it was exciting to see our group members present and participating, each one in their own way. 

On a personal note

Recently, we were overjoyed to have our kids come to Brazil for a week of vacation with us at a beach in the State of Pará.  The boys were excited to have their wives enjoy the same beach they experienced during their years in Brazil.  It was a refreshing week of relaxation, conversation, walks together, games, and sand castle building.  Incidentally, their visit occurred during our 20th anniversary of service in Brazil. We feel honored that the family took some vacation time and travel to spend with us.  We also feel honored that God chose us to be a part of what He is doing in Brazil.

Prayer

Please continue praying that God will connect us with key people and give us direction as we seek to guide this group and form a community of Christ followers.

Pray for God’s provision and discernment as we seek a new meeting space for the church.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson

In Summary 

We’ve previously noted that church planting is slow, this is especially true with a small team. So we’re not at all surprised that things are developing slowly with the Palmas church plant. Even so, things are moving forward, and we are very excited and full of expectation.

We continue pressing in through various strategies, trying to connect with people in the community. We are also encouraged as we see members of our group engaging and identifying more and more with this small church group.

Since our last update some anticipated changes have been initiated and yet other changes have presented themselves. Considered jointly, these developments give us the sense that bigger things are on the horizon. 

We thank you for all your support and ask that you continue praying with us. You are an essential part of what God is doing in Northern Brazil, and we thank you!

Some Developments

First, our friend and church planter, Abilene, has finally moved from Southern Brazil to Palmas to be part of our team. It’s been only a month or so now, but she’s already proven to be an asset to our team helping us take our worship to a new level, bringing a new perspective, and increasing our relational footprint. Our team has just gotten 50% bigger!

Secondly, since April we have been meeting on Sundays rather than Wednesdays.  The whole group was in favor of this change and it marks a subtle but fundamental shift in the level of commitment and the identity of the group. More and more our meetings are taking on the format of a regular structured church service. For our friends who are more leery of church, their continued presence and participation is a significant declaration that the group is relevant and a safe place for the unchurched.

Thirdly, though we have not yet outgrown our space with the regular attendees, we would not have room if all the periodic participants showed up on the same Sunday. So we’re at the point where we need to start looking for a commercial building, before our house rental ends in March 2025. This shift would also provide a better environment for a regular church service format. 

Fourthly, we’ve been praying about when this next step should happen, so we find it interesting that we were just able to sell our Pacjá house this month, allowing us to consider buying something in Palmas. Regardless of the house sale, we would need to move as we only rented this big house to accommodate the church.  Rental of a church facility and selling our house are not necessarily directly related events, but we feel encouraged about the timing and see it as confirmation of what we have already been sensing regarding the next steps for the church. The sale also removes one more anchor as we try to fully invest our attention and resources in Palmas.

In the context of slow, subtle progress, jointly, these changes affirm our sense that God is establishing something significant here in Palmas. Each change represents something we could not possibly do on our own, and the proximity of their timing suggests God is working consistent with the vision He has given us for Palmas.

An expansion of our leadership team, growing commitment by group members, and the promise of a more visible, adequate, and culturally relevant meeting context, collectively are signs that growth and new opportunities are around the corner. All this aligns with what we sense God has been confirming in our hearts for some time now.

Please pray with us as we seek wisdom and discernment concerning a house and the rental of a church facility, as well as what the next steps should be for this group.

Prayer

Please continue praying that God will connect us with key people and give us direction as we seek to guide this group and form a community of Christ followers.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson

Thank You! 

We want to start by saying thank you for all your prayers, moral support, and financial support.

We are so very thankful for you and how God has continually used you to strengthen and encourage us in many ways. We couldn’t do what we do without your support!

The Process

As we reflect on where we are with this new church plant in Palmas, we also reflect on our experiences from the last 19 years. Connecting and identifying with a new group of people in a new context is always challenging. It takes time, demands great intentionality, and it stretches our natural personalities.

Though our current context seems harder to break into than others, we are thankful for some key relationships that God has blessed us with and which continue to develop. We feel like we are entering a season of ripening. Having been here two years and working hard to develop visible routines, we feel some new relationships will develop over the next six months. We also sense we are in a season of retooling as God further molds us to work in this new context.

Please pray that God will continue working in us and that some of these loose connections will mature into more personal ones. Pray that God will give us discernment and great favor.

Exciting Developments

As a group, we are excited to move our meetings from Wednesdays to Sundays starting in April.

For now, we will maintain our informal small-group format. However, this change to Sunday has some significant implications for a loosely connected group with some non-churchgoers. We’ve been praying about it for some time now, and we were very excited when the group started expressing interest in the change.

