God’s Hand at Work in Hurricane Irma
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
October 8, 2017
Dear Friends,
I’m almost certain that you either saw or read the news reports on Hurricane Irma as it passed through the Caribbean islands and then hit Florida. My family and I are living in the Tampa, Florida area and we were keenly aware of the meteorologists’ predictions about the size and intensity of that storm as it approached us. As a boy being raised in Florida in a Christian home, I had the experience several times of seeing how parents who trust in a sovereign Lord face the threat of nature’s forces with faith and confidence. Hurricane Irma’s arrival gave me the opportunity to exercise my own faith and trust in God’s power and goodness and to show to my own children and a Brazilian family who took refuge in our home during the storm that we truly do trust in Him.
Since the hurricane’s passing, I have also had numerous opportunities to minister to people whose homes were devastated by the winds. As I traveled about putting temporary tarp coverings on exposed homes, I ran into many people who are were more sensitive to their vulnerability and limitations and this afforded me the chance to share Christ’s love with them. I know that God was at work in a myriad of ways when He allowed that storm to come our way, but I am certain that at least two of those ways was to prepare the hearts of a family of five who came to my home and three homeless men who I ministered to in Naples, Florida where the damage was quite severe.
When we first went to Brazil 32 years ago we didn’t really know what to expect in terms of what we should take to be prepared to live and minister. Our 30 years there helped us be more discerning in our purchasing and packing and Charlene has been very busy using her keen sense of bargains as we get closer to our departure date.
Our evangelistic teams, Projeto Vida, are in two separate towns sharing the gospel in public schools as I write. There has been a great work of the Lord in leading many to repent of their sins and trust Christ as their Lord and Savior. I am looking forward to the days ahead when I can be with them in this unique gospel ministry.
If you or your church would be interested in meeting Charlene and me, or getting to know us better while we are still in the USA, please feel free to contact me at the address/phone number below for us to plan a visit.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
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Returning to Brazil!
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
September 5, 2017
Dear Friends,
Charlene and I super excited to be returning as active missionaries to Brazil after 1½ years of “missionary emeritus” status. We maintained constant interaction with our ministry partners in Brazil throughout the period and continued to forward all funds to their designated purposes, but now we will be returning to live and minister in the field and we are thankful to God for calling us back.
We have been praying for direction on how to be the most effective we possibly can be when we return and we feel that God is giving us some clear strategies. One of the most important lessons that we have learned, though, is that God is more interested in our staying attuned to His leading on a day by day basis than He is in our big plans. Initially, we intend to assist the churches that we established before we left, if they need help. I will almost certainly be going out with our evangelistic teams, Projeto Vida, into unreached areas to share the gospel in the public schools and parks and pray for guidance from the Lord about where to focus on new church plants.
We have several challenges in going back which present us with opportunities to see God’s hand at work. The first is that, when we left, we needed to get rid of all our home furnishings and now we’ll need to replace them. Our house in Brazil is being rented out and is under a contract until the end of November. Also, our first grandchild is due to arrive around the same time. Of course it will be hard for us to move away so shortly after his arrival, but we know the Lord will give us the strength to focus on making His name known to the lost. Thirdly, we’ll need to purchase a vehicle almost immediately upon our arrival. Your prayers for us about these challenges will be greatly appreciated.
In the meantime, if you or your pastor would be interested in us visiting with you personally before we return to Brazil, please contact us at any of the numbers above.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
Give: Click here to give.
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Amazing Demonstrations of God’s Power at Work
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
August 4, 2017
Dear Friends,
In their mission travels this past month, Projeto Vida experienced some amazing demonstrations of God’s power at work through them. One of their first stops was at a school that invited them back a year after their previous work there. Back then, there was a boy who was known as the biggest trouble-maker of the school and community who sought to disrupt the outreach efforts of Projeto Vida during their gospel skit presentations. Now, a year later, they found out that the boy has trusted in Christ and has been baptized and is growing in his relationship with the Lord. He told them that he had heard the truth of God’s love through them and that he wanted to be forgiven and become a part of God’s family. His teachers confirmed that he had indeed become a different kid since their last visit.
Another great report was from a young lady who had gotten involved in drugs and had caused much anguish and turmoil in her home. Her behavior had become so bad that her mother had gotten discouraged in her parenting and had become a drug user herself. During the gospel presentations, this girl was convicted of her sin and came forward to repent and surrender her life to Christ. She shared with the missionaries that she was very concerned for her mother’s salvation. The missionaries encouraged her to go to her mother to ask for her forgiveness and to pray for her to trust Christ like she had just done. I pray that this lady will also come to Christ.
Zoe, our American teen missionary, has arrived in Brazil and hit the ground running. She was super excited because shortly after her arrival there was a major evangelistic event in Curitiba, her field base, where she participated in street corner evangelism with the Projeto Vida teams. She is also getting the exciting chance to learn how to do fire-breathing and fire-eating feats in order to draw crowds to hear the gospel in public parks and squares. Zoe will be learning Portuguese quickly now that she is totally immersed in Brazilian culture and is obligated to hear and speak the language every day. Pray that, soon, Zoe will have the privilege of winning her first convert to Christ through her own use of Portuguese rather than speaking through an interpreter.
Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
Give: Click here to give.
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God Blesses Missions Workshop; Planning Two Mission Trips for 2018
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
July 7, 2017
Dear Friends,
The Missions Workshop went very well last month. After two weeks of classroom studies in biblical studies and missions analysis, 24 students went out with our veterans to share the gospel in 12 public schools in two different states. Over 140 people accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior through their testimony and preaching! We are so thrilled to know that God saw fit to bless these efforts and pour His grace out on these people. The students who were involved are really motivated to continue to use their lives for God’s glory by how they saw Him work through them during this workshop. Some will stay with Projeto Vida for several months as they go into other cities and states and others will return to help their local churches with what they learned in the Missions Workshop.
The young lady, Zoe, from Brandon, Florida is ready to travel to Brazil next week to begin a 3-month missions venture. She has been studying Portuguese, saving money and spiritually preparing herself to join with Projeto Vida in evangelistic outreach before she heads off to college next year. I am excited about the future when I see young Christians with this kind of focus and desire to see God’s glory exalted through their lives. I thank God that I can have a part in helping young people like Zoe get engaged into true Great Commission ministry. She isn’t waiting until she gets to a foreign land to share with others what Christ has done for them, though. She already shares the gospel with her classmates and friends in her own hometown, but she isn’t content with just doing that. She feels a burden for the unreached in other lands as well. Please pray that Zoe will be both a blessing and blessed by her missions venture in Brazil.
Charlene and I are working on plans to guide two short-term missions teams to Brazil next year. We usually work in or near Curitiba, our home for nearly 30 years, but we plan to take these teams to a different part of Brazil that will be more challenging logistically. Foz do Iguacu is the name of the main city where we’ll be ministering. It is located where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay share a border. We are just beginning to work out the details for lodging, dining and transportation for two groups of nearly 50 participants. We need your prayers, please.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
Give: Click here to give.
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Financial Struggles in Brazil but God Provides
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
June 4, 2017
Dear Friends,
Next week Projeto Vida will begin its 18th Missions Training School. There will be around 30 new students coming to study the biblical theology of missions in the classroom first. Then they will travel with our veteran missionary teams into some interior towns and villages to carry out practical evangelism and church planting. We have seen God use this type of training to lead many young men and women into vocational mission careers and, at the same time, many people have been led to Christ through their outreach efforts. Please pray for our teachers and for the teams as they head out with the Gospel.
As I mentioned in my last letter, a young lady from Brandon, Florida will be going to work with Projeto Vida during the summer break before she goes off to college. She will be participating in the Missions Training School herself almost immediately upon her arrival in Brazil. She will have the added difficulty of the language barrier. All the classes will be in Portuguese and Zoe (the young lady) has only a beginner’s level of the language. Charlene and I remember vividly how challenging those first few weeks and months are, but we also know that God used us, even with our limitations, and we know that He’ll use Zoe too.
Many of our Brazilian brothers and sisters in Christ are struggling financially as a result of the political and economic mess in Brazil right now. The jobless rate is very high and that is making it difficult for some of the churches to meet their financial obligations; some as simple as paying their utility bills. Please remember your brothers and sisters in Christ in Brazil as you pray.
Despite the financial struggles, the Lord provided enough for one of our teams to get out into the interior of the state of Paraná throughout the month of May. They had the opportunity to be in more than 9 public schools where they shared the gospel with over 8000 students. Many students and school staff members made public professions of faith in Christ at these outreach events. We are thankful that God’s grace is not completely held back by material shortfalls.
Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and financial support.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
Give: Click here to give.
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Projeto Vida Gears Up for Winter Evangelism Opportunities, New Youth Volunteer
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
May 6, 2017
Dear Friends,
As you gear up for summer mode in the USA, our evangelistic teams in southern Brazil prepare for the chill and activities of winter. For example, the only school break between May and September is a two week “winter break” in the late part of July. The best thing about this is that, when the schools are in session, we have a much greater opportunity of taking the gospel to entire school assemblies ranging from 200 to 1500 at a time.
Two of Projeto Vida’s teams will be heading out to minister in separate states for trips that will last for 3 weeks before returning to headquarters. Not only will they get the opportunity to share the gospel in public schools, but they will also assist some church-planting missionaries with evangelism in the neighboring streets and parks close to new church plants. The free health checks, haircuts, counseling and creative interaction with the children serve to open people’s hearts to listen to a clear presentation of the gospel, both one-to-one and through publicly preached messages.
One young lady from Brandon, Florida has recently returned from what is called a “Go Term”. The church where she attends in the USA has developed a program that encourages recent high school graduates to spend 6-12 months in a foreign mission field ministry before heading on to college. This program is to help them get a greater and clearer sense of how God can use them in life, beyond or through their eventual career choice. Hannah Baxter has just returned from a 10-month term of service and was greatly impacted by all the ways that she saw God use her in missions. Zoe Peeples will be the next youth embarking this month to begin a shorter term, but certainly she’ll have a tremendous number of experiences that will make a major impact on her life choices afterward.
We are thankful that our Projeto Vida teams always graciously adapt to these new volunteer members coming on board. There are always several learning challenges involved. The US students usually don’t speak Portuguese and very few of the Projeto Vida team members can speak English, so the communication level is an automatic obstacle in the beginning. Add to that the cultural differences and then the personality traits and you can imagine how 13 people living in an 18-passenger van and sleeping on mats in homes or church building floors for several months can test one another’s Christian character. We haven’t had any cases yet, though, where unity and love didn’t increase and abound. Presently there are more than 20 missionaries serving worldwide whose first mission experience was with our teams and nearly all say that this initial experience was a major tool God used to lead them into fulltime mission service. We are joyful and grateful to be used of God to have a part in that process.
We appreciate you continued prayers and support.
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
Give: Click here to give.
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25 Years Later, Fruit of Labor Produced to the Second Generation
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
April 7, 2017
In my last letter I shared that Charlene, our daughter Jessie, and I would be going to Brazil to work with Projeto Vida in the public schools. I want to tell you about how amazingly the Lord blessed that trip and the efforts of all those who were involved. On the first day of outreach we were able to go into three very diverse locations. One group went to a public park in downtown Curitiba to serve a hot meal to nearly 200 homeless people. Not only did we give them physical food, but we also shared the gospel in different ways. Our youth performed gospel skits using pantomime. One of them also shared their testimony of salvation through a translator and then their leader preached an evangelistic message from God’s Word. There were several individuals who professed Christ as their Savior. All this was done to assist a missionary who follows up on these conversions to get these homeless people into a discipleship program and, often, rehab to overcome drug and alcohol addiction. The missionary operates a halfway house that helps these converts get into productive lives and leads many of them to begin assisting others who are still struggling with their vices.
