Rio Marriage Retreat Wrap-up — February, 2025

By J. Boe Ellis, posted March 8, 2025

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Our instructor had the couples turn their chairs to face each other, asking them to hold hands and look into each other’s eyes. It was just about then that it dawned on me, after months of planning, and amid all the busyness of our short-term mission trip to Rio de Janeiro (February 18-25, 2025), this event was going to have a lasting impact on our church planters there.

That was our prayer request months in advance when we invited our instructor, Darin Saley, a veteran Biblical counselor from Lakeland, FL, to come with us. And, he said yes. That was the prayer request when we asked South Tampa Fellowship and a few other special partners in Tampa, FL to help us fund a conference like this. “It would be groundbreaking,” I told them, “because no U.S. church had ever done anything like that for our pastors down there.” And, they said yes.

And then to see our pastors and their wives together at the Américas Barra Hotel in an area of southwestern Rio called Barra da Tijuca, I thought, this is where it starts to happen; this is where we begin to make serious progress.

Why? Because no relationship in a pastor’s life, beyond His personal walk with the Lord, is more important than the relationship of husband and wife. In fact, that relationship can either help or hinder the pastor’s walk with the Lord to the degree that the marriage relationship alone will determine whether a pastor’s ministry thrives or not.

That is why Saley came. That is why our interpreter, Michelle Alves from Santa Cruz, RJ came.

That is why we came from Tampa, FL, so that these men of  God could learn more about their wives and more about themselves, and vice-versa, so that their marriages would be strengthened. We even had a number of singles who were learning right alongside the married couples, learning about the five languages of love, the five languages of apology, about the daily temperature reading, and other tools that Saley had brought with him.

It was a Friday-night / Saturday-day kind of conference that we in the U.S. are very familiar with. Yet, for our church planting partners from the Celebration Church Planting Network in Brazil, it was very uncommon to be able to participate in an event like that.

It boils down to dollars and cents, and it amplifies our opportunity in Brazil right now when you consider that in Brazilian currency that hotel and that conference room, and all those meals for 50 people would cost around Rs 15,000 BRL. But, because of the strength of the U.S. dollar in Brazil, we could do the whole thing for 50 people for around $3K USD.

The Holy Spirit can and does multiply our efforts, but the strength of the U.S. dollar can multiply our reach.

This was exemplified also in the way we can get together with our pastors over a week-long visit. For about $15 USD per person we were able to take the entire leadership team out on Saturday night to Rio Sul, our favorite, local churrascaria.

Our partnership with Celebration Network is a year-round partnership of prayer and providing resources, but when we are in Brazil, it’s all about the relationships.

So, we see every minute there with them as precious. We especially value the time we get to spend with them in worship, where on Sunday in Recreio we were with Pastor Luciano Freitas and Celebration Recreio. On Sunday night we worshiped with Pastor Rosalvo Wesley and Celebration Santa Cruz.

We visited the famous Pão de Açúcar cable-car attraction and prayed on top of a mountain with our partner and friend, Anderson Silva.

Earlier in the week, we spent a day with Pastor Rafael Rocha of Celebration Universitária on the campus of the Federal University in Rio. We learned about their English Clubs, where next-gen leaders are helping college students with their English and sharing Christ at the same time.

We spent the next day in Saquarema, RJ with Pastor Marcelo Feitoza, the pastor of Celebration Saquarema, which is the newest church plant in the Network. We got to tour his neighborhood, and visit with a single-mother of two, a mother whose house had fallen into disrepair. We got to see and hear how that small church plant there, led by Pastor Marcelo, was able to rally using funds that our organization had sent around Christmas time to make the necessary repairs.

We got to see how Pastor Marcelo uses Brazilian jiu-jitsu to teach Christ to kids. We got to share Christ with them, and urge them to live for the One who gave His life that they could truly live.

We also got to visit our partner, Voando Alto, and check in with Pastor Hilario and some of the great kids that we get to do VBS camps with every summer in July. It is always super-satisfying for me to see our shirts, the shirts that you provide for every year, being used as the uniforms for the ministry year-round. Obrigado Jesus. It means, simply, Thank you Jesus in Portuguese.

Like every trip I have ever been on, it was time to travel back to the airport and head for home before we even realized how fast seven days can go by.

Among the many highlights of this trip, I was blessed to see three very special people to me, two of my friends from the U.S. (Saley and GCP board member, Jeffrey Ramey) and my wife, Connie Ellis, come to Rio for the first time. I got to watch them experience the beauty and hospitality of not just the Brazilian people in general, but of the church planting partners and their families who are family to us. It was a rich time of ministry and fellowship that strengthens our partners’ churches, and refreshes our pastors to take on the next week, and the next season of ministry.

Thank you to all of our supporters and financial partners in the U.S. for helping us make a difference here in Rio. We are already looking forward to our summer VBS trip coming up this July 20-30, 2025. Learn more about our charity golf fundraiser here.