We will also gain another member for our church planting team in mid-May.  Abilene (photo above) is a Brazilian woman who was part of a church plant in Altamira back in the days when we arrived in Brazil. She has been part of the national church family for many years and is very talented, balanced, and wise. She will be joining us for an undetermined amount of time, perhaps a few years, and will be significant to the next phases of this small group.

Finally, another family we know has been planning a move to Palmas for over a year. They are from here, know many people, are outgoing, and love the church. Finally, everything has lined up for them to move, and they just secured a house here, with a move planned for later this month.

We sense these changes will significantly impact the group’s development over the next several months. We pray that the church can move out of our house by year-end into a more commercial space!

Prayer

Please continue praying that God will connect us with key people and give us direction as we seek to guide this group and form a community of Christ followers.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson

Palmas Church 

In March, we were finally able to start a home group inviting all the people we know in Palmas, most of whom have no significant church experience besides our team.

Our initial focus has been on “breaking the ice,” seeking to connect this diverse group of people and introduce Christianity as relevant and relational. We’ve been sensitive to the social dynamics and people’s religious experiences, reservations, and doubts, working hard to create an atmosphere where people can engage openly.

As we get to know and trust each other, we’ve increasingly gone deeper in our discussion of the Kingdom of God and become more personal.  This disconnected group of random people is starting to form into an informal community.

We are still at the very early stages of anything that might be called a “church,” but we are excited that people appear comfortable and engaged and consider the group relevant.

Please continue to pray with us. We believe God has called us to nurture a mature, culturally relevant, socially engaged, and spiritually intimate community of believers in Palmas.  As we work intentionally toward that, we need God’s direction, grace, and equipping at every step. 

Life in Palmas

Palmas is so much different than our previous reality in Pacajá! There are several comforts, like restaurants, a mall, sidewalks, no street dogs, etc. But connecting with people and forming relationships in a larger city is also much more difficult.

As we continue to adapt and develop a rhythm of life in our new city, we’re striving to intentionally organize our personal lives around the community’s context in a way that gives us access to people in an organic way. 

Daily walks in the neighborhood; frequenting certain stores, restaurants, and parks; participating with the bicycling community; driving with Uber; anything to become exposed and familiar hopefully leading to relationships.

Please pray with us for favor, grace,  and new ideas as we try to organize our lives in a manner that is healthy for our family, and strategic for our Kingdom task.   

USA Visit

During December 2023, we’ll be in the States for about three weeks. Our primary objective is to connect with our sons and daughters-in-law and the rest of our extended family.  But we would also love to connect with you!

If you have some free time during this window, please contact us as early as possible, we would love to get something scheduled!

Prayer

Please pray with us for God to connect us with key people, and direction as we continue to develop a specific strategy for initiating a new church here.  Please also, pray for safe travel and great visits in December.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson

One Year in Palmas!

On April 14, 2022 we moved to Palmas. Since then, we have constantly been seeking ways to connect with people, intentionally but organically, as part of a daily-life routine.

As much as that has been intentional, connecting at even a superficial level is difficult in a larger city (in Pacajá, everyone knew we were foreigners and were visibly curious). Out of those superficial connections, fewer still arrive at any semi-significant level. Intentionality, and seeking God for orientation is our part; making things happen is God’s part. 

And it turns out we have made some contacts. Some are the fruit of our own intentional efforts, but probably more than not, completely outside our own planning and intentionality. Like a family, we knew only as acquaintances who decided to move to Palmas for work/family reasons. Four couples who are friends of our other church friends, our electrician who has worked through our constant eclectic issues, and at least two others who thought Keith was the gardener and stopped to ask how much he charges. But all of these relationships are, at best, superficial semi-significant contacts.

Even so, and with one significant couple slow in actually moving to Palmas (it was October, then December, then March, now June??), in late January, we sensed a conviction that a sufficient relational mass had been achieved and that it was time to invite people to gather weekly. February was all about working out the logistics, format, how to invite, and exactly how we would articulate and practice who we are as a church.

Actually, we have spent much of the last year thinking, praying, testing, and working out our distinct vision as a local church and how to articulate and present that.

So, confident in God yet unsure of exactly what would happen, we started our first official small group meeting on March 1, 2023! We are very excited to have finally started doing something “concrete”.

We’ve Begun

We’re trying to bring together people from different socioeconomic backgrounds and religious experiences. People who respect God generally but are skeptical about religion and “the church.” People who don’t know each other and who barely know us.

