Our September 2014 Video Update.

It has been a busy few months since our last video update! Here are some of the highlights in the video link above. From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank you for your support. Whether it is remembering us through prayers, financial support, a word of encouragement or even a "like" or comment on Facebook we feel your love and plead with you to continue with us on our missionary team as we seek to serve Jesus and the people in Brazil. God bless!  

Praise Reports:

- A blessed time in Sao Vicente teaching at the Family Conference and Ladies Conference.

- Healthy Church, God is doing AMAZING things and we are so excited!!  

- Y.W.A.M. team serving and interceding 

- A great discipleship group

Prayer Requests:

- Planning and provision for Reggae for Life 3

- Family finances 

- A van, we have been without a vehicle for the past 10 months 

- The families health (specifically for Jeremiah's health and for Dani's health)

- Emotional and physical endurance to keep up with our busy routine of family and ministry.

- Strength for our marriage and wisdom in raising our kids in the Lord. 

7 years on the Mission Field.

 Seven years ago today I said goodbye to my family and friends in Florida and got on a plane with my husband Nate and my 16 month old daughter Hope as we made the move that would change our lives forever. I remember being really sick the whole flight partly because Nate and I both had the flu and partly because I was 7 months pregnant with our second daughter Grace. I remember spending most of the flight taking turns with Nate in the bathroom on the plane, and I remember other passengers handing us their barf bags after we filled ours (ugh!). I remember handing baby Hope to our pastor’s wife Patti while I was getting sick and then I remember moments later looking up to see that Hope had vomited all over her. I remember Nate telling me to put on a sweatshirt to cover my big belly when we went through customs to avoid any problems and I remember that it was raining when we landed on the island of Florianopolis that would be my new home.  

 Seven years ago today I fell in love with Brazil. For me It was love at first sight and I loved EVERYTHING about Brazil. 

 I always say that life on the missions field passes through the same three stages of love that most marriages pass through. 1.) There is the Honeymoon Stage where you are in love with EVERYTHING about the country and culture. 2.) There in the Real Life Stage where all of those things that you originally fell in love with in the Honeymoon stage start to drive you crazy. 3.) There is the Real Love Stage that happens after you realize that the country that you are called to serve isn’t perfect but you choose to love it anyways. 

 Seven years into living in Brazil I believe that Nate and I are in the Real Love phase with both Brazil and life on the missions field. We know that Brazil is far from perfect but we are in love anyways. We have been so blessed to live in Brazil and I am absolutely amazed at all the Lord has done in and through our lives in the last seven years. Nathan and I came here as young 21 year old kids with one baby and just a couple of years of ministry experience. We have learned how to become a family here in Brazil, I have learned how to become a mom here in Brazil. We have added SEVEN children to our family and I can not imagine raising them anywhere else. We have made Brazil our home. We have been so incredibly blessed to have made SO many friends that are so close we consider them family here in Brazil. We have seen many people make decisions for Jesus and we have seen lives transformed. I stand in awe of all that the Lord has done and I look forward to all the He has in store for the future. 

 From the bottom of our hearts we want to say thank you to all of you who have been supporting us and praying for us over the years. We know that missions is a team effort and we are very thankful to have you as part of our team. Please keep praying for our family and the work that the Lord is doing in Brazil. 

 With much love, 

 Dani Cate and Family 

"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phl 1:6)

The Cate Family and the Ministry in Brazil Update, April 2014. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

Upcoming in November...

 Between the  daily life of living in Brazil,  studying, teaching, keeping up with 8 kids, and homeschooling we have been VERY busy to say the least. The church body of Calvary Moçamba has also been busy and we have been blessed to have our doors open everyday. On top of our normal Sunday and Wednesday church services we have had Monday school of discipleship, Tuesday Jujitsu  and ladies bible study, Thursday Jujitsu, ladies art class, and a Foundations of the Faith class, and Friday school of discipleship. The Lord has been raising up leaders in the church to help carry this new work load and we are so excited to see both our personal family and our family in Christ grow and mature daily.  

Reggae for Life 

We are very excited about the upcoming event we will have the opportunity to host here in our town in Florianopolis, Brazil. On November 7, we will be putting on our first annual (Lord willing) “Reggae for Life” event. We will have musical guest Dominic Balli here from California as well as a couple of local christian bands where we expect to have anywhere from 500 to 2500 people attend this event. 

 We ask for your prayers as we make all of the final plans and preparations. We also ask you to be praying that God would bring every person that needs to be at the event and for good weather on that day. The focus of the event is evangelistic as we want to share the love of Jesus and we hope to see many make a decision for Christ. Please pray for the hearts of the people to be prepared to receive the good news, but also that our hearts would be prepared to share God’s heart for the people that are there.

 The last thing we would ask for the event is that you pray for finances in all of the last minute things. We have a few final needs that need to be taken care of, and we would also like to buy bibles to be able to give away to anyone that gets saved that night. If you are interested in helping buy bibles please email me for more information at nateandani@hotmail.com .

Travel Plans

 Our other big prayer request this month is for our family as we travel to the states November 15th. We are very excited for the opportunity to go back with our whole family after 3 and a half years of not visiting. God opened the door for us to be able to buy the tickets and get passports for all the kids and for that we are so grateful! There are however always many financial needs in traveling as we will still be paying our bills in Brazil, but also have new bills in the US for our 6 weeks there. We ask your prayers for financial provision, as well as health and traveling mercies as we travel with 8 kids for almost 30 hours to get to Florida. 

 We know that the Lord has given us this time for our family to be able to visit the US, but it is still difficult to leave the church here for that long. Please be praying for the church body in our absence, especially for Fabio as he oversees the church, and all those that will be teaching during that time. 

 Thank you all for your prayers and your support, we are very excited to see all the wonderful things God is going to do over these next few months, and it is amazing to be able to be apart of His plan here on the earth! We love you and appreciate your heart for the work here, and our family.

Blessings,

Nathan, Dani and kids

Contact info:

Email: nateandani@hotmail.com   Blog: thecate8@blogspot.com

Ministry and Family Update.

 Here is a long overdue update of just a few of the things that have been going on in our family and the ministry here in Brazil. We are overjoyed with all the the Lord is doing and we look forward to what He has in store for the future. As always we covet your prayers and thank you for your support.
God bless! Love, The Cate Crew

Steps of Faith, 3 Years Later.

'For we walk by faith, not by sight. ' ( 2 Corinthians 5:7 ) Three years ago today I woke up a mom of three children and by the time I went to bed I was a mom of six kids all five years old and under. Today as we celebrated our "Happy Homecoming Day" with our every growing family I could not help thinking about the "what ifs".

  What if we had not been in the U.S. when we got the call about the kids? If that call had been two days later we would have been in Brazil.

 What if we had not trusted what we heard from the Lord when He told us to adopt our kids?

 What if we had not trusted that He would provide the funds needed for the adoption?

 What if we had been too scared that adopting three little ones at once would be too much for us?

 What if we had worried more about what people were saying and less about what we knew the Lord was telling us to do?


 I do not know the answers to most of these questions but I am sure of a few things. If we had not trusted the Lord and taken the GIANT leap of faith that it took to adopt our kids we would have missed out on a huge opportunity not only to bless others and change their lives, but we would have missed out on so many blessing ourselves. I can not even begin to imagine our lives without Josiah, Lilliana, or Jeremiah - they themselves are HUGE blessings to us!


 In our crazy life I often feel like Abraham as we hold to the promises that the Lord has given us even when we have no physical way of seeing how those promises can possibly be fulfilled. I have had times that I have felt like Moses wandering around the desert trying to trust that he actually did hear from the Lord. I have also had days where I have felt like Peter moments after he stepped out of the boat when he started to sink and all he could do was cry out "Lord save me!". Yes, like all of these guys I know that taking a step of faith is HARD but I also know that it is worth it.

 If you are reading this and you know that the Lord is calling you to do something I want to encourage you to obey His voice and take that step of faith and do whatever it is that He is calling you to do. 

 Will it be easy?- No.
 Will you have doubts? -Yes.
 Will the Lord be faithful to you? Will He take care of you? Will He keep His promises? - 
YES, YES, YES! 

"Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments"  (Deuteronomy 7:9)

Video Update for Calvary Chapel Brandon Sep. 2012

 Hi friends! I apologize for being an absent blogger! It seems that we have been so busy living our lives that we have forgotten to take the time to write about it. That being said I know how important it is to keep you all updated and we covet your prayers as we continue in the ministry in Brazil. I am going to do my best to help catch you up on what the Lord has been doing in our lives, and I will start by posting a video update that was sent to our sending church Calvary Chapel Brandon in September 2012.

 Stay tuned for another update and we will catch you up on all of the great things that the Lord has done from September until now. God bless! :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE_GB1NB3vo&feature=g-upl

Cate Family Newsletter February 2012.

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope and pray that this newsletter finds you all well and in love with Jesus. It has been a few months since we have posted our last update so we would like to take a minute and catch you up on our news from Brazil.

Church - We’re baaaack!!! After over 7 months of being without a building the body of Calvary Chapel Mocamba is moving back to our old building. The owners finally decided that it would be better for them to rent the place out until they find a buyer (IF they ever find a buyer), and they are letting us return to the building that we put so much of our time, money, and hearts into over the last four years. The building and yard are pretty trashed, but after some T.L.C. , hard work , and lots of paint we should have it back to normal. We are moving back with a fresh excitement and new vision for what the Lord is going to use this special place for. We are going to set it up with more of a relaxed “home-style / coffee shop” vibe and we are praying that this will be well received in our community. We want to have a place that people feel welcomed and comfortable to come in and hear about the love of Jesus. We hope to reach the people in our area that would not normally go to a “church” building.

The Lord is already using the old building for His glory. The day that Nate got the keys and went to let off a few very needed bug bombs he had the opportunity to share Jesus with a man who desperately needed to hear about Him. The man was sitting outside the church with two other guys that we know to be drug dealers in the area. We have always had a good relationship with these guys, and Nate talked to them and told them that we would be moving back into the building soon, and we would really appreciate them letting everyone know that we were going to be back. The guys were happy to hear that the church was coming back and they said that they would let everyone know that had been using the front of the building as a hang out (for bad stuff) that it was off limits now. After two of the guys left Nate had the chance to hear the other man’s life story and pray with him. It was exciting to see how open this guy was to being prayed for, most people would look at him from the outside and think he was a big scary man with a bunch of tattoos , but in reality on the inside he is just a broken man in need of Jesus. Please keep praying for this man and all of the people in our community. We want to see a revival for Jesus in Rio Vermelho!

In January we had the awesome privilege of having Pastor John Hwang come and teach on a Sunday morning. We were joined by some of our brothers and sisters from C.C. Floripa. The body enjoyed the encouraging message as well as the fellowship and great food after the service.

Other church news includes plans to attend the C.C. Brazil Retreat at the C.C. Bible College in Campo Mauro next week. Our family as well as some individuals from the church will be going to the retreat, we always look forward to our time together with the other pastors and missionaries in Brazil and we are so very thankful that the Lord miraculously provided for us to be able to go. Be praying that the Lord will do great things in our hearts at the retreat and that we would have smooth traveling for the 14 hours it will take to get to the Bible College.

Family- Our family enjoyed a simple and sweet Christmas together. The kids were so blessed by their gifts of baby dolls for the girls and stuffed animals for the boys and they again just went on and on about how great Jesus was for letting them get presents on HIS birthday! J For our meals on Christmas day I decided rather than trying to make an “American” Christmas meal (and getting disappointed because I cannot get the ingredients needed) I would let each person in the family pick a favorite food and have it show up in the menu on Christmas Day. It was interesting trying to figure out how to make meals including cracker chicken, green peppers, sweet rice, cake, beans and rice, pancakes, pasta, apple pie, and sushi but we made it work and the kids had SO much fun looking for their personal favorite dish during the day. For the most part, life in Brazil is what our kids know so we can make up our own family traditions as we go and have fun with it.

January 9th we celebrated Hope turning 6 years old and we celebrated our two year “Homecoming Day” for Jeremiah, Lilliana and Josiah on Jan. 21^st.

February4^th was the twins 4^th Birthday and we are now enjoying having THREE 4 year olds in the house. Even though we currently have a 7 month old, a 2 year old, three 4 year olds, a 6 year old, and a 7 year old in our family, I find it FAR easier than having three 2 years olds !! The older kids are learning to be helpers and it has been such a blessing to see their servant’s hearts during this time of waiting for my surgery. We are very proud of them all.

We are excited to announce that after almost 5 years of living in Brazil, mountains of paperwork, and loads of money, we finally have our permanent visa cards! It is a HUGE praise report that has been years in the making!!

Thank you again for all of your prayers, love, and support!! We love and miss you all and look forward to spending eternity with you. God bless!

Love,

Nathan,Danielle, Josiah, Hope, Grace, Lilliana, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah Cate

Prayer Requests:

- - Time of refreshing during the retreat.

- - Personal growth in our individual relationships with the Lord.

The Lord to use the church building in mighty ways for His glory and that more people may come to know Jesus.

- - Financial provision for a van, church building repairs, and for a surgery for Dani.

- - Strength for our marriage.

- - A house for the Cate family – we found out yesterday that the owners of the house that we are renting will be moving back in so we need to find a new place to live.

"Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for HE is good! For His mercy endures forever." Psalm 118:1

November 2011 Newsletter

Calvary Chapel Mocamba and Cate Family Update.

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from Brazil! We wanted to take a few minutes to catch you all up on the latest happenings on our side of the world in both the ministry and in the Cate family.

Church -

4 months ago the church body had to move out of the building that we had been renting. Since then we have been meeting in different houses and in spite of the many difficulties that have come with that we have seen the Lord use this time for good. It has been so awesome to see the people committed to showing up no matter where we are meeting and we are excited to be seeing growth in the body spiritually, in maturity, in our relationships with each other and even in numbers. It is truly something that only Jesus could do and while we are still praying to find a building soon we are thankful that the Lord is using this time to bring glory to Himself.

We are continuing in the book of Romans on Sundays and in Exodus during our midweek service. In addition to the Men’s Group on Tuesday mornings we have added a Women’s Bible Study on Friday nights. All of the women have been so blessed during this time together and it is very needed during this time of not having a church building because most of the moms are not able to come to the services because no one in the church has a house with room for the 17 kids that are now in the body.

We are in the process of planning a group for married couples and we are excited to see what the Lord has in store for that.

Ministry -

Surf School is still going great. The kids always have such a blast and the guys that are teaching are so excited to be given the opportunity to show these kids the love of Jesus in such a fun way.

The last few weeks we have had to cancel / take fewer kids to the beach because our car has been broken for some time. We are always sad to have to cancel but because we were not financially able to fix the car we just had to. Anyway, this week one of the little boys that goes to Surf School came to tell Nathan that he asked his mother if she would ask his uncle who is a mechanic to fix our car so we could have Surf School on Saturday. The car has not been repaired yet but they did come and look at it and more importantly the whole situation gave us a chance to see how much this time spent loving on the kids means to them. It was the little boy’s idea to find a way to fix the car and he is only 9 years old. So sweet! Please be praying for the Surf School and the car situation. While we as a family have had to learn to live without a car (being that our car only had 5 seats and we are a family of 9) it would be a blessing to be able to someday have a van both for the family and the ministry.

Family -

Our family is also doing well. We have been having such a fun time getting used to being a family of 9! We had all forgotten how much fun babies are. Little Isaiah Douglas (or “Dougie”) who is 4 months old now is growing like a weed and probably the world’s most spoiled baby. He absolutely refuses to be sat down but it works because in such a big family there is always someone who wants to hold him.
Ezekiel (2) and Jeremiah (3) have been potty training lately. They seem to be taking to it well and with 3 boys in cloth diapers we could not be more excited at the thought of only having ONE baby using diapers!
Lilliana (3) and Grace (3) are doing great. The enjoy spending their days playing "Laura Ingles and Baby Carrie" in the sun and hauling around their beloved cat Meow - meow.
Hope (5) and Josiah (7 ) are growing up SO fast. They are now in the first grade and doing great. They are both reading and writing in cursive beautifully. They also continue to be our big helpers around the house and with the younger kids. They both truly are a blessing.
Nate has been very busy studying, teaching, taking care of the church, and the family. He still has to help around the house until I am able to have the surgery to repair the hernias. I laugh a lot because since he has taken over most of the house work just about every machine that we did have has broken. I don’t know many husbands who would attempt washing clothes by hand for 10 people (including cloth diapers!!) but he somehow does it all and he has been such a trooper!!
As for me I still have days that I am in pain but I manage to stay busy and keep going most days. I spend my mornings bouncing between homeschooling the older kids, chasing the younger boys, taking care of the baby and cooking. We have all been blessed to have Nate’s sister Koyah here helping for the last 3 months and we are really going to miss her when she leaves next week.

Prayer Requests for the church -

- A building that meets the needs of the body.

- Opportunity for evangelism, and vision for outreach.

- Continued growth and unity for the body

- Vision and direction for an upcoming missions trip

Prayer Requests for the family -

- Dani’s health, and financial provision for her hernia surgery.

- Wisdom in raising our kids in a Godly way.

- Daily refreshing from the Lord that we may have the grace to minister to others.

- Jeremiah’s appointment with the neurologist on Nov. 25th. (He has hydrocephalus and a VP shunt on the right side of his brain.)

Thank you all for your continued support whether financially or in prayer. Missions is a team effort, and we are very thankful for the “team” that helps us continue in this work.

- “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ,

assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” -(Mark 9:41)