The same group who ministered to the homeless in the morning went to a different neighborhood in the afternoon to assist a local church in sharing the gospel to the folks who were out and about in the streets. The teams again performed skits and shared their testimony, but here they were working in a middle-class neighborhood. Even here there were several who surrendered to Christ through the Word shared.
Ministering with Projeto Vida in Brazil
Over the next few days of outreach the teams were working in some public schools. The opportunities there were just thrilling! I want to share one wonderful blessing that God gave Charlene and me the privilege of experiencing. About 25 years ago, we began offering classes of English as a Second Language in order to get opportunities to meet lost people and share the gospel with them. One of our first students was teenaged boy who wanted to learn English in order to understand the words to Heavy Metal rock music bands. That wasn’t my intention, of course, but when he asked me to translate the lyrics to one of his albums I realized that it was a Christian Heavy Metal group and the lyrics gave me the chance to share the gospel through a medium that he himself was interested in. He came to know Christ and almost immediately began bringing many of his “metal-head” friends to our church. One of those friends trusted in Christ, surrendered to preach, got married to another converted rocker and became a Baptist Pastor to another state in North Brazil. Though I have not seen them for over 25 years, they have become the parents of 4 wonderfully dedicated Christian children now ranging from 15-22 years of age. When our group was ministering in one of the local high schools, I translated the message of the main speaker. At the end of the meeting, a 17-year-old girl came up to me and asked if I knew a Nilson Bispo de Jesus. Immediately I remembered my old disciple and I told her that I did. She told me that she was his daughter and that their family had recently moved back to Curitiba. That night we got to meet the entire family and we rejoiced to know that they all serve Christ and have been used by Him to spread the gospel through their talents and gifts. The Lord truly blessed us to see some of the fruit of our labor in Brazil, even to the second generation.
The Lord blessed in so many other ways during this mission journey, but I will save some for my next report. Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
Give: Click here to give.
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Team from Florida Heading to Work with Projeto Vida
Bobby, Charlene, Jessie, and Brennen Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
March 4, 2017
Dear Friends,
Charlene and Jessie are super excited! They will be leaving in just a few minutes to spend a couple of weeks in Curitiba, Brazil. During the first week, they will be catching up with friends and taking care of some business details. I will be joining them after that to begin a week of evangelism in public schools and parks together with Projeto Vida and the youth team from Bell Shoals Baptist Church from Brandon, Florida. We are expecting to have the opportunity to share the gospel to over 3000 youth and teachers during the time we will be there.
This will be the first full year that they will be using the newly purchased travel van that replaced one of our old buses. We are grateful that this mode of transportation will make Projeto Vida’s mission trips more efficient, quicker and will allow them to get to more secluded areas. We are thankful to all who contributed to make the purchase of this van possible. We want to continue trying to obtain other vans to replace the old hard to maintain buses, but we’ll keep these old buses rolling as long as we can because we still get the gospel to tens of thousands of lost folks yearly.
We are so thrilled to see how the Lord has used this ministry to transform people’s lives. Every week we see many making a public profession of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We know that God is pleased with this because it is what Christ commanded His disciples to do. We also know that there is rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents and comes to Christ. We are also thrilled to know that there are literally hundreds of young men and women scattered across the globe sharing Christ as a direct result of how the Lord used them and blessed them when they participated with Projeto Vida as a short-term missionary or volunteer. God has greatly used and blessed this ministry and we expect even greater usefulness in the future. Thank you for your prayers and support.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Stateside Address:
3912 Casaba Loop
Valrico, FL 33596
Field Address:
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279-1
Sobrado 1, Bairro Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR Brasil
Phone: (813) 481-7007
Cell Phone: (813) 727-6405
Email: bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
Give: Click here to give.
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