We’re trying to provide a context where this diverse group can interact with the basics of Christianity and engage their own formed ideas, process their experiences, and come to personal conviction about the things they say they think and believe.

We share a meal and fellowship, listen to a short and contextualized explanation of a key Christian belief, and then discuss personally as a group how we understand that, do we agree or disagree, and what some of the implications might be for us.

Obviously, we know what we believe, and normal church service is about teaching and admonishing the Word of God concretely. However, at this stage, our small group is evangelistic, apologetic, instructive, and designed to help people move out of giving superficial and “canned” religious and philosophical responses. 

Most people have not critically thought through some of life’s and Christianity’s biggest questions at a personal level. Fewer still can articulate their views with confidence while also demonstrating grace and humility. This group gives people a safe environment to process while we also seek to model this humble confidence. As long as it is respectful and civil, no question or comment is off the table.

We’re only four weeks into it, but we believe these humble roots will form the foundation of a solid local church in Palmas, Tocantins. Please continue to pray with us as we try to faithfully, intelligently, and gracefully model the Kingdom of God.  Pray that God will continue to bless us with new relationships and that He will bring curiosity and conviction in the hearts of our new friends.

Other Happenings

As we get to know people and hold a small group, we also continue training leaders in Anapu from a distance. We prepare and send video teaching to accompany material the national church has already developed. They gather, watch, and discuss the video and their reading. We will be teaching the same course in person at our sister church 15 miles from the center of Palmas.

We look forward to seeing potential leaders from both churches grow in their giftings and increase in service to their communities.

Prayer

Please pray with us for God to connect us with key people in this new city and for direction as we continue to develop a specific strategy for initiating a new church here. 

Please pray for our health, especially Marsha for full healing from the effects of a mosquito virus contracted in May of 2022.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson

We’ve Moved

The church movement we are part of has a vision to develop a community of passionate, mature, reproductive, Christ-centered disciples; to plant passionate, mature, reproductive, Christ-centered churches; and transform the world through love and good works, for the glory of God.

After ten years in Pacajá, the church blessed us to continue this vision by planting another church in the city of Palmas, Tocantins. 

The actual move went well but our arrival was not as easy as we were hoping.  We had electricity problems for the first ten days and both of us caught some tropical viruses. But we soon received our first guests Larry and Karen Pickett, who were a great blessing of moral support and helped us get organized and painted.  We are so very grateful for them!  We were even able to explore our new city together.

After much traveling in June and July, we are now “fully” moved in, and are engaged in meeting people and building relationships as we begin a new church in Palmas. Our new address:

Quadra 108 Sul, Alameda 13, Lote 62
Palmas, Tocantins  CEP:77020-116
Brasil

Palmas, Tocantins

Palmas is the capital and largest city of the state of Tocantins.  It is located between the Amazon Rainforest and the coastal savanna region of north-central Brazil. Palmas has roughly 310,000 inhabitants and several neighboring cities with 50,000-60,000 inhabitants. 

The southern red dot on the map is the location of a small community church in the Taquaralto neighborhood. It was organically started when a couple moved from Altamira around 2012.  The current pastors, João and Katia, were just new Christians when we worked alongside them ministering to remote interior communities in Altamira, back in the early 2000’s. They’ve been leading this group for 7 years now. The northern red dot (a 25 minute drive) is where our rented house is and where we are starting a city center church.  It is strategically located near the downtown area.  We look forward to working in collaboration with the Taquaralto church as a sister church in reaching Palmas and the surrounding regions.

We tend to start church plants out of relationship.  Getting to know people and letting them know us is what gives us credibility and the opportunity to demonstrate God’s love in a relevant way.  We are already engaging various strategies to find our place within the community, meet people, and love on them, but these first steps are very slow and difficult.  Please pray with us as we seek relationships in this strange new place.

Travels

In June and again in July we traveled to the city of Portel, Pará (a two day trip).  Portel is a mission-planted church that has now been turned over to national leadership.  The mission is still involved with a water filter project there where filters are fabricated and delivered to those living in the remote river communities, where access to clean water is difficult. 

Through our involvement with the filter project and accompanying an Ohio team to Portel, we have continued to build relationships with this wonderful Portel church family.  It has been a blessing to encourage them and also be encouraged by them. They make us feel like family when we visit.

Prayer

Please pray with us for God to connect us with key people in this new city and for direction as we continue to develop a specific strategy for initiating a new church here. 

Please pray for our health, especially Marsha as she continues to feel the effects of a mosquito virus contracted in May.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson